Downtowns are back

[Chisouthside]

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;

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

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.

Originally Posted by mhays

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.

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.

[Crawford]

Re. Birmingham, it isn't great urbanity or anything, but it isn't quite as bad as depicted.

For the South, it has pretty good bones. There are upscale neighborhoods south of downtown that are quite substantial and charming. The area around UAB and the medical center is decent. Mountain Brook is a nice suburb. You can definitely live in Birmingham proper and be in a nice neighborhood. Of course the nice areas are segregated, conservative-leaning (even intown locations) and virtually all white. And if you're Catholic, or Jewish or nonreligious, you'll be an outsider. It's still Alabama.

Also, these comparisons are a bit silly bc some metro areas include a lot of near-empty land, and some don't. I suspect Birmingham isn't really massively sprawlier than other Southern cities, it just has slightly emptier fringe incorporated in the MSA.

[TimCity2000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

You can definitely live in Birmingham proper and be in a nice neighborhood. Of course the nice areas are segregated, conservative-leaning (even intown locations) and virtually all white.

the bolded part is not true. birmingham is a very blue city, even in the city's predominantly white neighborhoods. that changes rapidly, of course, once you move into the suburbs.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by TimCity2000

the bolded part is not true. birmingham is a very blue city, even in the city's predominantly white neighborhoods. that changes rapidly, of course, once you move into the suburbs.

Voting blue doesn't make a city liberal.

And Birmingham's white neighborhoods aren't particularly blue. In fact many in-town neighborhoods are red-leaning, which is really rare in the U.S. these days. Granted, those neighborhoods are liberal in the context of Alabama, but they're hardly liberal by U.S. standards.

It's like asking whether Tuscaloosa is liberal. For Alabama standards, yes, extremely liberal. For national standards, it's probably one of the most conservative major college towns.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Re. Birmingham, it isn't great urbanity or anything, but it isn't quite as bad as depicted.

For the South, it has pretty good bones. There are upscale neighborhoods south of downtown that are quite substantial and charming. The area around UAB and the medical center is decent. Mountain Brook is a nice suburb. You can definitely live in Birmingham proper and be in a nice neighborhood. Of course the nice areas are segregated, conservative-leaning (even intown locations) and virtually all white. And if you're Catholic, or Jewish or nonreligious, you'll be an outsider. It's still Alabama.

Also, these comparisons are a bit silly bc some metro areas include a lot of near-empty land, and some don't. I suspect Birmingham isn't really massively sprawlier than other Southern cities, it just has slightly emptier fringe incorporated in the MSA.

I think Birmingham is more progressive than most of Alabama. Because of the coal/steel history, it has a fairly strong union backround, and many of the immigrants were from Catholic areas of Europe. Birmingham reminds me of a southern version of Pittsburgh, Appalachian foothills hilly. If I had to live in Alabama, it would be either Birmingham or Huntsville, which has the NASA science/engineering culture. Both cities are far enough north to have somewhat cold winters and fall colors.

[mcgrath618]

yuriandrade, did you ever end up doing this?

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

Could you expand the limits of Center City to include everything from Girard to Tasker (with the same E/W borders)? Philadelphia City Hall defines this as “Greater Center City,” and in 2018 estimated it to be more dense than Chicago (or for that matter, anywhere outside of Manhattan). It had ~174K residents in 2010.

It's okay if you haven't gotten around to it yet; I was just catching up on this thread and realized I could've saved some trouble if I'd just asked.

As thoughtcriminal said in another post, the borders as I just defined them were expected to break 200k this census, and I am interested to see if this is the case.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

yuriandrade, did you ever end up doing this?


It's okay if you haven't gotten around to it yet; I was just catching up on this thread and realized I could've saved some trouble if I'd just asked.

As thoughtcriminal said in another post, the borders as I just defined them were expected to break 200k this census, and I am interested to see if this is the case.

I'll go back to Philadelphia eventually. Promise. For Los Angeles, for instance, I expand the list with central neighbourhoods counting 450k people.

Now I'm working with cities all over the globe and slowed down American numbers.

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I'll go back to Philadelphia eventually. Promise. For Los Angeles, for instance, I expand the list with central neighbourhoods counting 450k people.

Now I'm working with cities all over the globe and slowed down American numbers.

No worries! Really appreciate all the work you’ve done.

[Yuri]

Downtown Orlando



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

Downtown ------------------------ 4,922 ------ 2,879 -------- 700 -------- 860 ------ 71.0% -- 311.3% -- -18.6% ------- 1.4 km² ---- 3,525.8 inh./km²

Orlando MSA --------------- 2,673,376 -- 2,134,411 -- 1,644,561 -- 1,224,852 ------ 25.3% --- 29.8% --- 34.3% --- 9.040 km²


I found Downtown Orlando, even though minuscule, surprisingly dense. And as it's growing incredibly fast, it will become even more dense, following Miami's trend.

Regarding the MSA, with all due respect to people there, it's beyond me to understand what's Orlando's appeal. I'm usually open to visit any place, but I'd pass even if was for free. Many people like though, hence its strong growth.

[Yuri]

Downtown Melbourne


Wikipedia

--------------------------------- 2021 ------ 2011 ------ 2001 ------ 1991 ------ Growth -------- Area -------- Density

CBD ------------------------------ 47,192 ----- 21,815 ------ 7,644 ------ 1,611 ----- 116.3% -- 185.4% -- 374.5% ------- 2.4 km² --- 19,912.2 inh./km²

Central City -------------------- 169,860 ---- 100,240 ----- 55,398 ----- ****** ------ 69.5% --- 80.9% --- ***** ------ 37.3 km² ---- 4,547.8 inh./km²

Melbourne --------------------- 4,901,863 -- 4,025,375 -- 3,382,772 -- 3,092,675 ------ 21.8% --- 19.0% ---- 9.4% --- 6,390 km²


To revive the thread, I decided to bring Melbourne, also with two definitions, one strict following the local statistical areas and a broader following the Australian LGAs.

