The crystal balls at San Jose City Hall and elsewhere are just as cloudy as ever these days, but among the many buzzwords that came up at a Future of Downtown San Jose forum hosted by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, “play” was probably repeated the most.
“Live, work and play” is what we want people to do, Mayor Matt Mahan said, but downtown’s post-COVID recovery has reversed that.
“I think what we’re seeing in the data is that it’s likely ‘play, live work,’ is largely how we’re going to drive a rebound downtown,” Mahan said, describing that “play” factor as the “flywheel” that keeps downtown’s engine going.
Foot traffic data shows that people are going to downtown restaurants, bars, sporting events, festivals and other cultural activities. The hope is that after spending all that time playing downtown — especially in this overheated year of events featuring the Super Bowl, March Madness and FIFA World Cup — those people will want to live there and jobs will come back…