Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
It's worked ok for Seattle and San Francisco.
I'm not sure what factors you're talking about. Is it that the downtowns are on the edges of their regions rather than their middles? Is it that major highways/railroads have to travel through the downtowns rather than some of that getting routed farther away?
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Some of the Great Lakes downtowns are on the geographical edge and not close to enough landmasses to distribute sprawl around it. San Francisco's downtown is definitely not on the edge of the region and Seattle's is arguably not either. But, in particular, downtown San Francisco is central to areas on the peninsula, East Bay, and North Bay.
To use Detroit as an example, downtown Detroit could not possibly be located in a less central location to the Detroit region. During the early 20th century there was a logistical need to be near the waterfront which necessitated that people commute to it (and live as close as possible). In the Information Era there was no geographical advantage to downtown Detroit. It is actually the last place you would decide to put a downtown in Metro Detroit if you were starting from scratch.
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