As quoted by Christopher Alexander, one street can be alive and one can be dead. But what is it that makes a street thrive? Just like in the streets of New York, San Luis Obispo or Anaheim, the thing that makes streets work is that they are transactional. They are where exchange happens. And in my mind this exchange comes in many forms: shopping, food and people talking. They are all transactions and trade— things that are the core economic elements of why cities ever formed. Hence, in this chapter, we focus on the things that make the street an economic space.

We can likely all cite an example of what we think of as a “dead” street versus one that is economically vibrant. Whether from an experience walking down a road that is vacant and lonely, to the visions in post-apocalyptic films such as I Am Legend, Mad Max, The Day After Tomorrow, Wall-E (you get the picture), we intrinsically know what makes a street alive. (And I’ll note that there are a number of films with visions of great streets that are not apocalyptic, favorites being Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.)

For me, the vibrant streets in Louisville and Chicago provide great examples of how planners and policy makers can harness the power of the street.