"You can't fake a downtown"

This article (read the full article here) was published yesterday in Inside Tucson Business. It compares Tucson with Tempe and cites Main Gate Square as a successful urban redevelopment project. It also lists the elements to make a successful downtown Tucson:

"So what lessons can be learned from downtown Tempe and the Marshall Foundation that might make downtown Tucson work as an "urban activity center"?

Here’s their advice:

• A clear long-term vision with one goal that isn’t upset by changes in elected or other city officials.
• Leadership
• Courage
• Transparency and consistency with stakeholders with no hidden agendas
• Timely decision making
• Development, decisions and implementation being performed by those with true development experience
• Commitment from the community, full support from the neighborhood; find and establish links with your stakeholders
• A public-private partnership
• A commitment to history and authenticity, particularly downtown. You can’t fake a downtown
• Build to the highest level of design

• Complete mixed-use development. Downtown can’t be a one-trick pony. It needs commercial, residential, business, recreational, entertainment and historical development. And it needs both public and private investment in an environment that is stable and encourages investment.

• Lots of reasons for people to come and be downtown. In Tempe, in addition to many residential developments and businesses, dining and arts destinations, city officials said the city also "throws a lot of parties." Buses even bring in senior citizens, who once loved their downtown, then shunned it, and now have come back to enjoy it.

• Full support from city staff, the mayor and council (In the case of the Main Gate Square project, the mayor and council voted unanimously in support of the project eight times during the development process).

• A streamlined approval process. In Tempe, a "super commission" — a one-stop shop — was set up to make regulatory hurdles less burdensome."

Good stuff here. I'm interested in Leadership and Courage. Who are the courageous leaders out there??