The Uglist Street in Town

              ARKANSAS

                                                  BY

                            RICHARD MASON

                              The Ugliest Street in Town

Well, just go to your local McDonalds, and you'll usually be there. No, it's not McDonalds that makes the street ugly, it's what's there along the street and what is not there. Yeah, I know that doesn't make much sense, but stay with me, and I'll tell you why it's ugly and why it makes big difference to a town.

Since I mentioned McDonalds; let's start there. We were in a distant state, and decided to stop at McDonalds for our morning cup of coffee. We were downtown, but the main gateway street into town was just a few blocks away, and in a few minutes we were there and sure enough there was good old McDonalds, the familiar sign, and the Golden Arches.  However, instead of a giant sign on a massive pole, there was---believe it or not---a three-foot-tall sign! Which brings us to point one in making your ugliest street less of an eyesore: Your town should have a tough sign ordinance. Just imagine how your ugly street would look if every business had a maximum three foot sign and all the billboards were gone.

 But we're not finished. Next, another ugly street eyesore: The mass of overhead utility lines and poles. Put them underground and save hundreds of thousands of dollars when a drunk knocks down a utility pole and every business along the street shuts down. Of course, minus the overhead utility poles and lines, and you have moved up a notch in making the ugliest street in town look better.

Okay, the street looks better, but we're not through. Every one of these streets usually has another item in common--- huge, blank parking lots, and most of them don't have a speck of green. A progressive city will have an ordinance that requires at least 25% of these parking lots to be green space. Just drive by one of your street’s blank parking lot and visualize how it would look is a quarter of the lot were green space, and of course it can be done without losing a parking place. Yes, planting grass, shrubs, and trees cost money, but according to several Government surveys, retail sales in the adjacent stores will increase by as much as 25% and the customers will perceive the goods offered in the stores are worth more. Of courses, we’ve all seen the big box stores with the blank parking lots try to increase sales by dressing up the front of their building or malls, but without the other items it really is like ‘putting lipstick on a pig.’ Add the 25% greenspace in parking lots to your ugly street, and we're almost there.

But we’re not through with your ugly street yet, and the last item is very likely the most critical one if we are going to change the appearance of a street. It’s time for the city to step in and spend a few dollars. Every city street has right-of-way on either side of the curb that gives the city plenty of room to spend a small amount of money for a big reward, and that's to plant a street tree every 25 feet. Now, if you look down your ugly street and visualize all of the improvement, it’s easy to see how that street can be transformed into an inviting gateway street into your town.

Okay, but why would a city require all of the above? After all, isn’t just beautifying an ugly street really just fluff and wasting money? Absolutely not! These gateway streets are first impression streets, because they are usually the main entryway into a town. A visitor will either have a good first impression or they won’t, strictly based on the appearance of this major street. That’s why states and cities that are growing with new businesses and new residents arriving almost daily have beautiful avenues instead of dismal, ugly streets. The money spent to transform an ugly street will repay a community a hundred times over. So the next time you drive down your town’s ugliest street just think about what someone who just drove into town for the first time would think. If we want more quality jobs, and see our towns and cities grow, the first critical step is to convert our ugliest street in town into a pleasing visual scene instead of letting it stay an eyesore. Trying to recruit new businesses to locate in our empty industrial parks is a waste of time, if our gateway streets continue to look like the entrance to Dogpatch!