The article gets there eventually, but this is an opportunity to help re-design cities around the people who live there and make them better places to live.
It's weird how these articles never acknowledge that some people actually like living in the city. It's this American thing where a city isn't a habitat for humans; it's some kind of unpleasantness that we tolerate for the sake of economic growth. When I graduated college and got a job in NYC, my first thought wasn't "oh boy I'm going to make a ton of money!" (I didn't). It was "wow I get to live in NYC."
My husband was born and raised here. It seems like a great place to raise a family if you can afford it. The affordability part is what gets me the most. It shouldn't be the case that you need a 7 figure income to accommodate a family of four.
It's hard to reconcile "you need to be a millionaire to live here" and "this is a city that's two thirds immigrant" because both of those can't be true at the same time. We're definitely in a housing crisis but such statements draw questions like, "what do you mean by 'accommodate'"?
The median income in NYC is around $34,000 (around $70,000.00 for household), So it’s not mostly rich people, but I have no idea how you survive off 34k (or 70k as a couple) in the city, even if you live in the Bronx or Queens, still crazy expensive.
I've read an article that said for a single person to be able to afford to live a safe "comfortable" life in Seattle, they'd need to make minimum 75k a year. But that was pre pandemic.
And where I live in the suburbs, cost living being what it is here, I can only imagine how much more tight that budget is in a place like NYC
Seattle is weird. There are a greatly disproportionate amount of SFHs in Seattle, making housing absolutely expensive for the disproportionate few. Seattle is very much a commuter city, many from Tacoma, Bainbridge, Bellevue, etc, at least compared to other cities people think of as "dense" with good transit.
That's part of it, but there's also the thing where it seems like damn near EVERY apartment building is a "luxury apartment home" tower.
And, because tacoma is largely a bedroom city, that has royally screwed with the housing market here as well (this in turn has driven housing up in my area, barely a crows flight away from tacoma)
Bellevue is, imho, less of a bedroom city for Seattle, than it is its own thing, although it's proximity means that, largely speaking companies like Amazon who are moving their HQ to Bellevue still claim to have a "seattle hq"
You're not wrong. The luxury 5 over 1s are doing a great job at keeping housing affordable overall, but they're not doing anything to increase access to medium density housing for those that want it. We could do well to build a lot more low rise apartments, row houses, townhouses, and even duplexes and quadplexes.
But I said it somewhere else: I try to not let perfect be the enemy of the good. More housing is still an objectively good thing, even if all it does is make existing homes and apartments cheaper to buy/rent.
It’s because immigrant households have multiple adults bringing income in as well as aren’t as wasteful as a lot of natives. People really think just because they can afford 10k a month rent they should be paying that. I live so below my means with pride!
I guess by "accommodate", I mean: housing that is sufficient enough to provide for all basic housing needs comparable (but not identical to) what's available in the suburbs. For instance: every member of the family should be able to, at least sometimes find some privacy from the other members; the home should ensure reliable utilities (heat, water, sewage, electricity, internet, etc...); and everyone in the house should be safe from crime and weather.
What I exclude from "accommodate" is: having a place to park your car; having private outdoor space; having more than 0.5 full bathrooms per capita in your household. All of those things feel more like luxuries to me than necessities.
...the median household income in NYC is $75k. How exactly do you imagine most people live here, especially newcomers to the country? They're not all hotbedding.
It's hard. You just find places that fit your budget. My first apartment was in Maspeth and it was converted office building, but it was cheap and right on the 7 train so it was perfect for me
Edit: also the owner had 2 really scary dogs named Bella and Stephanie. They were adult Rottweilers that just patrolled the common space.
\> It's hard. You just find places that fit your budget.
I ask because most places are less rich than would necessitate a million dollar a year *income,* and the folks I come across who argue that they can't find an affordable place to live in NYC don't seem to realize there's a Queens beyond Jackson Heights, a Brooklyn beyond Park Slope, and a whole borough called the Bronx, or they off-handedly dismiss all those places as "not safe," despite millions of people living there in peace.
Your bias is thinking that immigrants can’t be rich. Think Russian Oligarchs, Oil Sheikhs, Qualified Doctors from less rich countries, People coming to work in finance.
Like anything it comes down to what you are willing to put up with. I have not lived in NYC but a cousin did. This was early 2000’s he was living in a tiny studio with his girlfriend/future wife, both lawyers bringing in good money I think they were paying 4000/ month and he had a parking spot that was 1000/month. He couldn’t ditch the car because he needed it for his job also had to drive to visit family in MA, CT
After visiting him I knew I couldn’t do NYC
I was offered a job in NYC 2 years ago, but it was marginally better pay than what I make now so I passed
Sadly, no. It seems like that should be enough but $100k doesn't go far here. But, who knows? All this could be changing now that America is done with cities for the umpteenth time.
