Downtown Kzoo

The Downtown Kalamazoo business area is a very conserved area, which is compared to my vision of the downtown area in Brooklyn. The first thing that confused me was the name itself, since it was called the Kalamazoo Mall, yet it is just an area of outdoor stores. During the first assignment where we had to find a store, I spent at least 15 minutes walking around trying to locate this huge building, but found nothing. One thing that I found interesting was the placement of certain stores, like the hair salon next to the optical shop. There was some good placement of stores where the sports clothing store and the rock climbing store right near each other. There was a cafe right across the street from the Arts theater, which is a great design tactic. Also, Kalamazoo followed a similar design to Brooklyn, where they situated a large Public Library next to an open park, where people can relax and read outside.

The main things wrong with downtown is the advertisement. There is not enough emphasis put on to the downtown area for it to grow into a popular area. The city has a great hotel in the Radissan, but there is not much emphasis on it. Also, the fact the strip of stores is actually called the Kalamazoo Mall throws off tourists. It should be renamed as the Burdick Strip or something along those lines. Another suggestion would to place the map that is available on Burdick Street on the other streets surrounding it so that there could be a better directory.

"This is not the kind of question that planners and architects often ask themselves. They tend to see streets and sidewalks strictly as a civic realm, a social environment where people meet and interact, and they tend to favor the sorts of attractive sidewalks and streetscapes that seem to promote sociability. If they are not greatly concerned about the impact of their work on the welfare of haberdashers and stationers, that is not surprising. They belong to professions that are often at war with commercial interests." - Lagerfeld
This passage reminded me of Burdick St, due to its red brick pavement. It gives the city that historical look, where it is not modernized. Kalamazoo's downtown is a sociable area, due to Bronson Park and the Rave theater in the area. Also, the passage reminded me of what we talked about in class about how designers do not think of the user, they think of the projects in its art form.