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From KQEady in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Today, today, we are going to get to the bottom of a question that has haunted me for years now.

Why? Why is there so much ground floor retail space

in our Bay Area cities? And why? Why is so much of it vacant? It goes without saying, I think,

that all that vacant space is terrible for urban life. But as I understand it, that retail space was

required precisely to add to the vibrancy of our street life. But as I understand it, that retail space was required precisely to add to the

vibrancy of our street life. What went wrong? And can we somehow fix it? So coming up next,

right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. All across the cities of our Bay Area, there's a kind of

development that's struggling. For decades, new buildings have put in ground floor retail.

Mixed use development like this was supposed to add to the vibrancy of city life.

And certainly there are places all over the world where cute little shops and restaurants sit underneath apartment buildings.

...