Yesterday I watched the 1st episode of the 3rd season of HBO's Westworld. Lots of futuristic takes on Downtown LA, MacArthur Park and I found very realistic, full of residential infill.

They also put some skyscrapers on Downtown-Santa Monica corridor, which is a bit less likely.

Downtown Phoenix

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...449a920b_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 12,896 ------ 8,643 ------ 7,981 ------ 8,721 ----- 49.2% ----- 8.3% ---- -8.5% ------- 5.2 km² --- 2,495.8 inh./km²

Phoenix MSA --------------- 4,845,832 -- 4,192,887 -- 3,251,876 -- 2,238,480 --- 15.6% --- 28.9% --- 45.3% -- 37,731 km²


Census tracts (4) match perfectly with the official definition of Downtown Phoenix. Growth there picked up later, in the 2010's only, in a moment the region slowed down considerably. I don't know how things are on the ground there, population is still low, but it looks promising regardless.

yuriandrade, can you do Buffalo and Rochester NY?

I did it. Ditto for Albany and Syracuse. They're in line to be posted.

Thanks:cheers:

Downtown Buffalo

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...710db2b5_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ---------------------- 2,354 ------ 1,798 ------ 1,943 ------ 1,518 ---- 30.9% ---- -7.5% --- 28.0% ------- 1.9 km² --- 1,235.7 inh./km²

Buffalo ----------------------- 278,349 ---- 261,346 ---- 292,819 ---- 328,233 ----- 6.5% --- -10.7% -- -10.8% ----- 104.6 km² --- 2,661.1 inh./km²

Buffalo MSA --------------- 1,166,902 -- 1,135,509 -- 1,170,111 -- 1,189,288 ----- 2.8% ---- -3.0% --- -1.6% --- 4,054 km²


Not much to say about Downtown Buffalo. Even though it's posting a decent growth, it still has a very small population and low density. Lots of room for improvement.

I guess the most remarkable news comes from the city and the MSA, growing for the first time since 1940-1950 and 1960-1970, respectively. Buffalo metro area, as Pittsburgh, had the dubious distinction of being the only two major metro areas to decline in every census since 1970 and 1960, respectively. Fortunately, both reversed that in 2020.

True, it's a 5 - 10 minute walk to the CBD from these neighborhoods. It seems to me everything inside the I-405 loop should be considered "downtown."

DTLA is centrally located within LA County, and is the hub of Metro, Metrolink, and CAHSR (whenever that will arrive). Ideas of a built-up DTLA and a multi-nodal city aren't mutually exclusive. DTLA being the dominant nodal center is critical to restructuring the city's economic, political, cultural, and social dynamics. It will allow both residents and politicians alike to finally connect the dots and understand the region's enormous urban potential.

Downtown Dallas was much bigger and more lively than I expected. You usually only see the skyline from the angle you posted, but there were so many new buildings just to the North. My pics from Reunion Tower last year:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1fc32f10_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...12799e62_b.jpg

And the Downtown was very buzzing at night. I expected it to be dead. Definitely a positive surprise.

The Washington MSA has competing Downtowns. If you ask people what Downtown is, you'd get either Tysons, Rosslyn, or Downtown D.C. I'll admit when I thought of Downtown DC, my mind immediately pictured Rosslyn, since that's what I traditionally associate with Downtown (highrise corporate HQs).

That said, most of D.C.'s growth is Downtown-proximate, but just outside it:

Atlas District
1990: 3,666
2000: 3,209
2010: 3,867
2020: 6,594

Navy Yard
1990: 2,087
2000: 1,825
2010: 2,794
2020: 11,036

Noma
1990: 157
2000: 89
2010: 66
2020: 5,198

Potomac Yard (Southern National Landing)
1990: 0
2000: 244
2010: 900
2020: 3,710

Rosslyn
1990: 6,499
2000: 7,142
2010: 8,491
2020: 10,647

Tysons (only a portion is built out)
1990: 11,241
2000: 15,846
2010: 19,627
2020: 26,374
Fairfax County Goal: 100,000

I lived in Reston. Nobody considers or called Tysons or Rosslyn downtown. Hell, people in Fairfax think anything in DC is "downtown" because Fairfax county is so suburban.

