A number of years ago our son and his family who live in Brooklyn spent xmas with us. One day we were going somewhere so strapped our young granddaughter in her car seat for our drive which included driving through a number of blocks of our neighbourhood. It was early afternoon of a cold, late December day and no one was to be seen outside so our granddaughter asked "do peoples live here?" There are always people to be seen on the streets in their Brooklyn neighbourhood so seeing many houses but no people must have been surreal to her.
I've often thought of that when making a foray downtown and seeing few, if any people on the streets. A similar experience and thinking must be what is motivating developers to consider what can be done to getpeople out and about in the downtown core.