What has been striking to this casual, and often thirsty, observer is how people at these outdoor tables seem to be so intently talking to one another, from mid-morning to well after midnight, face to face, pairs of argumentative old men, dewy-eyed young couples or large groups, seldom looking at their iPhones - though they all have them.Īlso, the sight of someone sitting alone at a cafe table working on a laptop for hours on end is rare. In the United States, where we try a lot harder to control consumption, it’s almost 14%. The rate of alcoholism/problem drinking in France, Portugal and much of Western Europe, according to the World Population Review, is less than 9%. To concerns that we don’t want our Main Street an open saloon, I’d answer that when drinking is normal, and associated with food and fellowship rather than furtive rule-bending, it is much less of a hazard. It’s impossible to imagine the pedestrian plazas of Rouen or Bordeaux without wine and beer from 10 a.m. One impediment to such success might be Utah’s overly restrictive liquor laws. Salt Lake City, Park City and Ogden, among others, should have more of them. Because they won’t.īut after a few months knocking around several cities in France and, now, one in Portugal, I will offer my testimony that city streets that focus on people who walk, eat, drink and shop are a great thing. Mendenhall has not gone so far as to claim that her plans will rival the City of Light. Now another mayor, Erin Mendenhall, has plans to turn another stretch of Main Street into a pedestrian-centered, retail- and restaurant-friendly plaza that is more in the nature of how cities work in Europe and, increasingly, the United States.
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