Rosslyn is tiny btw. Why would anyone consider that downtown? Is it a "downtown"? Sure, but nobody calls it that. Most citiies have these districts.

Because it's the tallest neighborhood in a metro area best known for being an amorphous blob of non-descript low-rise buildings?

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/JCNP8G/ros...nty-JCNP8G.jpg

https://s26551.pcdn.co/wp-content/up...s-1260x840.jpg

I doubt most Washingtonians could even name where Downtown is. Officially, it's the section between the White House and Capitol, but most people would just call that Chinatown/Penn Quarter/Federal Triangle. Some might even say Farragut Square, which is actually in Golden Triangle. I can't recall anyone ever even saying to me "let's go Downtown."

https://theadagency.com/wp-content/u...M-1024x679.png

And there's really nothing to draw anyone to the area, unless your idea of a good time is getting screamed at by mentally ill Green Line homeless in Chinatown. Which is precisely why so much corporate growth is in Alexandria/Arlington/Tysons.

I do agree that Tysons is a hellscape and extremely hodgepodge as a business district, but it's also the fastest growing skyline in the metro area, with 4 metro stations now, and the tallest building in the metro area. It's essentially a Houston Uptown or Atlanta Midtown scenario.

https://images1.loopnet.com/i2/5Djo7.../110/image.jpg

Yes, Rosslyn is a office district/skyline. But nobody refers to them as downtown, as is the same for any city. Century City in LA is never called downtown because it has highrises.

For DC, downtown will always be downtown DC for most DMV residents. I've never heard of this confusion you've speak of for the metro area.

I 'm born and raised in NOVA. There are multiple "downtowns" in the DC area, but that's true for many cities at this point.

Well that gets back to whether the "Downtown" being studied is simply the neighborhood called 'Downtown' or whether "Downtown" is just an American term of art to refer to the principal CBD.

Downtown NYC is Lower Manhattan (they coined the term), but the CBD is undoubtedly Midtown. I think the confusion here is that when I think of Downtown DC, it's not the CBD. It shares that function with other clusters.

Also, on the point of nobody knowing what Downtown DC is, apparently here's the actual official boundary of Downtown (different from the Downtown BID). Imagine telling someone in Union Market or Foggy Bottom that they live in "Downtown."

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...City_areas.jpg

I was talking DC vs it's burbs. It's clear downtown DC functions like the regions' downtown by a considerable margin over Tysons.
You're right. For the city of DC, most people are confused what is included as downtown. I agree. But I think Foggy Bottom is downtown, just a residential part of it?

As for Manhattan, sure. But Manhattan is a different beast. Most of it is "downtown" south of central park.

"Downtown" in NYC is extremely nuanced. In Manhattan and the Bronx it's used in place of "south" as a cardinal direction. Most people probably refer to the "downtown" region of Manhattan as "lower Manhattan" to avoid misinterpretation. Some people may even consider up to 14th Street as "downtown" but this isn't the same as lower Manhattan, which is mostly south of Chambers Street. To complicate it even more, when you say "downtown" in Brooklyn it almost always refers to downtown Brooklyn.

But in the context of this discussion, "downtown" means Midtown Manhattan.

It's almost a perfect twin of Atlanta's Buckhead if you think about it.

Both are anchored by two big fancy malls across the street from each other, connected to the city by a 1970s era heavy rail system, and surrounded by tree-covered spaghetti sprawl.

That was my thinking (that 'downtown' is being used as a term of art to mean the CBD), but then Yuri posted Lower Manhattan figures for New York, not Midtown. So I'll admit I'm not sure what 'downtown' definition we're supposed to use :???:

Yeah, never thought of it that way. That's a much better parallel. And they have similar histories, with the age of the car and suburban flight (Buckhead is even voting on becoming an independent city this November).

I don't think people realize how much office space has been pushed to the suburbs. Fairfax County, VA, actually has more office space than Washington, D.C. now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the whole, DC's downtown debate, I was reading through commercial real estate website and was surprised a lot of them don't even reference a Downtown.

https://i.imgur.com/cvUc7c4.png

CBRE calls it "East End" It has 45 million square feet of office space, so is the largest in the region, but not by much (Tysons is now at 30 million square feet of office space, and 16 million of that came in the past decade: https://wtop.com/business-finance/20...led-by-tysons/). And if we use the Downtown Business Improvement District boundaries, then Tysons actually already has more square footage, even if it's still very disjointed.

