A few months ago, our awesome Marketing Manger (gently) suggested we ramp up our content marketing (Ok, what she really said was, Mariela, your last blog was like two years ago; get it together!) She urged me to provide urbanists and data-geeks a VIP pass into the inner workings of my brain’s non-stop (near-neurotic) analysis of what makes places great - and not so great - and how (and why) to make them better. So as part of our weekly blog, we’ve decided to start a regular series highlighting our favorite places as well as our favorite-love-to-hate places using State of Place (which is essentially a quantified version of that endless, compulsive inner - and sometimes not so inner - analysis), identifying why they’re great (or why not) and giving you some insider tips along the way! Seeing that Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, we thought we’d start by profiling five awesome, walkable shopping districts, especially suitable for Small Business Saturday. I’ve chosen some of my personal favorites from the five U.S. cities I’ve had the pleasure of calling home at one point or another in order of tenure: Miami, LA, DC, NYC, and Boston. (And for those of you heeding the calls to curb retail spending altogether and instead donating to organizations championing important issues in light of the new political climate, we’ve compiled a list of sustainability-focused orgs for your convenience).
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