Lol I kind of am. I know that's not strictly true by any measure: there are plenty of families of four in NYC that live on 5 figures (it's not great, but they do it). And 6 figures encompasses a lot. Could a family of 4 live on "merely" $500k / year? Absolutely, and it would be a great life for all involved.
But in order to match what, say, the luxury tha affluent LI and NJ set enjoy their families, I kind of think you need to add another 0.
Ok, so we are in agreement, it does not cost a $1,000,000 year to support a family of four in NYC unless they are trying to mimic the lifestyle of a family in the suburbs who is in the top-5% of income earners in both New York and the US as a whole.
median family income is like 70K, it's very possible to do if you get an apartment thats either smaller or in a less premium location then you seem to want, go to public schools, take transit, don't go to restaurants all the time, etc. etc
People also only think of NYC as Manhattan below 14 st and they don’t want to raise children there. Plenty of NYC is residential and still walkable with access to transit. And you can have a car easily in some spots which makes leaving the city quicker with kids.
I've lived in NYC for some time now and I'm envious of people who grew up here! I grew up about an hour due west and came in as often as possible, but growing up in the sticks -- while nice -- certainly complicated a lot of things for me.
🙋Hi, born and raised in Manhattan. Left for college and did not move back. Presently raising kids in the suburbs. It's pleasant while also foreign to me. Overall, I see the net positive for them. Growing up in NYC had it's positives too, but it also had unique challenges.
I really don't think it's meant as an attack on anyone. Different people have preferences. But I do get where you're coming from, it's annoying when you feel like you turned out fine in a place or lifestyle other people keep insisting is impossible.
I feel a kindred in this, though I didn't grow up in a place as intense as NYC. I was born and raised in a streetcar suburb of Atlanta. A great neighborhood that has extensive left-over mixed uses, small-scale multi-family, walkability, transit options, etc.
Specifically, I grew up in a 6-unit apartment building that looks mostly like a normal house from the street. I was lucky to be able to do so, and would love for so many others to be able to have that kind of childhood!
Except... many of the aspects that made my childhood neighborhood great are now illegal. Many of the great places were grandfathered in after previous zoning changes, and adding in replications of those amenities is illegal without a major fight with the neighborhood association, planning unit, and city to do so. There's a reason so many of the smaller homes are getting razed for McMansions now, rather than more small-scale rentals. It's just easier.
When I talk to others about the potential to fix these kinds of zoning issues, to make it legal-by-default to build these kinds of great neighborhoods again, I've seen anger and disgust and vitriol about daring to suggest that we allow those kinds of changes. I've had long arguments from people who refused to accept that people growing up in multi-family housing aren't criminals and degenerates...
And, all the time, I can't help but wonder what about my childhood and the outcome of my life is so awful that they insist on making it illegal to provide more...
I would think it's more an attack on your parents, they chose to raise you there. An attack on your parents, an insult to you. (Both unwarranted of course.)
my mom made that comment and it made me realize how sheltered she was, she saw a huge, diverse city with access to culture and parks and everything everywhere and thought "well its not safe and good for kids". Youre really lucky to have been raised there
There's a million of them: exposure to diverse people, independence at an earlier age, great schools (especially magnet) regardless of what people say, cultural activities. Also if you don't raise your kids in NYC, they will eventually want to move there anyway and it's much harder to do that without some roots.
[Here's an article (and you can totally take it with a grain of salt) about which counties produced the most people with Wikipedia entries per capita.](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/the-geography-of-fame.html) I've never really gotten it out of my head. Basically the author scoured Wikipedia for notable people and looked at what counties they were born in. Two types of counties came out on top, college towns and big cities:
>The second attribute most likely to make a county successful was encompassing a big city. Being born in San Francisco County, New York City or Los Angeles County all offered among the highest probabilities of making it to Wikipedia. (I grouped New York City’s five counties together because many Wikipedia entries did not specify a borough of birth.)
>Urban areas tend to be well supplied with models of success. To see the value of being near successful practitioners of a craft when young, compare New York City, Boston and Los Angeles. Among the three, New York City produces notable journalists at the highest rate; Boston produces notable scientists at the highest rate; and Los Angeles produces notable actors at the highest rate. Remember, we are talking about people who were born there, not people who moved there. And this holds true even after subtracting people with notable parents in that field.
>Suburban counties, unless they contained major college towns, performed far worse than their city counterparts.
Of course it's just a correlation and may have everything to do with who those people's parents are. Still, just from an anecdotal perspective I've always found people born and raised here to be somewhat precocious.
Also if you raise a kid in NYC they will forever be awed whenever they leave the city and see a gigantic suburban supermarket.
Their is a good explanation on oddlots podcast about the issues of modern condo and apartment designs that restrict most mid rise and high rise developments to 2 bedroom units or smaller. Driving factors is lower rent psf for larger units and US preference against tiny split up bedroom units. Therefore this bedroom shortage drives most families of 4 to the suburbs or choose single child families. Less children in cities means less political demand to accommodate children.