Curiously, they also categorize the Golden Triangle and parts of Foggy Bottom as the CBD, further muddying the lines between CBD vs. Downtown.

I think you're taking the CBD thing too seriously. Tysons could have more office space than the CBD of DC in 15 years, it won't matter. It's always gonna be a suburban office district/node. Downtown DC area (whatever you want to call it) is still much larger than Tysons ever will be.

West LA has more office space than downtown LA, but it's not downtown to anyone. A larger employment area? Sure. But it's not the center of anything.

While the population growth may be small in Buffalo's central business district, the amount of development in Greater Downtown area which includes the medical campus and Larkinville has been in the multiple Billions worth, a figure that the tiny CBD pop growth doesn't show.

Major Development completed since 2010 Census

•$375M UB medical school
•$290M Gates Vascular Institute
•$272M Oishei Buffalo Children's Hospital
•$172M LECOM Harborcenter mixed use project including full-service Marriott hotel, twin pad ice arena, workout/training facility, fine dining restaurant, giant sports bar, parking garage (adjacent to the KeyBank NHL arena)
•$137M Robert H. Jackson US Courthouse
•$130M Seneca Creek Buffalo casino
•$110M Delaware North HQ including Westin Hotel
•$110M Coventus Medical office/R&D building
•Tens of Millions of dollars expansions to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
•countless buildings downtown and in Larkinville rehabbed into residential, office space, mixed-use, hotels, new restaurants
•Explore & More children's museum down by the water in Canalside

•Buffalo's tallest tower 529ft/161m and 1.2M square feet (former Marine Midland bank/HSBC tower) now rechristened Seneca One Tower by DC-based developer Douglas Jemal

•$150M makeover
•repainted exterior in terracotta and gun metal
•adding 115+ apartments
•redoing office space
•Buffalo-based M&T Bank alone spending $58M (separate from main rehab cost) inside the structure for a technology hub

I'm sure benp will let me know if I missed anything major :haha:

That's red mark, including the Mall is precisely what I called Downtown Washington on the list. The shape matches perfectly with the census tracts.

About your question, it's really Downtown what I'm talking here, not CBD, although in most cases they're the same. I've opened the thread with São Paulo whose CBD is no longer in Downtown for the past 30-40 years or so.

@Wigs, let's bring Rochester:

Downtown Rochester

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9088f0a6_z.jpg

------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ---------------------- 5,638 ------ 4,430 ------ 3,974 ------ 3,776 ---- 27.3% ---- 11.5% ---- 5.2% ------- 1.8 km² --- 3,207.1 inh./km²

Rochester -------------------- 211,328 ---- 210,645 ---- 220,167 ---- 230,463 ----- 0.3% ---- -4.3% --- -4.5% ------ 92.6 km² --- 2,281.4 inh./km²

Rochester MSA ------------- 1,090,135 -- 1,079,640 -- 1,062,452 -- 1,025,220 ----- 1.0% ----- 1.6% ---- 3.6% --- 8,459 km²


Downtown following the national trend and growing strongly. As the comparison is inevitable, it's much more populated than Buffalo's.

Rochester (city) growing for the first time since 1940-1950 and regarding the MSA, Rochester has the distinction to be the only major metro area in the Northeast/Great Lakes to have never had experienced negative growth.

The Rochester growth is nice to see; grew up near there. Surprised of the higher density than Buffalo. Buffalo has some pretty dense neighborhoods right outside it's downtown (Allentown, west village, Elmwood), but obviously needs more mixed use downtown. Hopefully the Canalside district will add some residential.

Well the Rochester Metro geographic area is over double the size of Metro Buffalo ;)

Glad to see downtown and city of Rochester doing well! :tup:

Partially removing/downgrading the sunken inner loop highway was one of the smartest things imho that Rochester has done in the past decade.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/03/...ester-highway/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Loop_(Rochester)

Rochester downgraded the dark purple part and turned it into an at grade "complete street"
https://www.cnu.org/sites/default/fi...nner_loop.jpeg

^^
I didn't notice they had part of their freeway loop removed. Very nice to see it, specially it seemed quite tight, strangling their Downtown.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Downtown Birmingham

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...fef5475b_z.jpg


------------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ------------------------- 3,488 ------ 3,972 ------ 3,568 ------ 4,153 ----- -12.2% --- 11.3% --- -14.1% ------- 3.8 km² ----- 916.2 inh./km²

Birmingham Metro Area ----- 1,180,631 -- 1,128,047 -- 1,052,238 ---- 956,844 ------ 4.7% ----- 7.2% ---- 10.0% -- 13,675 km²


I have the soft spot for the underdogs, so I really liked to say something good about Downtown Birmingham. However that's the lowest density I found anywhere, population falling badly, a mess.

