Where's one has to pay to park, it's likely a 'rat hell hole.
You’re definitely onto something, Paladin2. Free parking rocks.
In beautiful downtown Spokane, there are many empty buildings where businesses used to be. Predictably the city mothers decided what they needed to do was raise the parking rates. So fewer people shop there now.
Naturally, businesses are moving to city outskirts, mowing down lovely trees and animal habitats to put up ugly shopping centers, bringing more congestion to residential streets. Target just did that in my ‘hood. — may allah frown upon them :( — Why in the world couldn’t they have purchased a couple of downtown buildings, remodeled them into a nice big shiny store with a nice big shiny free parking structure next to it. We’re not talking a long commute...ten minutes max from my place on the outskirts to the middle of downtown.
Actually Spokane is not a rat hole, a bastion of conservatives in this liberal state.