I think it STARTS with the land-owners. Any discussion about dolling-up downtown, either simply with signage, or expensively with construction, is foremost a subsidy to downtown land-owners.

See, it’s the land owners who, in good times and bad, squeeze blood from the shop-owners. If empty shops means anything, surely it means an over-priced or otherwise onerous commercial leasing environment.

So if we could start the discussion over, then how about: who are the downtown land-owners, and why do we apparently always begin discourse as you have here, with the assumption that more taxpayer-funded subsidy is the answer to making a better commercial picture downtown?

Try this: with any argument, replace “downtown” with “upper Princess Street” or “Gardiners Road” or “Division Street”. If the argument turns to folly with this simple substitution, then likely the whole notion needs re-thinking.