- The few drains in the few drinking fountains downtown are often plugged and or the fountains themselves inoperable.
- Trash bin enclosures are often open and the locking mechanism broken or missing a part.
- Street Signs that hang over the street at traffic signals are faded to the point of illegibility, like most of the others in the city)
- The areas behind stores adjacent to parking lots are sometime overrun with trash and litter, and the rear store facades ill-kept and dirty
- The parking lots themselves are bumpy with cracked pavement and aded lane markers. (Due in part to the mishmash of private and public ownership, a situation calling out from eminent domain action)
- The pop-out street dining areas while popular still have the look of construction sites
- Safe passage for cyclists - especially children on their way to school - remains an accident waiting to happen
- The building architecture in the downtown area - and one might argue much of Menlo Park - is largely uninteresting squares and rectangles with little imagination or ornamentation present to inspire the mind or evoke emotion.
There is a lot of low-hanging fruit in this list, that with not that much money or effort can begin to spruce up the area that may lead to more improvements and pride among retailers, office building tenants, and the public.