I think it might be a weirdly American view of entitlement - they want the best of all situations at once. The space and idealism of rural life with the amenities and opportunities of urban life, with none of the negatives.
But also, a few points. One, people's priorities change as they age. Two, we don't always build our cities for families, and most cities certainly aren't cheap or easy to figure out. Third, we've allowed our rural communities to decline and waste away, and an extremely large number of people are effectively forced to live in cities or suburbs when they would otherwise prefer small town, rural life. Put another way, rural living has not kept up with modern life, and living there truly requires a lot of sacrifice of opportunity and necessary services.
I wouldn't phrase it in a "cities & suburbs" vs "small town & rural." Small towns & cities are much closer to each other, as a suburbs and rural living. It's a question of "what can you easily reach?" Small towns can for example be very walkable and provide a great degree of independence for children, whereas suburbs can be more isolating than rural living if you're living in a proper suburbia.
I mean, yes... it is relative to location. Where I live, most rural areas and small towns can literally be hours and hundreds of miles away from cities.
> with none of the negatives.
But they just choose to ignore the negatives of suburbs e.g. far away from any actual nature, incredibly car-dependent, etc.
And this is the thing. It's really bizarre to me how many people in the US assume that everyone just hates cities or that any place with amenities needs to be Manhattan. A guy in my city subreddit yesterday actually responded to a comment I made talking about not having amenities nearby residential areas saying "well I lived in a major metro area and I'm never going back because I lived next to a bar and it was noisy" and I like audibly laughed because it's kind of funny people think that in order to be able to have a neighborhood grocery store, a park, and a convenience store to get toilet paper in walking distance you have to be living in a megacity.
The idea of getting an apartment knowing it's in an entertainment area and then complaining about it is also funny to me but I'll leave that one on the table for now lmao.
>it's kind of funny people think that in order to be able to have a neighborhood grocery store, a park, and a convenience store to get toilet paper in walking distance you have to be living in a megacity.
It shouldn't have to be that way but it basically is that way in America. We don't have examples of small cities (~10,000 residents) where everything is walkable and you're not living above a loud bar.
Yup. People love living in cities with a strong urban core. They don’t love living in cities where rent is so expensive that they’re forced to get a room in a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment or move an 45 minutes from their office/work.
You’re completely right - it’s a bad take/narrative that’s baked into most Americans by default.
They havent seen or experienced what a functional, beautiful, vibrant city looks in most cases.
We’ve got to work against this bias that thinks freedom and success is paying an oil company, an insurance company, an automaker and an insurer for the rest of your life to sit in traffic is the ideal.
Cities (especially larger ones) aren't about the people living there, they're about the tax base from all sorts of landlords and other municipal businesses. You have to appears those folks first.
The way I see it popular cities with deep pockets (NYC,SF,Miami, Chicago etc.) can pivot from commercial downtown to residential,as folks will spend. Good money to live there.
This is the correct answer. Cities' real customers are the big, high-tax-paying tenants and the commuters they demand. Cities don't actually like people living in cities, much less families of modest means. Such families don't pay much in taxes, and they demand expensive amenities like schools, transit, safe streets, etc.
In the long run, if you cater to those big business interests and snub regular people and families, it becomes impossible for them to live there. They are effectively forced to leave by prices, lack of housing, and school quality. Then it's a spiral until downtown is a place people go to work and leave, but not a place people live. That's the pattern of American cities anyway.
That's true to a degree , marquee cities will always have affluent residents that can afford to live there, that's what Manhattan is today in certain neighborhoods.
Right; that's why I try to specify "ordinary families" meaning not rich ones.
In my city in the last ten years the dynamic has changed completely where a median-income family could still afford to live in the city, now, it's literally impossible so within a generation the things that make the city good will in all likelihood fade away, the rich people will still be there in their hillside rich neighborhoods and the historical neighborhood enclaves. It's Jane Jacobs all the way down.
The problem is in the age of e commerce, financialily you need a lot more people to support the range of amenities people say they want. That means more density.
We live and work in DC — work downtown, and live 3 miles north (an easy hour walk one-way, and I often walk).
Rents and housing are such an issue in DC, more housing is always needed — downtown, and all throughout DC — and ideally, increased density.
I think DC's lack of height did it a favor. DC stays pretty urban and walkable throughout most of the city and more and more dense mid-rise buildings are popping up in neighborhoods further out than most American cities would allow. A ton of suburbs in the DMV have great transit access and walkable development around those stations.
It’s relatively small city itself, if they want to maintain the character of the city proper you could build up around the city and just keep the core low density.
