[Streamliner]

I saw this article/video that was pretty interesting. I also posted it on the main City Discussions forum:


How one downtown rebounded from the pandemic, even as others struggle
BY ASH-HAR QURAISHI, AMY CORRAL, RYAN BEARD

MARCH 7, 2023 / 6:00 AM / CBS NEWS
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-die...ties-struggle/

At the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, downtowns across the country emptied out. Soft lockdowns, office closures and a massive shift to remote work meant businesses in the urban core that were traditionally dependent on the daily foot traffic of commuters were at risk of financial ruin.

In San Diego, a downtown economy dependent on tourism and convention-goers, restaurant owners were bracing for the worst.

The city's downtown rebound is something of an anomaly. Many cities are struggling to entice remote workers and residents back to the urban core.

New data from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Toronto indicates that most American downtowns are still struggling.

"We started the study early in the pandemic, as we noticed folks departing actually in New York City," said Karen Chapple, professor emerita of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley and the study's lead author. "That was our first case that we looked at was the New York City, the metropolitan area, realizing that folks were leaving for the exurbs, for rural small towns all over the region."

Chapple and her team analyzed those patterns using cell phone data in 62 downtowns. They studied how much activity there was before, during and after the pandemic.

"It's a very significant number of pings all over North America that we were able to collect, about 18 million pings," she said. "We record all kinds of activity, and that's what makes it better than, say, those office footfall indicators or office vacancy rates, which are only looking at office workers. We're looking at everybody who comes downtown."

San Diego, it turns out was near the top of the list by the end of 2022 — recovering 99% of its pre-pandemic activity.

"What San Diego did right is it made a 24/7 city," said Chapple.

That resiliency was due in part to economic plans that started long before COVID.

"There's decades of planning and a lot of thought that's gone into it. And that has made San Diego one of the most resilient cities in North America," said Chapple.

One strategy that seems to have paid off was having a diverse job sector that continued to bring employees into their downtown workplaces. San Diego's downtown industries included food services, accommodations, education, and health care.

"Like they said about Bill Clinton, 'It's the economy, stupid,' because if you have the right mix of sectors, you're doing pretty well right now. But if you were too specialized, you might be suffering," said Chapple.

San Diego didn't over-specialize, whereas tech heavy cities ended up flatlining since many "techies" now work remotely.

"San Francisco might have been able to come back," she said. "It had a compromised hybrid work situation with its tech sector. But now it's going through the layoffs, and that's what's happening in in Los Angeles and Seattle and Portland and a few other tech places too."

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