This is interesting. Aside from the parking situations, I’m a big fan of living in cities. This article from this morning’s Boston Globe details a push by the mayor of Boston to remove those steel garage-type doors from the front of retail stores. You know, the ones that keep hoodlums from smashing windows or breaking in? Seems our mayor believes that those steel doors, in addition to being unseemly, also actually invite desecration and perhaps violence. I’m not sure I buy it, really. I never associated those doors with “a bad neighborhood” or anything like that. Sure, there’s the occasional graffiti, but if I have to choose between smashed windows and every-other-night break-ins or some dudes with cans of spray paint, I say light up the town with colors, baby. Do you associate those steel doors with bad neighborhoods? I don’t see it.