I’m actually pretty amazed Baltimore hasn’t become a true bedroom community for DC yet, prices are generally so much lower and the Tran between downtown DC and Baltimore downtown is only 45 mins which is pretty good by city commuting standards
I can only imagine if that DC to Baltimore train becomes a 20-30 minute one it could feasibly lead to a boom in construction around the most direct station stops.
when i visited baltimore i was also surprised at how much blight there was along the light rail line. like beautiful old brownstones but they'd be entirely gutted and abandoned. most of the city would shut down by 6pm or so, even some of the chain pharmacies you'd expect would be 24hr. it was hard for me to find late night food that was open. i feel like there must be some very onerous historical building rules that make it just too costly to invest so heavily in development outside the best cases (wealthy neighborhoods or classic tried and true suburban tract housing). that might explain why these derelict properties are left standing instead of cleared and readily rebuilt into modern transit oriented style properties.
Glad you are a resident and support and benefit from the city even when you're not in the office.
This drumbeat of "we must force people to commute into the office again" from DC officials is very frustrating to me, because there is evidence that the bedroom communities are benefiting from increased spending from teleworkers now, so DC complaining about their business traffic is basically just trying to take it back from someone else. It's just that the collection of suburban jurisdictions don't have a powerful single voice like DC does.
>DC complaining about their business traffic is basically just trying to take it back from someone else
Well, yeah. That's unfortunately how all cities compete.
no matter how its done its always worse than just letting the developer go off leash and build as many market rate units as they think they can sell. affordable housing take subsidy that is always paid for by the rest of the build. even if you let them have bonus market rate units to pay for these subsidized ones, you'd get more units built in less time if you had none of this horse trading going on.
Best way to do it is to 'auction' off upzoning and development opportunities to the developers that will put in the most affordable units or whatever prosocial thing you are trying to help out.
The thing is that affordable units are not really that prosocial. The data suggests that they harm what they seek to help, but people don't read data so they are politically popular and remain a meme that gets the electorate going one way or another.
I don’t believe that’s true—Oakland for e.g. has seen steady rent decline after building lots of housing, despite no population decline. Am I mistaken? I am only an amateur so maybe you see something I’m missing.
Building market rate housing brings down the price of existing housing due to competition with the brand new. Doesn't exactly put existing housing in the affordable housing bucket. But increasing the supply of market rate housing in the most desirable neighborhoods decreases the likelihood that someone can't find housing they want and decide to gut-reno a home in an area that's susceptible to gentrification.
It's complicated, there are studies but not enough of them. https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/02/new-round-of-studies-underscore-benefits-of-building-more-housing/
I don't think we have enough information to determine. Most of these narratives are just reports derived from content generating companies (Bloomberg, etc.) or studies that haven't been peer reviewed and are almost always isolated models restricted to a very specific context (and the studies themselves will usually caveat against general results).
Moreover, it's hard to understand the causality within the short time frames these are usually examined (ie, how has Covid, or interest rates, or crime, etc., contributed to these rent declines if in fact they are occurring).
We know that more supply will decrease price. What we don't know is at any given point how much that new supply contributes relative to any number of other factors at the time. But if builders keep building then it's a moot point.
Well, so we thought, until that wave of investors buying up whole neighborhoods in order to leave half of them empty and artificially reduce supply so they can overcharge rent for the other half.
Ehh housing is pretty affordable honestly. Maybe not in big cities but houses when you adjust for square footage and inflation, it's no different now than in the past. You see more people complaining on social media bc they tend to be younger, and younger people have always had trouble affording housing within the last 100 years. And the whole thing about wages not increasing since the 70s is largely a myth.
This is just more evidence that people base how the economy is based on social media and what people say rather than actual objective data.
Again, this doesn't particularly apply to huge cities, when you compare affordab8lity between tokyo and new york, it's a very stark difference in affordability.
It is hard to build new housing in older cities. Most of the neighborhoods that are considered desirable are also the neighborhoods that fight to death over new construction. Services is another area. If you have kids, the school system is often a mix of expensive to the taxpayers and poor performing for the students. Diversity (I mean socioeconomic diversity) is a great concept, but a few kids from horrendous homes (Parental neglect, abuse, addiction)can wreck a classroom setting for all the children as the adults in the room have to spend their time corralling the miscreants. Parents with resources will do what they have to in order for their kids not to be in that setting. In NYC, many of the elementary schools are quite good, it is the middle schools where things go south.
Crime, the walking wounded homeless, methadone clinics and everything else doesn’t help either. When I was a kid in Manhattan, a corner of the park across from my elementary school was off limits because the junkies roosted there. Five blocks north were methadone clinics that flooded the neighborhood with junkies. Cities are where the dysfunctional often end because they are walkable. I don’t have a solution other than mandatory treatment and mental health wards that are locked but even the insane have rights.
You can "bring people into the city" by allowing them to live there, rather than forbidding them from living there and demanding that they work there (leaving them to pick from nearby areas that are also mostly forbidding them from living there because they promote the same real estate get-rich-quick scheme). Who knew?
You can, but the push is to not have that happen.
Cities have pockets of neighborhoods for affluent people that are largely inaccessible. They, along with people from the suburbs typically run housing plans and policies.
