Happy Mother's Day

Deja vu all over again... San Jose has decided they want to attract people downtown and they have a plan to accomplish it. Build it and they'll come. You know, there's a time when they really oughta' give up. This is like the 4,167th planned rebirth of San Jose in the last thirty years or so. Nobody goes there, except for a really lame cinco de mayo parade and an occasional ice hockey game, and they've spent billions so far. The plaza (now there's a money hole) usually looks as deserted as a drive along highway 50 through Nevada. The new plan is to lure people in with a Waldenbooks franchise and some restaurant called the Cheescake Factory. I can buy books closer to home thank you. Where does that leave us? Let's all hop in the car and go to San Jose for some Cheesecake! Right...

But I'll try and offer something constructive and not just continually bash the poor city with an identity crisis. Why do I go to downtown San Jose? The same reason I used to go to downtown Oakland in my teen years. Lots of pawn shops. Cheap guitars, stereos, cameras and stuff. Now think - if you were taking a date out for an enjoyable evening, would you take her to a place with a lot of pawn shops - after dark? Not if you want to get kissed afterward. So they need to get rid of the pawn shops. Then, how do you attract affluent technology workers? Palo Alto hit a home run by bringing in Restoration Hardware, an upscale hardware store; because (surprise) people were actually fixing up their million-dollar fixer-uppers. Lots (I mean lots) of people trek through antique row on San Carlos Street every week. Funny how it kind of draws a straight line from the largest mall in the area to city center but stops short of actually reaching either. They should finish the line. Two or three antique stores and you've got a mental commercial highway which is travelled today by the affluent, except that today they turn around when they get to either end. And this should be obvious, but I guess it isn't... The city is trying to be the "capital" of Silicon Valley. What retail establishment comes to mind when you think Silicon Valley? C'mon, you know the answer... Give up? OK, Fry's.

Sometimes I totally scare myself. After writing the last paragraph, I thought hey, why not go antique shopping since I thought of it. And I stopped by the Valley Fair mall on the way because well, it was on the way. Was I shocked. Valley Fair has doubled in size in about two months since I last visited. Lots of new shops. Cool shops. Including Restoration Hardware. Couple of nice galleries, spa shops, NordicTrack. And the place was totally jam packed with people. It's easy to understand why - they've got all the right stuff in one place. All the new parking structures filled. (It also answers my question from last month about what disaster happened to the Sunnyvale mall). This is a people magnet, and it's about a mile and a half from the city core. In between is San Carlos and antique row. If the redevelopment department spent all their effort sprucing up San Carlos Street it would bring hoards of people right into the center of the city. They don't need to do anything with city center. No new hotels, museums, arenas. Just entice the consumers from Valley Fair to drive down San Carlos Street and what better way than capitalizing on antique row? It's already there.