Downtown areas are of utmost importance for the life of a city. Their vitality creates vibrant urban core fabric where people, businesses, and offices can interact, thrive, and bloom. The history of downtown areas in North America is associated with various perceptions of ideal images, and consequently spatial interventions, for creating successful urban cores against detrimental socio-economic factors influencing cities. In other words, academic research, federal policies, and local planning discussions on downtown areas changed from decade to decade during the periods after World War II and different themes have been adopted into planning practices based on interpretations on growth, change, and policy requirements for these areas (Abbot, …show more content…
The result of this inter-level cooperation was emergence of public-private partnerships with certain range of goals. One of these corporations which was initiated to develop mixed-use developments thorough retail and housing projects was “The North Portage Development Corporation”. The target area for this corporation, as its name suggests, was the essentially deteriorated areas on the North side of the Portage Avenue that had to be replaced by several mixed-use projects to (I) increase job opportunities (II) attract private investors (III) Increase overall investment through a mix of commercial, residential, cultural, and recreational uses (IV) identifying specific areas to attract more people to the North Portage Area to increase the social and economic viability of the city core (Stewart, 1993, pp.