Dress Up Your Neighborhood

San Francisco has a sense of style. Up through the early 1960’s, most women wouldn’t think of shopping in downtown San Francisco department stores in casual clothing. It also was around this time that Malvina Reynolds wrote “Little Boxes” to protest the “ticky tacky” exterior design of buildings in Daly City, south of The City by the Bay.
     Many downtown San Francisco storefronts no longer project the elegance like decades ago. Still, the city does pride itself on having distinctive neighborhoods in which retailers do dress up store exteriors.
     In any city, keeping up appearances outside can be more difficult than handling the interior décor. Store owners often don’t own the building itself so have limited control over the exterior. Concerns about homeless populations and street demonstrations can shift the store operator’s criteria for outside design from decorative elegance toward bland architectural security.
     Municipalities, short on funding, are placing more emphasis on industrial parks and Big Box power centers, since they pay such a high percentage of the property and sales tax revenues. Small to midsize independently-owned retail operations get fewer publically-funded amenities. And often, there’s lax enforcement of city regulations mandating quality standards for exteriors.
     Overcome these difficulties in order to use your store to dress up your neighborhood. While you’re decorating the interior of your store for Christmas, decide how you can portray the personality of your business and of your neighborhood on the outside.
     If you’re thinking how difficult that will be, take inspiration from a new set of San Francisco boxes. These days, nine shipping containers are positioned on top of a vacated parking lot along a block of Octavia Blvd. Called the Proxy project, the tiny shopping center includes, so far, an artisanal coffee vendor, an ice cream maker, a museum shop, and—taking up five of the nine boxes—a beer garden.
     Proxy drew praise in a feature article by John King, Urban Design Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. An important part of the appeal is that each shop-in-a-box looks much better than bare asphalt. Along with this, they together create a sense of community.
     The boxes are considered a limited-time solution until development funds and retailers’ interest grows further. Also, former shipping containers as store space do exemplify the values of recycling. Those values resonate with San Francisco consumers. The boxes almost certainly would’ve gotten a pass even from Malvina Reynolds.

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Form Retailer Groups for Practices Recognition