Gone are places to buy groceries, shoes, cars, clothes, luggage, books, hardware, paint, lumber, furniture, pets, fabrics, sewing machines, appliances, etc. Retail shoppers are mainly female, but the new downtown is mainly male. Commuters with no option other than driving are feeding meters in parking spaces that retail customers used. Street closures for festivals, construction, and movies further restrict both access and parking. Tourists are visiting less, since their preferred pastime is shopping.
Downtown ought have the tax increment financing structure proposed when downtown was down and out.
The excess tax money ought to go to subsidizing retail. And appointing someone like Knight to head our Downtown Commission is like appointing a chemical industry executive to lead the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission. Dancers merely provide entertainment, and pretty tame entertainment at that. I imagine that if the option of seeing naked girls in the context of topless bars were removed, even more men might seek the services of prostitutes than do now. So kudos to the city officials who realize that topless bars are pretty harmless and that more regulation is just not necessary.