How to change a neighborhood on the cheap.

Look how easily a building can be transformed with a coat of paint. It looks especially good in contrast to the orange building behind it. Compare it to the way the building looked just a couple years ago in the Google Street View below. City planners and economic development folks go to such great lengths to improve their downtown commercial districts with expensive streetscape improvements and  aggressive land use plans - and sometimes radical changes like that are necessary and economically feasible - but often we ignore the benefits of  simple solutions such as a coat of paint and a few street trees.

Related: If we don't maintain it, it'll fall apart.