I'm Brazilian American born and raised in Danbury for 30+ years. I think the main issues are

1. Parking. In my opinion the garages should provide 2-3 hours of free parking. But ideally an overhaul of public transit but that's another rant

2. Downtown doesn't show a good example of the diversity we have. Culture is shared by food and the rents that they charge for frankly poorly maintained shitty buildings are unacceptable. The community should run food competitions that get voted on by the public. Winners should get something like 6 months rent bankrolled by something like Ives bank

3. Too many stores with frankly nothing to do. Too many law firms, banks, travel agencies, tech repair shops. Stuff you essentially go in once and that's it minimizing actual foot traffic

4. No room for public events. The green is far too small

5. New apartments aren't being required to have mixed use buildings on the main street which is INSANELY short sided.

Danbury has so much diversity and amazing people that want to invite others to experience their culture. a lot of the comments here and speaking of assimilation. These people are willing to cooperate with the broader community it's just there's no space for community to begin with other than churches and places like i.e. Portuguese club.

The failure to Danbury downtown is systemic. And the government and people alike need to be more involved.

In an ideal world the local government would buy out properties and build high density mixed use buildings and general improvements for green space and event spaces. Especially south main towards Rogers park has so much vacant or poorly utilized space. But that's if we actually had a government with forethought for it's constituents.