Garwood's Neighbors Have Walkable Downtowns
What makes you STOP walking when you're in a Downtown shopping, browsing, sightseeing, or exploring?
The answer is a strong street line of stores and other establishments. The doors need to be right on the sidewalk and need to be a manageable distance from each other.
That means buildings need to face the
street and ideally face each other from across the street. The absence of a strong 'street line' means an absence of a real Downtown.
Check out the maps above, Westfield and Cranford's walkable Downtowns are outlined in blue.
Meanwhile, Garwood's Downtown should ideally grow out of the minimal walkable area near South Avenue and Center Street. The new 'walkable' Downtown would need to be a top priority in the Transit Oriented Development destined for the Casale factory site.
Garwood could rival its neighbors
The site is large enough to have Garwood's 'walkable' Downtown rival those of Cranford and Westfield. Check it out below:
please note the Pointe developement arrogantly calls themselves the new downtown. This is an insult to all our real downtown merchants both northside and southside that have been here for years and the residents have always patronized. But it looks like you should rethink to draw your blue demarcation differently and encompass more north avenue area. I do commend your constant advocacy for our merchants on your blog.
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