Good stuff, Sullivan. I'm in Boulder and we had a similar reopening of a much-loved street closure on our main drag. Supposedly, there was a ~40% decrease in tax revenue from the businesses on the closed street, though I don't fully believe that based on the level of activity I witnessed. Regardless, the reopening misses the big picture about the trajectory cities--particularly influential, affluent ones like Boulder and SB--need to go, i.e. car-free, pedestrian/bike/kid/senior friendly, low-carbon, etc. I wrote about it in our local paper (link below).

As for Fresno, you're absolutely right that the nature of retail has forever changed, and these landlords maintaining high rents hoping a big retailer, bank, pharmacy, etc. is going to least them out...it's absurd. More likely, the owners are gaming the system using the empty spaces as write-offs for other cash-positive properties in their portfolios. There's so many cultural and small/mid-scale commercial opportunities for these spaces, but as long as the mindset is stuck in shopping-as-panacea for dead downtowns, those opportunities will keep being missed. https://archive.ph/N62AU