Nice angle and interesting story behind the sign. Perhaps the sign is too much of a focal point, the title is a bit confusing as well, in particular the 'owning up' bit. Good luck
For me, your image gives me the idea an article might be more about parking issues, rather than downtown vacancies or demise. I do like the low angle of your photo though.
As more and more malls are being built further outside the city, we lose our identity as people who have compassion for the small family business base and look more to the money we can save. So in a lot of cases we have places like WalMart and others to thank for the demise of our down town core business.
Now they are not solely to blame, we as the consumer need to shoulder some of it as well. If we ween't so hell bent and tied to the all mighty dollar and used our money to support the little guy we would see a shift in the trend but if continue as we are more and more small business owners will shut their doors.
As you can see this issue doesn't bother me one bit :-}
On a lighter note you have managed to stir emotion in me as a good shot and title on a contensious issue should, good on you for that. I like the angle that you used here and the B&W gives off lonley tone to the shot as it should to move the reader to continue on to the story. Great job.
the oversharpening really impacts this image - lots of jagged edges all over - but a pretty good image otherwise - good contrast, good tones, good composition