There's a show on cable my wife has me watching called "What Not to Wear." While I'm not really all that keen on the show, I watch it fairly regularly, as my choice seems to be to watch it or have her nominate me to be on it, as if my skinny ties are really some affront to the world's sartorial standards.

But there is one piece of advice the co-hosts repeatedly give participants that's stuck with me: Dress for the body you have, not the body you want to have.

It's advice Escondido's Downtown Business Association (and City Council) might want to take to heart: Promote the downtown you actually have, not the one you wish you had.

For the past decade or so, the city and the nonprofit DBA have tried to promote the Grand Avenue corridor as the second coming of La Jolla -- or at least the next Carlsbad Village or Gaslamp Quarter. Efforts to recruit art galleries, antique shops and fine restaurants met with some early success, and since then the DBA has largely marketed Escondido's downtown as a high-end art and dining district (albeit one with hot rods on Friday nights during the spring and summer).

But that transformation from small-town shopping hub a la Mayberry to glittery promenade of the beautiful people got stalled somewhere in the process. There are still as many barber shops as art galleries, while mom-and-pop tailor shops and pet stores sit cheek by jowl with the high-end outfits. And let's not even mention the porn outlet.

The disconnect between the downtown the city would like to have and the downtown we actually have has again reached one of its occasional points of discord.

With many of the art galleries now gone (Shiva Collections, Robert Wright, Lillian Berkeley, Artisans' Gallery), and empty storefronts dotting the downtown landscape, many business owners are simply trying to hang on during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

And yet the city recently decided to raise the downtown Business Improvement District fees that downtown merchants must pay, with the money going to fund the nonprofit DBA's marketing efforts -- efforts some 200 business owners say aren't helping their businesses. They've signed a petition asking the city to dissolve the BID, arguing that the DBA is too focused on certain types of businesses over others.

It was about five years ago that a similar blowup in the DBA launched Olga Diaz (then McCullock) on a political arc that has taken her to a seat on the City Council. At that time, Diaz led a similar petition drive that netted more than 200 signatories asking that the BID be dissolved, that its leadership was out of touch with the rank and file.

With a new chief executive for the DBA and many meetings with the disaffected business owners, that flare-up was eventually quieted.

This time around, there seems to be less willingness on the part of the DBA and City Council to hear out the squeaky wheels, to admit that maybe things could be run better.

But if the city and DBA won't market the downtown Escondido actually has, this crisis is unlikely to go quietly into the night.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at jtrageser@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5408.