What is the residential and office population of your downtown?

[staff]

Whoa, I totally underestimated Frederiksberg Municpality's population compared to it's size. It's incredibly tiny and still holds around 100.000 people, of whom around 48.000 live in what belongs to downtown Copenhagen. I have changed my previous post to the correct figure.

[der Reisender]

Portland's downtown is around 23,000, based on 2000 census numbers and a rough estimate of units finished since then. That's for the area bordered by I-405 and the Willamette. I hear (but have no sources on this) that the employee number is around 100,000.

[chicubs111]

Well it matters what you mean by downtown..I mean chicago's loop is mainly offices with a peppering of residential here and there...the south loop is growing and north of downtown are residential ..so chicago easily comes in at #2 behind manhatten i presume. What is the residential population of midtown and downtown manhatten anyway?

[miketoronto]

I think downtown daytime pop is more important then residential.

A downtown is suppose to be a CITY CENTRE for the entire region. So the more people you have there going down even just in the day is more a sign of how healthy a downtown is.

You can have all the people living downtown you want. But if no one is coming in from the entire surrounding metro region, then downtown is not very healthy.

So I find the daytime pops more interesting.

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by LMich

Yes, but how many live in Downtown?

If you mean "downtown commercial core," something like 8,000, but this is like asking how many people live in the financial district of most cities. In many cities that would be close to zero. "Downtown" Calgary comprises a number of different neighbourhoods, just as does Toronto.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by KCgridlock

For example. In planning mag, it states in an article about downtown Chicago residential tower construction that 85,000 people live downtown. I thought for sure it would be much higher than that. Do they only include the loop? Then it would be a bit high I think, but they can't be including areas north of the Chicago River. Anybody know?

how can any of us know if the article doesn't explicity say what it is including in its defintition of "downtown". the word downtown is a completely undefined term in chicago, just as it is in many other cities, which makes it worthless as a compariosn tool, which in turn makes threads like this worthless as well.

these "let's compare our downtown" threads pop up all the time on this forum and i always have to go off on my rant about how meaningless comparing downtowns truly is because downtowns themselves are so inadequately and inconsistently defined from city to city.

no doubt this thread will continue with more posts from person x claiming city y has z number of people in its downtown, but it's important to stress the point that comparing "downtowns" is a meaningless endeavor.

[miketoronto]

Well its more just to get a ballpark figure. Each downtown of course is going to be a different size landwise, pop wise, etc.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Well its more just to get a ballpark figure. Each downtown of course is going to be a different size landwise, pop wise, etc.

mike, the incocnsistencies in how different cities define their "downtowns" vary so dramtically that there is no such thing as getting "ballpark figures".

this endeavor is meaningless and it will always be meanignless unless someone comes up with a way to consistently define and determine what exactly is "downtown" for all of the major cities around the country, and indeed around the world.

[mhays]

Steely, you're absolutely right. People can post stuff and have fun, but the comparisons are totally worthless otherwise.

Even if the boundaries are roughly similar, there's still the wildly different accuracy and comprehensiveness of information sources. And most people who quote statistics don't really understand the numbers they're using. (seventyteen percent of them in fact)

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by furrycanuck

About 30,000 live in the downtown (defined as the communities of Downtown, West Downtown, Downtown East Village, Chinatown, Eau Claire and Beltline); about 120,000 live within 5 km of the CBD.

that is seriously pushing the definition of 'downtown'.....calgary's downtown population is generally considered to be about 13 000...with another few thousand in eau claire and chinatown, i believe....correct me if i am wrong

for winnipeg:

CMA: 715 000

downtown residential: 14 000 (the actual downtown)

downtown employment: 70 000

[trueviking]

here's a link with some old data...still worth a look.

http://www.demographia.com/db-intlcbddens.htm

[mhays]

Demographia...the lair of an evil city hater with an agenda... I suggest that this isn't a reliable source.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

mike, the incocnsistencies in how different cities define their "downtowns" vary so dramtically that there is no such thing as getting "ballpark figures".

this endeavor is meaningless and it will always be meanignless unless someone comes up with a way to consistently define and determine what exactly is "downtown" for all of the major cities around the country, and indeed around the world.

