What I hear you saying is...

Let's see... I think it would help to have:

1) Great weather.
2) Culturally diverse population
3) Plenty of undeveloped land (or in-need-of-redevelopment)
4) A decent transit system.
5) Attractions and nice hotels for tourists
6) A strong local economy, with lots of $ available from wealthy corporations and citizens.
7) Great shopping with easy access.

My god... that sounds almost like... San Jose.

Downtown San Jose pretty much has everything going for it except the one thing that really matters: A life Great shopping. The result? I have actually seen a tumbleweed blow across Cesar Chavez park on a Sunday afternoon. The place is a ghost town. You can't even find an open Starbucks.

But just a few miles north, the Barcelona-meets-Vegas promenade of Santana Row is teeming with people. Couples are strolling their kids and dogs, while the jet-set types are drinking margaritas al fresco, cooly eyeing the valets at the Valencia driving off with the next millionaire's Ferrari. Some young asian kids play with the giant chess set, while a couple of middle-eastern teens unpack a hookah and kick back in the public chaize lounges. Crazy.

And just across the street? Valley Fair is a monster of retail, with a relatively new wing that sports some pretty swank up-scale shops. An Apple store, Movado, Tiffany, a Sony store, etc. The same kind of stuff you see up in Palo Alto, but even more of it.

What happened?

The San Jose Redevelopment Agency (RA) happened.

If you're interested, you can read about their snoozer accomplishments. Or you can simply ask how they allowed opportunities like Santana Row and Valley Fair to slip through their hands.

We lived in downtown San Jose from 1998 to 2002. We desparately wanted it to develop and become something cool, instead of having to drive 50 miles to SF every weekend. And the odds were good. All of the chemistry was right. All they had to do was bring in some anchor tenants like Macy's or Nordstroms, and set the timer for 18 months. But the RA was afraid that these huge retailers would put a damper on the "uniqueness" of the fledgling downtown character (wtf?) and so the retailers were not given any incentives to set up shop.

Instead, they RA concentrated on trying to bring in smaller, mom-pop boutiques that would attract the wealthy and give SJ a dose of charm. Alas, all of these knitting shops, stamp collectors, and florists failed within months of opening. There wasn't any critical mass, and these types of places need lots of foot-traffic to survive.

The kind of traffic that big retailers bring. Like the ones in Santana Row and Valley Fair. Yeah, like those.

After a few years, we'd had enough of hoping for SJ and the RA to get it's act together. I'll never forget that the same week we put our condo on the market, the RA announced a new plan to hire street performers (mariachis, mimes, jugglers) to wander around 1st and 2nd streets on the weekends to attract people. Yeah. Because nothing brings in the crowds like a mime.

Fast-forward a few years to this morning:

A free copy of the Mercury News appears in my Sunnyvale driveway, and noting that I haven't picked up a real newspaper in over a year, I flip open the local section to see what we've been missing...

Story #1: Valley Fair expanding to add 650,000 sq feet of additional retail (57 shops).

Story #2: Downtown SJ merchants outraged at plans to begin charging for parking at night.

Heh.