BTW, is it true that Telegraph Avenue south of the UC campus has become a larger homeless encampment?
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Eugene Coyle<[email protected]> wrote: > College Avenue in Oakland and Berkeley, CA has, over the years, become an > upscale shopping street. Many small expensive restaurants, small shops with > expensive clothes and shoes. > > Over the past 18 months, beginning gradually, store fronts have sprouted > "For Lease" signs. Now the sprouting is quite rapid. And the vacancies > stay vacant. > > Vehicle volume on the street is clearly down. The upscale restaurants have > gradually had open tables and now look quite empty many evenings -- a sharp > contrast to a year ago when people waited on the sidewalk. A very popular > breakfast and lunch place --- not expensive for its neighborhood -- seems > now half empty at lunch time, in sharp contrast to its always-packed > appearance of a yeat ago, and its crowded appearance of six months ago. > > From this local observation it appears the economy has really tightened its > grip on the middle class or upper middle class. Having ignored the downturn > for months they are now cutting spending, meaning, to me, that we are > beginning the next down leg of the depression. > > Elsewhere in these two cities things are tougher. > > Gene Coyle > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