Melbourne CBD surge seems even more impressive than the ones we've seen in the US. From 1,600 to 47,000 inh., with Manhattan's density. The broader area also grew very fast, with adjacent areas such as Docklands and Southbank. A true urban revolution.

And Melbourne, with the immigration boom, left the sluggish growth from the 1990's to grow much faster than the national average and closing the gap with Sydney.

[Double L]

Downtown Houston is going through a high rise residential boom and is in good shape. It has very good office space occupancy, the third largest theater district in the country, several sports stadiums, light rail, a grocery store, food halls, a historic district, an aquarium, great parks and any type of restaurant you can imagine. The only thing they haven’t been able to get off the ground yet is retail. There was an attempt to build an urban outdoor mall on a light rail stop with residential and hotel called green street but it wasn’t able to attract enough retailers. Now, there is another attempt to bring truly good retail downtown with a mall called post Houston.

[mhays]

I'm glad Downtown Houston is improving, but let's be real

It has very high office space vacancy. Inside the freeway loop is at 24.2% vacant per Friday's CoStar numbers. Absorption isn't that bad, considering, at only 404,000 sf negative in the past year.

At the time of the census, the residential population was tiny. The only non-sparse tract in density terms appears to be based on the jail population. The other two tracts had fewer than 9,000 residents or around 6,000 per square mile.

Downtown Houston is rising from a base with extremely little housing or hotel rooms. From that point it'll take additional booms to turn around. It'll be exciting to watch of course.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

I'm glad Downtown Houston is improving, but let's be real

It has very high office space vacancy. Inside the freeway loop is at 24.2% vacant per Friday's CoStar numbers. Absorption isn't that bad, considering, at only 404,000 sf negative in the past year.

At the time of the census, the residential population was tiny. The only non-sparse tract in density terms appears to be based on the jail population. The other two tracts had fewer than 9,000 residents or around 6,000 per square mile.

Downtown Houston is rising from a base with extremely little housing or hotel rooms. From that point it'll take additional booms to turn around. It'll be exciting to watch of course.

Man if you only saw downtown Houston when I first moved here in the 90's; it was a barren post apocalyptic void with just buildings and some people on the streets between 8-5. It's night and day better now and yes, compared to other major cities, still way to go but let's take the win anyways.

Houston's economy has slid over the past couple of years so the vacancy might be a reflection of that. New development has virtually ground to a halt.

[Double L]

I didn’t know that about the downtown office occupancy rate. Several years ago it was 90% occupied. My initial guess is that it has been impacted by the pandemic. The downtown Houston population is 17,000 people.

[Don't Be That Guy]

I was recently in Chicago for work meetings - first time in two years, and downtown was dead. There's lot's of residential construction happening but hardly any people walking around during the work week. You could even get into restaurants without reservations, which you can't even do here in Pittsburgh nowadays.

[mhays]

It's certainly on the upswing.

The 17,000-resident figure from 2020 was 9,000 plus the tract that appears to be all-jail with 8,000.

The CBD office market got down to 9.2% briefly in 2014, but has been at least in the 17s since 2017 and was over 20 in Q1 2020. There was a small jump in 2021, but it looks like oil is the main factor.

[Yuri]

Downtown Sydney


Wikipedia

--------------------------------- 2021 ------ 2011 ------ 2001 ------ 1991 ------ Growth -------- Area -------- Density

CBD ------------------------------ 31,499 ----- 25,021 ----- 14,393 ------ 3,504 ------ 25.9% --- 73.8% -- 310.8% ------- 4.3 km² ---- 7,342.4 inh./km²

Central City -------------------- 242,237 ---- 183,281 ---- 128,901 ----- ****** ------ 32.2% --- 42.2% --- ***** ------ 26.7 km² ---- 9,059.0 inh./km²

Sydney ------------------------ 4,959,107 -- 4,240,340 -- 3,767,030 -- 3,399,573 ------ 17.0% --- 12.6% --- 10.8% --- 4,567 km²


Same story for Sydney: Downtown is booming, be it in the strict or in the broad definition. Growth rate not as impressive as in Melbourne, but big nonetheless.

[IluvATX]

I always liked this thread. Keep ‘em coming Yuri. Do you have any info on Southeast Asia cities?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by IluvATX

I always liked this thread. Keep ‘em coming Yuri. Do you have any info on Southeast Asia cities?

I can do it! The thing is, all those areas have been densely populated since ever, so we cannot expect a population surge. Moreover, they haven't experienced urban decline in the same degree of Northern American, European and Brazilian cities, paving the way for an urban renaissance that started in the 1990's.

In fact, many East Asian cities work as a big Downtown themselves, like:

--- Tokyo squeezing 9,733,276 people in only 627 km² (15,511 inh./km² density) and growing.

--- Kowloon plus northern half of Hong Kong Island: 3,164,590 in mere 88 km² for a super density of 35,961 inh./km², putting Manhattan and Paris to a shame;

--- Shanghai inner city: 6,683,712 in 289 km² for a density of 23,127 inh./km²;

--- Guangzhou inner city: 6,337,811 in 280 km² for a density of 22,635 inh./km²;

--- Seoul 9,586,195 people in 605 km² (15,839 inh./km² density).