And the metro area, well, watches its former rivals Atlanta and Nashville to grow insanely while it posts anemic growth.

^ curious as to which areas you used to define as "downtown" birmingham?

there's no way it has lost residents over the last 10 years. downtown is one of the few growing areas of the city.

note the east end has completely filled in during the past 20 years

(by comparing to the CBRE map above)

It's the two census tracts bordered by the freeway loop on three sides and the railway south. It's the area showed in the pic.

I'll check each census tract later. I don't remember which ones were pushing Downtown Washington up.

personally, i'd include census tract 45.02 as well, which also appears in the pic (upper right).

Birmingham was hard for me because neither Wikipedia nor Google brought definitions of it. I guess this concept is not much used there.

That census tract you mentioned is growing, but it doesn't do much to increase the overall density.

Agreed, but it would still double the population you currently show for downtown Birmingham.

The Convention & Visitors Bureau seems to include it in their definition, and several hotels in that census tract have the word "Downtown" in their name: https://www.birminghamal.org/neighborhood/downtown/

Obviously not a big deal, and I do appreciate the time you've put into this. I just felt like downtown Birmingham was not adequately shown.

Little Tokyo, what can you do there besides eating at sushi and ramen places? Since I'm Korean I spend most of my time on Wilshire Blvd in K-town. In a sunbelt city like downtown Atlanta, you have two major universities (Georgia Tech and Georgia State) so there are many students out and about. There are also historical places like Sweet Auburn District and Fairlie-Poplar: https://discoveratlanta.com/explore/...airlie-poplar/ It doesn't have the same Asian places but the African American ones are plentiful.

So you proved my point.

Sure other sunbelt cities have people walking around. As much as downtown LA?
No
And Little Tokyo was just one example. I think the Historic Core is the most interesting/vibrant. The only cities that have something like that the main urban 7 cities in america.

I didn’t think those two university’s are part of downtown Atlanta. Looking at google earth and from my limited experience visiting the downtown area much of the attractions visitors (I was interested in) would go see are too far to walk.(ex. MLK Memorial, Historical Black Colleges, even CNN). Of course there are things to see in downtown but LA downtown is much more vibrant and more interesting things to do. If you include universities nearby and we can say that downtown LA has USC, Exposition Park with all it’s museums, the rose gardens, The Colosseum the Rose Garden, as well as the other cultural venues such as the Music Center, Disney Hall, and the Staples Center, and that’s only a few things I mentioned.

Yeah, the Broad, Mocha, grammy museum, Japanese American National Museum, Geffen contemporary just to name the most prominent museums downtown. What else is there to do downtown than go to museums, see a symphony, broadway show, shop, eat, dine, drink, enjoy a park and amazing architecture. You have the Colburn School right downtown and they of course will have their own venue soon for their performances. So much more to do and see in Downtown LA. Plus you have the rest of the city that has so many more things to do.

Downtown L.A. doesn't feel like it has a lot of foot traffic to me. I wouldn't say the pedestrian activity blows away Peachtree Street in Atlanta. Downtown L.A. is much bigger than downtown Atlanta, though.

I've stayed in Midtown and DTLA in recent years. Midtown is pretty good (last visited in February 2020), but I saw nothing like the pedestrian volumes of the busier parts of DTLA.

