Walnut Plaza Downtown Muncie
A few things teamed up in the late 1960s into the 1970s to destroy downtown Muncie, which until that point had always been the cultural and economic heart of the city: the widescale adoption of the automobile, the opening of the Muncie Mall, and the poor planning decisions that led to the strip development on McGalliard Road. With these places all spread out from each other - not a problem in cars - there was plenty of parking that people couldn't find downtown. So, downtown tried to emulate the mall - turning Walnut Street into a passenger mall and bulldozing countless buildings to create parking lots. It didn't work.
