Best of 2009 (Part 5 of 5)

Happy New Year, and happy Friday! While it happens to be the first glorious day of 2010, it is also the last weekend of my vacation, and time for the final post in Kingstonist’s Best of 2009 review. Thus far we’ve celebrated stories focusing on everything from Google Street View to H1N1, pedestrian friendly streets and roundabouts. While these topics represent the most engaging and sought after content Kingstonist had to offer last year, I can’t help but think that 2009 will be remembered for entirely different reasons. Whether you call it an economic downturn, financial meltdown or a recession, 2009 was an extremely difficult year for many people in Kingston and around the globe.

While the recession is not entirely to blame, one could easily argue that it has contributed to the present, hollow state of downtown Kingston.  High taxes, astronomical lease rates, big box alternatives and online competition also helped to create a perfect storm, which ultimately sunk two of the downtown’s long standing shopping institutions.  The closure of S&R and Downtown Kingston Sports has attracted a lot of attention, and it prompted us take stock of Kingston’s downtown businesses, or lack thereof.  Our readers jumped in the fray and related the vacancies to factors including apathetic landlords, obstructive road work, as well as the disappointing performance of the K-Rock Centre.  Due to the record number of high quality comments this post generated, as well as its continued relevance, it takes the final spot amongst Kingstonist’s Best of 2009.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. And thanks for making 2009 a great year for Kingstonist. I can’t wait to see what 2010 has in store for the Limestone City!