phantom tollbooths in Davis Sq. ...

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

apropos of nothing and not a serious proposal but I was thinking about sales taxes last night, the discussion of tolls on 93 south and something to do with all the border violence going on in the world these days. Suddenly I had this image of tollbooths/checkpoints on the roads entering Davis Sq. Weird but interesting to speculate on.

The growth in popularity of the sq. has brought higher rents and housing prices, higher prices in stores and bars and general gentrification. The city of Somerville and the property owners benefit but the residents don't. Would be interesting to have a toll that went to offset the costs of gentrification to people who actually live here.

Comments

Re: Marketing sometimes takes more than a sign

[turil.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm really sorry, I'm appearantly not making myself at all clear here. All I'm trying to say that regardless of what's inside a store, the signs on the outside play a big part of what potential customers think a store offers. As it turns out, McKinnons does indeed have products that I need, but I didn't know that because the signs they chose to put up in their windows. So, in this case, the "drive by marketing" (which was the subject of the original discussion) was insufficient to get a potential customer into the store.

And again, to be clear, I'm not at all saying that McKinnons should do anything different if they are happy with their level of business. Ok? I honestly don't give one diddly about McKinnons one way or another, I'm merely using the store's choice in signage as an example of how signs can affect business. I'm sorry if my choice of stores to use as an example confused you :-)