Time & Perspective Quote by Stone Gossard

Stone Gossard isn’t pitching a utopia; he’s proposing a low-risk experiment with high symbolic upside. The phrasing matters: “one city street” frames pedestrianization not as an ideological crusade but as a pilot, a single riff you can play in a familiar key. For a musician, that’s telling. He’s talking about changing the mix, not rewriting the whole song.

The subtext is an argument against the reflexive fear that fewer cars equals fewer customers. By centering “businesses in that area,” Gossard speaks in the language city councils and shop owners actually use: foot traffic, dwell time, spillover. It’s a pragmatic gambit dressed in optimism. “See what kind of effect” is a challenge to car-first common sense: if we’re so sure pedestrian streets kill commerce, why not test it?

Contextually, the quote lands in a broader cultural pivot. Downtowns are competing with Amazon, big-box retail, and remote work; the old promise of easy parking doesn’t feel like salvation anymore. Pedestrian corridors offer something online can’t: a place where hanging out is the product. When Gossard says “It’s the future,” he’s not forecasting flying cars; he’s pointing to a quieter shift in values - streets as public rooms, not just conduits.

It’s also a musician’s civic imagination: the idea that a city, like a live show, improves when you make space for the crowd rather than the machinery.