State Street Is Open, Not Closed

Language is powerful. It shapes the parameters of our thoughts, which guide our actions in the world. So I have found it strange, in the debates swirling around the future of State Street, that it is so often discussed in the negative sense, as “closed.”

Why are we framing the debate in reference to cars instead of in reference to people?

If State Street has closed to anything in the past few years, it has closed to congestion, carbon pollution, and cacophony. But it has “opened” to the things that matter, those that nurture the health of our community: space for music and dance, for strolls, for intimate conversations unimpeded by engines and horns, and for all the subtle joys and chance encounters that spring from public areas.

State Street is open, not closed. Let’s shift our language, and our ambitions. Let’s talk about opening up the rest of Santa Barbara.