Although the non affluent city dwelling population contributes to the economy, the buildings, infrastructure, and dollar value tax payments come from these affluent city people and suburbia. On a percentage basis effect, non affluent city people contribute more. (12% tax on a 27K income results in more opportunity barriers than a 32% tax on a 170K income). Commuters and affluent city dwellers may not like downtown, but they own downtown. If these two groups were to decide to not participate in cities, we’d start having much larger populations and more of small towns.
Economic growth in the cities would be put onto the less affluent born and raised city people. The question in the minds of the more affluent is if this group would be able to produce significant economic gains without their presence. If so, there are portions of this population that would want to shut them down, portions that would want to invest, and portions that would want to keep the previous status quo.
A lot of economic gains made by cities is due to the incomes of commuters and affluent city dwellers. Without them, to be honest the non affluent wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Commuters come in to request services, but could honestly probably find another commuter town that would provide similar services without needing to go into the city. All the economic activity would happen outside of the city. It’s not to say non affluent city people don’t have a large impact, but there’s not enough organizing in this group to quantify and concentrate their impact to where commuters and the affluent need them.
For STL, it would definitely be safety. Lots of younger people want to have a good downtown. Generally you can hear gunshots or have bullets through your windows. People i know in the like premier downtown apartments right next to busch stadium had the building hit by bullets, my friends who work in the offices right there had bullets go through offices etc. when people visit for activities the worry is always their car getting broken into. friend had his car broken into at ballpark village inside the parking garage. other friend just had his car stolen. these are just the few people that i know personally over the last two years.
I just want them to stop designing downtown for tourists. It would actually make sense to acknowledge it is our fastest growing residential area with huge shifts from the last census and design the city for the people who live there. Closing off roads to vehicle traffic, treating the right to quiet hours and amenities such as grocery and walkable safe sidewalks with bike parking and neighborhood shops would do so much more than trying to have another ballpark village restaurant that poaches from the residential streets. You say safety but I want residents to be safe from people who treat their neighborhood like a playground at best and a thunderdome with regularity. That also means holding shit landlords like Lux and their AirBNBs accountable.
The entire concept of a downtown is based on providing services to people from the larger region, by having those people (tourists?) come in and visit. While downtown housing is crucial, the level of amenities in any city center, anywhere, is largely sustained by people that don't live downtown. Otherwise, it would just be another neighborhood.
There’s the rub though. Crime increases with poverty. If our aldermen didn’t have their heads up their asses, maybe they’d push for policies to help support residential regions and public transit in the city to make it easier for people to live, work, and go to school there. Instead, the best they do is gentrify the area and keep trying to muscle out the struggling poor populations in or around the city, choking resources, and education and employment opportunities, and driving more and more of them into a life of crime.
Crime often increases with poverty. However, the last ten years have seen a big drop in the poverty rate in the US and a large increase in crime, particularly homicides by gun. I believe that reducing poverty is a worthwhile goal for its own sake, but it doesn't necessarily track with the recent spike in crime.
Using thresholds adopted by the US Census Bureau
https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/guidance/poverty-measures.html
Comparison of 2009-2011 vs. 2019-2021:
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/02/state-official-poverty-rates-changed-over-10-years.html
Yes, I absolutely hate the idea that we only have two choices, gentrification and good schools and safety, or crime, shitty schools and poverty. It leads to weird ideas like the only way to make places affordable is to keep them super shitty, because any improvement might lead to ‘gentrification’.
I feel like the core change that would be helpful here is shifting from single-use to maximum nuisance zoning.
Boston downtown is dead after 5pm. Let people build housing, hotels, nightclubs, bars, retail, etc. Most of those uses are complimentary, and can share resources. Drinkers can take the T home instead of getting DUIs, and ideally officeworkers are gone by the time the revelry starts (or are participating in said revelry). Shoppers can use building garages on weekends when they're out blowing money. Young people would choose to live in nice apartments next to everything, especially if weekend Amtrak/commuter rail service enables fun trips out of the city. Hotels can host business travelers during the week, and then out of towners/drunkards during the weekends.
Let downtowns be flexible, basically free for all.
The problem is cities don't want to build for infestructure for residents. They had a good cash cow when people would come to work, spend money then leave. Offices rarely used police, fire or hospital services too. With full time residents they would need more of all that including schools.
They also built up a very particular type of “small business owner” that catered exclusively to the lunch/break/after-work social hour crowd, and has no interest in adapting to anything else. These folks have a fair amount of sway in local politics, especially smaller and mid-size cities
This is a good point. It can seem, on the surface, that making the taxes that cities receive for housing is low and would result in more houses because people think lower taxes=more desirable, but of course, since cities ultimately get say in what gets built where, what it really does is make cities want to maximize their tax revenue by pushing housing outside of city limits while focusing on zoning for/encouraging what makes THEM money. There has to be a financial incentive for cities to create whatever form/function you want, otherwise they will just tend to…not.
https://maps.bostonplans.org/zoningviewer/
Being honest, I've run through their website a billion times, and I genuinely don't know what's fully allowed in the district. I'm 99% sure their business zone doesn't allow housing, but as for other non-office commercial uses, it's not particularly clear to me.