I had typed something very similar, but lost it when the forum was acting up, today.

That's exactly the case. These comparisons are apples to oranges unless there's some consistency. The ONLY decent thread that ever accurately compared inner-city/downtown populations was the one that showed the population and density of each city's inner 25 square miles. Anything else is just ridiculous.

[InlandEmpire]

I read that Seattle's downtown population is around 33,000; the downtown employment number was around 160,000 or so. Just something I found online while reading an article about Seattle's mayor wanting to double the downtown population within the next few years. I'm not sure what boundaries they used for this so I'll have to look into it.

[miketoronto]

I still find the stats interesting, because it does give you a estimated figure, no matter how off the boundaries are from one another.

It does not have to be written in stone Just gives you a general idea of the area.

[MplsTodd]

For Minneapolis, the data is as follows:

Downtown Employment: Approximately 160,000
Downtown Population: Approximately 31,000

The standard definition of dwtn Mpls is the area bordered by I-35W on the east, I-94 on the south and west, the Mississippi River on the northeast, and Plymouth Avenue on the north. I believe the dwtn population also includes a small area on the east side of the river where Riverplace, St. Anthony Main, and Village at St. Anthony Falls are.

For St. Paul, I'm estimating a little more broadly, but the employment base is approximately 60,000 (including the State Capitol complex) and the population is approximately 7,000.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by trueviking

that is seriously pushing the definition of 'downtown'.....calgary's downtown population is generally considered to be about 13 000...with another few thousand in eau claire and chinatown, i believe....correct me if i am wrong

How is that seriously pushing the definition of 'downtown'? All the neighbourhoods that furry mentioned, including the Beltline, are clearly part of the downtown area.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

I still find the stats interesting, because it does give you a estimated figure, no matter how off the boundaries are from one another.

It does not have to be written in stone Just gives you a general idea of the area.

well, if by "general idea" you mean that these kinds of threads teach us that more people live/work in downtown chicago than downtown des moines, then yes, they do give us that kind of general idea, but that is neither a revelation nor all that interesting. it's in the cities that are closer to each other in size and stature, such as comparing downtown milwaukee to downtown indianapolis, where the definitons become so inconsitent and variable as to make comparisons totally meaningless.

[miketoronto]

These stats show one thing. No matter how busy our downtowns are, they really do not contain a large amount of regional workers or residents anymore.

May look impressive for example to have 500,000 or something workers in the bigger downtowns. But thats really not alot of workers when the entire region has like 3 million workers or something.

These stats no matter how downtown is defined, shows how we have let our downtowns stop being city centres, and just regional centres in a way, because they do not take in the vast amounts of people they once did.

It would be interesting to hear the daytime population of select cities around the world from before the suburban craze and contrast to now.

Example: Are more people in downtown Philly each day today, or back in 1950's. Would be interesting to see not just for Philly, but any city.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by MplsTodd

For Minneapolis, the data is as follows:

Downtown Employment: Approximately 160,000
Downtown Population: Approximately 31,000

The standard definition of dwtn Mpls is the area bordered by I-35W on the east, I-94 on the south and west, the Mississippi River on the northeast, and Plymouth Avenue on the north. I believe the dwtn population also includes a small area on the east side of the river where Riverplace, St. Anthony Main, and Village at St. Anthony Falls are.

For St. Paul, I'm estimating a little more broadly, but the employment base is approximately 60,000 (including the State Capitol complex) and the population is approximately 7,000.

I looked at Minneapolis by census tract using 2000 numbers once. It was around 22,000 (or 24,000?) residents for an area bounded the freeway loop plus a little south of Loring Park.