Quote:
Originally Posted by alexjon
San Antonio has 5 million square feet of office space downtown, so the worktime population that doesn't work in the service or tourism industry is very VERY tiny.
To put it into perspective, Bellevue, Washington has 6 million square feet of office space downtown and employs 35k. Seattle, Washington has 28 million square feet of office space and employs around 250k (office space will hit 30 million square feet in mid-2010). Austin has 8 million square feet of office space downtown and employs 90,000.
Downtown is one big historic district and it sucks for that. There needs to be more to do on the street level, more to do on the edges of downtown and more to do in the center.
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More office space or employees doesn't equal a better downtown. Many cities with big downtown employee populations are Ghost towns after 5 p.m.
Houston and Dallas have more downtown office space, obviously doesn't equal a better downtown in general.
Houston and Seattle have about the same downtown employee population, 150 K range, as far as Houston is concerned, it's downtown is improving, but, has more room for improvement, than Seattle or the other big Texas cities. Seattle pretty much has a well rounded downtown.
San Antonio's downtown may be the most historic of the bunch in Texas, but, has much more activity than any other Texas city. Hardberger seems to be doing a great job, many projects planned or underway. Hemisfair, River North, Pearl, Musuem Reach, Main plaza. Sorry, a historic downtown with many parks, plazas, and a urban waterway running through it, far from sucks. I would put San Antonio's downtown one of the top 15 in the U.S. and first in Texas. Followed by Austin, Ft.Worth, Dallas, Houston.
Downtown Employee populations
http://www.demographia.com/db-cbd2000.pdf
Seattle 155k
Houston 154k
Austin 86k the capitol
Dallas 79K
San Antonio 55k
Charlotte 52k
Kansas City 46K
Phoenix 26k