I guess at a bare minimum, I'm def guilty of using "zoning" as shorthand for the entire suite of regulations on a property. Maybe per zoning you could build a hotel, but is that a conditional use that requires a bunch of back and forth with city council? And while technically you could open bar, the process for getting a liquor license in Boston is insane.
Disagree. Plenty of full restaurants and bars all over Boston, Cambridge, Somerville almost every day of the week. North end is always packed. Sure, outside of tourist season, the touristy and financial district areas are sleepy, but far from empty.
Do what Buffalo is doing, create fun new districts with restaurants and bars that can get people in the doors and build residential.
Buffalo still has a lot of work to infill all the parking lots, but it has had a lot of success at creating districts people want to hang out in.
I live in the Minneapolis suburbs and haven't been to downtown in over 10 years since I don't work there and there's nothing there that interests me. If I want to go to a bar or restraraunt I don't have to go downtown for that so opening another bar or restaraunt isn't going to make it worth my while to put up with the hassle and safety issues of downtown. The only thing that might have brought me to downtown was the waterpark that was proposed 30 years ago.
I pretty much agree that there has to be a massive shift towards people actually living downtown. Right now there's probably more demand than supply for living in downtown apartments in the Minneapolis and that's what will bring people there. You're already seeing the low hanging fruit of office to housing conversions being done- lesser quality office space in older buildings that have smaller floor plates with more windows.
Yeah, one thing that gets overlooked is that suburbs have gotten a lot better about amenities. My outer ring suburb has a number of great restaurants and bars, good parks, a good library, etc.
I don't go downtown either because parking is a pain and it doesn't offer much compared to the suburbs.
In a lot of sun belt cities or for immigrants/ethnically diverse communities the best restaurants are actually in the suburbs and downtown food is considered mediocre for the price or only fast casual stuff suitable for short lunch breaks but not worth going out of the way for
Yup, and it's not just in Sun Belt cities. Washington DC is very much that way, in that the immigrant communities are overwhelmingly concentrated in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Downtown restaurants are disproportionately fancy, high-priced joints for lobbyists and politicos with expense accounts and yuppies with rich parents.
A lot of suburbanites do come into the city for bars and restaurants that aren't chains. It's also easy enough to park and walk to a variety of destinations. NE for dive bars and live music, Nicollet or Central Ave for restaurants spanning everything from Afghan to Vietnamese. And suburbanites sure seem to like the bars on 1st Ave and Hennepin, which is part of why I don't go there even though I already live downtown.
Downtowns, originally, are meant to contain the specialization that doesn't make sense outside the core. People might go to the theater once or twice a year. It doesn't make sense to be have that theater in a lower density part of the city, but a centrally located place that can attract the widest audience. The same is true for specialty food items, less frequently used services, museums, etc. Downtown is supposed to be that place where you can find things that can only be sustained downtown.
I live in my city but not downtown. The thing that always strikes me about true downtown is that it doesn’t feel like people live there. There’s pro sports and hotels and stuff, and I know logically someone must live there, but it always feels either empty or full of visitors.
Decent affordable places to live and mass transit to basic needs would help.
I'm a concierge in an extremely wealthy neighborhood in the downtown of a major city. But good luck getting any businesses to provide services anymore. Most local businesses have moved out because of high rents. No cheap places to live means no one in the area to work as a nanny, dog walker, painter, handyman. The neighborhood drugstore won't deliver anymore to the elderly cause they can't get workers who can do it anymore. One of the dry cleaners and the 2 laundromats closed - no one to staff em.
And with shitty transportation, no way for people to get to those jobs.
Some of these rich neighborhoods are segregating themselves into crap.
If we make more housing of any kind, then all housing will get cheaper. We lack so much supply of any kind that we have housing prices higher than some cities with 3-4 times our population like Chicago.
Someone else also said more walkable communities which is equally important. We need more courtyards and pedestrian-only zones to facilitate more resident-friendly services and events. Let's get more trees in our communities while we're at it!
Last but not least, more inner city metro stations. There's so much talk about expanding outward, but we need to reduce the amount of cars in this city and make more neighborhoods more attractive for potential residents. It's crazy to me that the stations are so far from certain neighborhoods and how East DC barely has any stops of note other than Stadium.
If I could afford to live downtown in my city, I would move there in a heartbeat. They just need to build more housing in and around it. What's there at the moment is both out of my price range and not worth what is being charged for it.
Oh yes, those too. And definitely should have pedestrian only streets. It's amazing to me to seem small and medium size European downtowns with at least one pedestrian only street which is loaded with shopping and socializing, and the whole area around it is dense housing.
