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Tis the Season to Explore Your City
A nice video on exploring downtown Grand Rapids this winter
By SEAN MANN
People have been writing me of late and asking, "What are specific things that I can do to make my city better?" "Where are your calls to action?"
Well, at the moment we are working with legislators on an exciting package of bills to improve transit and encourage walkable communities, but lobbying legislators on that will have to wait until January.
Considering the time of year, here's a call to action for you: Make the most of that last weekend before Christmas and experience your city and the real purpose of the holiday season!
What is the real purpose of the holiday season? In a most secular sense, for me the truest and purest essence of the holiday season is enjoying the company of others, whether that is with family and friends or passing interactions with merry strangers.
But somehow we have gotten to this point where we've allowed the one season that most of us look forward to the most to be co-opted by consumerism and isolation from (or outright hostility toward) others. We spend our early winter days avoiding being trampled to death while scrambling for the latest "i-whatever" or flirt with the possibility of having our eyes crust over from staring at our computer screens scouring the internet because some online deal is promising us free super shipping savings.
Folks in Grand Rapids take care of their holiday shopping at the annual UICA Holiday Artists' Market
Like vultures over the Serengeti, we spend the last two months of the year hovering around mall parking lots looking for that elusive spot that may or may not be opening up. And what's our eventual reward? Stale malls with their piped in Johnny Mathis covers of "Little Drummer Boy" and a Muzak version of Wham's "Last Christmas" (I'm sure such things must exist, if not in this terrestrial existence, somewhere in one of Dante's layers of hell).
What's the antidote to the jadedness and the inevitable loss of faith in humanity that creeps up on us by that last week before Christmas? Break free from the malls and packed parking lots and go explore your city, shop at a local store and enjoy the general merriment of the season that isn't associated with something prepackaged by Madison Avenue.
Our main streets are full of retail shops that would love to have your last-minute business. It's the small local shop where you are more likely to be greeted by smiles and sincere merriment from a local business owner instead of the contempt of an over-stressed teenager looking for an extra buck during the holiday season. I can speak from experience having once been that young person full of contempt working at a Baby Gap during the holiday season, picking up and folding discarded onesies for eight hours at a time.
Not only is shopping at locally owned businesses key to building strong communities, it creates a sense of place and maintains the vitality of our city centers, and strengthens the personal interactions essential to healthy communities and neighborhoods. Studies have shown that you are far more likely to carry on a conversation with a stranger at a locally owned store than at a box store.
And as we head down the final stretch of the holidays, wouldn't you rather share a smile with a stranger than be elbowing them under a fluorescent glow in the aisle of some box store, in some vain effort to grab an overpriced toy that'll break or be discarded by Boxing Day?
Friends take a break from the cold and malls to enjoy good company and sing-a-longs at one Detroit's finest institutions, The Dakota Inn
Of course our main streets and downtowns offer more than just a shopping experience; they serve as our traditional, and still best, public meeting place. The onset of the cold weather is usually an excuse to bundle up and prepare for hibernation, but there is something magical and certainly something that makes us more appreciative of our surroundings when we see large groups of people out and about in cold weather.
As Michiganders we are inundated with blistering cold weather four to five months out of the year. Why fight it? Embrace it because it is part of who we are. So go visit that outdoor ice rink, check out the ice sculptures, find the carolers and join in.
Shopping at the big stores and online are inevitable parts of our modern hectic lives, but still nothing can challenge your main street for shopping, strolling, or as a place to people watch, and that certainly holds true during the holiday season. So with the days toward Christmas winding down, don't forget your downtown or Main Street because they are not only the heart and soul of all of our communities, but they are the greatest window to the world as to how we want to be perceived.
The Christmas spirit at Grand Rapids' Cherry Deli
And here's just a FEW suggestions for things to do in your city this weekend:
Detroit: The Bureau of Urban Living and its new neighbor, City Bird are having a holiday trunk show featuring works of local artists, Friday Dec. 18th from 6-9pm. They are located at 460 W. Canfield, across teh street from the Traffic Jam and Snug
Grand Rapids: Saturday is the last day to hit up the Fulton Street Farmer's Market before it shuts down for the winter so be sure to grab some fresh produce. Or weather permitting get your skate on at the Rosa Parks Circle Ice Rink
Lansing: Check out "Still Small Voices" either Friday or Saturday, which will likely be the last production that the BoarsHead Theatre, which will shut down operations after 43 years due to increasing financial difficulties.
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