Parts of downtown LA feel like an extension of Boyle Heights with all the Latin mom and pop shops, combined with all the new development, the street people and the shoppers and there's definitely a cool vibrancy to dtla. At least for me it reminds me of what the southern part of the Loop was like in Chicago in the early 90s;

Adding that tract we'd get this:

------------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ---------- Density
Downtown ------------------------- 6,911 ------ 6,611 ------ 4,751 ------ 6,467 -------- 4.5% --- 39.1% --- -26.5% ------- 6.8 km² ----- 1,022.3 inh./km²

Downtown Memphis

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...3ea440a7_z.jpg

---------------------------------- 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Area ------ Density

Downtown ----------------------- 10,022 ------ 7,991 ------ 5,581 ------ 5,412 ------ 25.4% --- 43.2% ----- 3.1% ------- 4.7 km² ---- 2,115.2 inh./km²

Memphis MSA --------------- 1,337,779 -- 1,316,044 -- 1,205,218 -- 1,067,263 ------- 1.7% ---- 9.2% ---- 12.9% -- 11,850 km²


Downtown Memphis has a quite robust population for a southern city. I hear they have a good nightlife there, but I don't know much about it. And the most important, it's following the national trend and growing fast.

The MSA growing slower and slower and might be very close to post negative growth, while its rival, Nashville keeps booming.

Buffalo, Rochester, and Birmingham have roughly the same size Metro population.

Rochester Metro is 2 times larger in area than Buffalo's.
Birmingham has a Metro Area 3.3 times larger in area than Buffalo's.
Sprawlingham! :P

And if Birmingham hadn't been such a corrupt and racist place, it would have 6 million people now, not Atlanta: https://www.al.com/opinion/2019/07/b...wo-cities.html

Atlanta became the "City too busy to hate" and left Birmingham in the dust.

Of the 56 metros over 1 million, Birmingham is dead last in weighted density at 1,402 people per square mile for the average person.

The runner up, Nashville, is 40% denser at 1,943 ppsm.

I consider Midtown/Downtown Atlanta to be part of one urban core now. 53k people is a lot for a southern city. More than 10% of Atlanta's population lives in Downtown or Midtown Atlanta. It's pretty impressive.

But Downtown LA is definitely more vibrant than Downtown Atlanta. Downtown Atlanta can surprise me of how vibrant it can get during the day though.

Midtown Atlanta is more vibrant during the evening and night hours.

how is weighted density calculated?

interesting!
where did Buffalo rank?

Take each census tract, multiply its density by its fraction of the total population, and sum. I.e. weighted density gives the average density experienced by an area's inhabitants.

Buffalo was #26 out of 56 MSAs at a weighted density of 4,349 people per square mile. So the average Buffalo metro resident lives at that density.

The top 10 MSAs over 1 million:

1. New York: 33,787.5
2. San Francisco....13,267.8
3. Honolulu....12,581.9
4. Los Angeles....12,169.4
5. San Jose....9,075.9
6. Chicago....9,011.9
7. Boston....8,987.9
8. Miami....8,489.2
9. Philadelphia....8,258.5
10. San Diego....7,381.9

The full list is in this post.

Thanks :tup:

While Georgia Tech is in Midtown, Georgia State is most definitely located in downtown and has arguably been the most active real estate developer within downtown over the past decade due to its rapid growth.

As far as attractions in downtown Atlanta, you're forgetting the entire area around Centennial Olympic Park which includes the aquarium, World of Coke, civil/human rights museum, and the College Football HOF. Sweet Auburn is easily accessible from downtown via the streetcar.

This is assuming that Birmingham's gain would have been Atlanta's loss and there's no good reason to believe this would've been the case. Also it wasn't just that Atlanta wasn't nearly as violently racist that accounts for its rapid growth post-civil rights, it's because, while still very much a Southern city, its Black institutions, civil rights vanguard, business/professional class, and political class gave it the most progressive of reputations among Southern cities. This is why Atlanta became the biggest beneficiary of the "Reverse Migration" among Black Americans at the outset in 1970 and hasn't relinquished that position in 50 years.

Aside from racial issues, Birmingham still had two big things working against it: 1) local steel industrialists who supported Jim Crow to discourage outside economic investment and thus competition as a means of keeping wages low and Northern-based corporate owners who were absent and largely unconcerned with local matters; and 2) geography as Georgia's location on the Atlantic coast and in the EST zone was more advantageous for it as an airport and business hub with connections to East Coast business interests. Also, even without all the racial strife and violence in Birmingham, Alabama would still have a bad reputation for civil rights with Selma, Montgomery, George Wallace's rhetoric and antics, etc which would wind up still negatively impacting Birmingham to some extent.