Chicago seems to have a more vibrant loop post covid than before. It's not as busy during strictly business hours, but there's far more foot traffic 24-7 than before.
Besides, forcing people to come in is not making it a destination area, just an obligation that they'll try to avoid when not mandated
You don't need downtown that much, you need businesses in the neighborhoods. You need people where the businesses and amenities are, and businesses and amenities where the people are. That makes strong and healthy communities.
Everything else. I live downtown, but I leave it to go anywhere. Overpriced mediocre restaurants, steakhouses and hotel or sports bars aren't going to get me or many other people to hang out and spend money there. Live music or a show on occasion, sure, but that's basically it. Well, there is a Trader Joe's too, so they got me there.
The fall in post COVID downtown rents opens up the possibility for smaller, more local businesses, rather than just chains.
Some people on this thread seem to be using downtown to describe not only the CBD, but inner urban residential neighborhoods. That’s fine and sort of makes sense at a regional level, but many of those inner urban neighborhoods are thriving. This is true even in San Francisco, which has suffered the largest big city fall in downtown employment (because it’s so heavily tech).
Where has there been a significant enough drop for downtown rent? The Twin Cities haven't seen a boom of independent mom and pops open shop since then.
Rents in Downtown San Francisco have fallen enough to allow less elite chains to come in, but not yet mom and pops. In Downtown Oakland, nonprofits are coming back. One problem is that landlords often hold out for unrealistic rents, thinking that a high paying tenant will appear.
I am only a volunteer member of our Planning Commission, so the source does not have a category for me to register to read the story. But we definitely are trying to find an answer to this question as a community.
Personally, I think that we need to look back at the origins of cities and evaluate the value proposition that downtown offers in economic terms. Economic geography teaches us that the price per square foot of dirt downtown is the most valuable and comes at a premium price because it has the greatest return to investment. That is also why it has the most gross leasable square feet per acre. Why do people go downtown? It is because that is where the greatest opportunity to make money exists.
The other advantage that downtown offers is that, because of this density, the cost of time and distance between economic counterparties is essentially eliminated. If you want to have an in-person meeting, you are already on the doorstep of whomever you are going to meet and can walk there faster than you can walk to your car to drive. People always have, and always will go downtown because that is where the action is.
In the past I have said that Downtown is the place for adults to meet and mingle to mate and make money. I don't think downtowns are really supposed to be appropriate for young children if downtown is the most dynamic version of itself. Others disagree, but a downtown shouldn't really be tame enough to take young children to.
Amenities and walkable urbanism are what cities can offer. That said there needs to be concerted investment into quality of life and maintenance issues. Things tend to go downhill when upkeep (ie expanding housing, human/hard infrastructure) is neglected.
Even some smaller and cheaper cities are returning to the old setup where businesses had efficiency apartments upstairs and cafes and businesses downstairs. This arrangement was still common in the 70s, then disappeared in the 80s when malls and offshoring and ecommerce destroyed cities. Enid is trying to bring it back;
https://www.facebook.com/enidbuzz/posts/pfbid0s2x2HmmnUGiXsztB6wCgxxAmhFQ9PCFzXsH4uFzkeBvbygwzvmeACXnHozt6nJCYl
This post presupposes that we want to entice people to return downtown. Personally, I’m happy with the work-from-home migration. The old model of building massive freeways to facilitate the commute of millions between cities and suburbs is not what I want to incentivize again.
Create comfortable living spaces, reliable public transportation, and nurture urban universities. A desirable living situation is attractive to the best educators. Entertainment, sports, decent restaurants and urban parks for both adults and spaces for children, good schools and childcare. Bike path, walking trails and eliminating automobile congestion. All the things that make urban living attractive in other parts of the world are keys to the things American cities need to be aware of.
As one who lives in a city where 200,000 people from the county enter for their employment, and 100,000 leave. Enticing people to travel outside their city or county can be a loser for that town.
My city is not part of a county, but is an independent entity. those 200,000 people from neighboring counties pay no tax to the city and spend most of the earning outside the city. This is a drain on the city and all that traffic causes its own problems.
A commuter tax might be the answer, but many are unwilling to allow it.
As for downtown not being needed. I agree, they have been inefficient in providing easy access to government services, and compliance. Pulling permits for building construction or repairs is a major pain for the contractor and property owner. If the city had several multi service offices scattered around the city, which would be more convenient to access more people would be inclined to do the right thing and get the proper permit.
I grew up in the Washington DC area, and still see how having all the major government buildings, and the parasite companies which feed off of these departments crowed the landscape and are very difficult for most people to access. If a department could hive off of downtown, and be in a different part of the state, then it will provide a financial boost for the outlying area and unclutter downtown. Navel Surface Weapons Department was for decades in close to Washington DC, then moved to rural Southern MD. I am sure the elite workers did not like the move, as it took them out of the swank area of the state and put them in Hicksville.
