They keep trying, but city and town councils just about everywhere have

been failing miserably.

The attempt they face is to achieve downtown "revitalization" in an era when retail stores of every description have fled the core area for the "greener pastures" on the outskirts where the big shopping malls offer lots of handy free parking.

Nowhere is the problem more evident than in Dufferin's two towns, which once had main drags that offered shoppers just about anything they might have desired.

That fact was underscored in an article in the Shelburne Free Press 100 years ago, which told of how four of the village's stores had collaborated in a spring millinery event.

Sure, millinery has gone out of style, but the sad fact is that if any member of the fairer sex were to have gone looking for an Easter bonnet this spring, they'd have had a tough time finding one anywhere on either Shelburne's Main Street or Orangeville's Broadway.

Even 50 years ago, virtually all the shopping in both towns was done in the downtown areas, which had full-range department stores (F.T. Hill in Orangeville and Albrecht's in Shelburne). Beyond that, there were several small but well-stocked supermarkets in both towns, Shelburne boasting four in all - Dominion, Co-Op, IGA and H. White & Co.

Beyond that, both business sections had bakeries, meat markets, hardware stores, restaurants, service stations, drug stores, farm equipment and car dealers, dairies and furniture stores - just about everything save for the boutiques, convenience stores and real estate outlets that now dominate.

Back in those days, Broadway had no gaping holes of the sort now found on its south side, and both Broadway and Main Street had angle parking with few empty spaces to be found during business hours.

In recent years, the councils of both communities have tried just about everything imaginable to "revitalize" the historic cores, Orangeville's latest bid involving a controversial concrete median. The parking meters are long gone, and after years of waiting, the town now has good-looking stores and offices where the multi-storey F.T. Hill store once stood at the intersection of Broadway and First Street.

But despite all the efforts, there still is no successor to the F.T. Hill outlet, nor even a junior department store. Anyone in need of hardware, new furniture or appliances, fresh meat or a bakery will look in vain in the traditional Broadway business area (between John and Second streets).

While the same obviously holds true for Shelburne's Main and Owen Sound streets, there is at least the nearby IGA Plaza with its Giant Tiger junior department store and other retail outlets.

Obviously, the big unanswered question is whether there is any hope of ever achieving a revitalization of urban cores that have become victims of the automotive age.

Perhaps the most positive step to date in Orangeville was completion of the new south bypass and the accompanying ban on heavy trucks, a twin move that has at least made the downtown area a lot quieter and perhaps safer for pedestrians. Hopefully, such "people friendly" moves will result in developers finally coming forward to fill in the southside gaps with solid structures that blend in well with the existing buildings while offering enough parking spaces (underground, if necessary) to meet the demands triggered by new retail outlets.

As for Shelburne, the pressing need is for a diversion of the Highway 10 truck traffic that has become such a blight. Hopefully, the town council will plead for relief in the form of a highway bypass between the cemetery corner and the former Highway 24. Ideally, this would be followed by completion of south bypass for truck traffic using Highway 89, by extending the southeast bypass (now Dufferin 11) along Amaranth's 30 Sideroad and up the Fourth Line.

Although Brampton's experience would seem to demonstrate that full revitalization is indeed an impossible task, even when a town of 7,000 swells to a city of half a million, some improvement in the status quo should be possible in Dufferin's two towns.

And whether or not it will ever happen, it's surely worth the effort.