I kind of like the downtown the way it is

In city news...No more pawn shops,tattoo parlors downtown

When I was growing up (back in the halcyon days of the sixties and early seventies) this six-block stretch of Greenfield Avenue was home to J C Penny, Sears (with a three-bay automotive department in the rear parking lot), Walgreens, Woolworth, Coast to Coast Hardware, Hallmark Cards, Marc's Big Boy, M & I Bank, the West Allis Inn, the West Allis Office Supply, Pill & Puff, another drugstore, two high-end shoe stores, one high-end women's clothing boutique and a slew of smaller retail shops and diners.

The bank is still there.

Sears and Pennys took spots in the new mall five miles south. Woolworth closed. Walgreens relocated to the new shopping center several blocks east (that was once world headquarters for Allis-Chalmers). Marginal small businesses that depended on impulse buyers who were on the Avenue to go to the larger stores were forced to close.

Admittedly, the businesses that moved onto the Avenue during the slide into the toilet transitional phase are a little...eclectic. But I don't think there's a pawn shop (that's over on Lincoln and 76th); there may be two tatoo parlors, though, as well as one dirty book store.

In the last five years, several savvy business owners realized they could buy property on the Avenue cheaply, then renovate/tear down/rebuild. The bank remodeled extensively; a graphics company remodeled and refronted a substantial portion of one block; a new supper club took over the Marc's space. A century-old tavern was gutted, remodeled and transformed into a high-end steak place.

While I fully understand the economics of the situation, and the desire of the newer property owners to protect their investment, it irritates me that the council would go so far as to ban specific types of businesses from the area. The fact is that many of these businesses could not afford the higher rents/property values anyway; why did they have to take the additional step of saying "Stay the heck out - you're not good enough for us"? The transition the council desires would take place naturally - no need to rub salt in the wound.

I'm not saying I necessarily support the businesses that are being banned and/or squeezed out - it's simply the elitism of the whole thing that bothers me. It's these businesses that have kept the downtown area from becoming a deserted, boarded up slum over the last decade - until property values declined enough for other, more "acceptable" merchants to swoop in and turn a quick profit with minimal investment.

The circle of economic development - ain't it sweet.