But housing is the linchpin to Hartford growth, planners say, because downtown will need a population base capable of supporting businesses before retailers will return to the center city. If the units sell, it means a high-income customer pool to entice merchants to locate in downtown. It will also have a political impact. I think that Hartford needs higher income housing. You can't have a viable downtown and not have viable neighborhoods.
Downtown is just one of Hartford's neighborhoods.
That's all it is. Whether downtown housing will actually sell is the crucial question, especially in a city that flooded with vacant office space in the late eighties. Hartford offers the same perceived disincentives to newcomers today that it did five years ago, from the threat of crime and crumbling schools to more banal concerns such as the scarcity of supermarkets. Faina Gruman, manager of St. Christopher's Apartments on Main Street, says her elderly residents have to drive to a grocery store, an amenity people in most cities find right in their neighborhoods. The fact that over 38 percent of Hartford households do not have cars complicates the problem.