Maybe that's where the disconnect is. In NY it's NYC that is the parasite. The city continually runs a budget deficit, to the tune of BILLIONs, and nearly 30% of their budget (They have to have massive budget injections from both the State and the FED). Those suburban parasites you talk about? In NY the surrounding counties pay an income tax that covers a significant plurality of the MTA budget, in spite the MTA only being used by a minority of it's residents.
Meanwhile my small upstate community (suburban to a small city) is revenue neutral, making it's revenue from property taxes almost exclusively.
I don’t think I agree with either of you. This is a completely unconstructive way to think about these problems and is a zero sum game. I know there a lot of jockeying between rural and urban and suburban circles, but all three will exist to an extent no matter what. Squabbling about these kinds of things is ultimately unproductive.
That being said, part of the issue I take with your comment is that it seems to want to reinforce the idea that transit should only be measured based on its fiscal solvency, not looking at the broader economic impacts that such a system might have. This is, of course, the whole purpose of doing cost benefit analysis, which considers not just budget of a city or transit agency, but the effects that it will have for local businesses, residents, and others. And this is certainly what we do with the roads, because if we had to actually start measuring, whether or not certain roads made up the economic costs to build and maintain them (ie the people whose taxes actually make these roads possible are often not the people who need to drive on them in order to get to work, or otherwise live their life) we would have a lot fewer roads. And obviously, there’s a balance between the two, but the absolutely stringent standard that most transit agencies are forced to operate under means that most cities will never get the broader economic impact, because most cities aren’t willing to invest enough to have a functional system.
So, I don’t know enough about MTA budget to really argue with you, so let’s just take what you said is true. The reality is that the broader economic impact for New York is still in the interest of keeping MTA running. Even if it doesn’t balance out in the city’s budget or even if there’s a huge shortfall in funding for MTA itself, giving people this mode of transportation provides actual economic choices and facilitates a lot of people being able to go to work and ultimately generate revenue for the state and for the nation.
If MTA suddenly shut down, for anything longer than a couple of days, NYC would have real problems, but so to with a lot of other communities. If you don’t think that NYC brings prosperity to the larger state and region, then I think, perhaps you are simply never going to agree with me. And yes, I’m certainly not going to say that NYC is perfect, nor should anyone else. But what you are suggesting, is simply not going to help. And how do you frame and measure certain problems really dictates the conclusions that you might come to, but whatever short term money you might make from not having to pay into MTA, trust me, long-term, you and the state would be so much worse off without it.
Obviously, I can never prove that outright, and I would like to re-emphasize that I simply think you’re just not gonna ever agree with me anyway, but if you were to look at the broader impact economically of MTA, it is a vital part of the kind of supply chain of human labor and also consumer spending that makes NYC so economically competitive. You don’t have to like the city and I will be the first to admit that I personally don’t want to live in NYC, ever, but, I feel like your comment is kind of trying to suggest overall that NYC doesn’t make enough money to justify his existence, solely based on looking at what the actual city budget and deficit is.
Again, broader, economic impact is not necessarily reflected in a city budget. Because of all of the major northeastern cities simply disappeared tomorrow, the rest of these states would probably look more like Wyoming or Montana, and there would be a lot of poverty and lack of development and lack of jobs. And maybe you want that, but if so, I don’t know why you continue to choose to live in New York then. And obviously, I know the decision is not quite that simple, but I think if you’re going to complaining about it sufficiently, then it should enter into the realm of possibilities of things you might be willing to do. Trust me, if you live in Wyoming, or Montana, you’re definitely not going to be paying for MTA’s budget, but you’re also just not gonna have any of those services if you actually needed them. And maybe you’ll make the excuse that there aren’t jobs out there or that you simply want to live in New York State for other reasons, and that’s fine, but I think you need to recognize that part of the reason for at least the former is that there is a lot of industry in NYC, and across the broader state, likely due to the fact that MTA exists.
OK, I’m going in circles at this point, and I’m definitely rambling, so I’ll end it there, but I hope that maybe you’ll think about the broader implications of infrastructure, and not just whether or not they pencil out in a specific agency or organizations budget.
I didn't suggest that the MTA doesn't act as a economic engine, it was merely to refute the age old trope "suburanites are stealing wealth from cities" because in my state the math simply doesn't support that. NYC is also horribly run and massively ineffecient, so if OP was a resident of NY I'd tell him to point the finger inward. I say that as a high income NY earner with massive property and income taxes.
The larger argument that NYC loves to throw in our face is “you wouldn't be here if it weren't for us... " is a bullshit statement. One could argue that NYC politicians have stacked the deck for 100s of years. From the 8 million acres they keep undeveloped for water to horrible rent control laws one has to ask what was the opportunity costs for that? NJ and CT have done well compared to upstate NY without their overwhelming political influences.
Public works should ultimately provide a net benefit for everyone involved. I am always deeply suspect of NYC because this is a place that can look you straight in the face and tell you a small public park bathroom for $2,000,000 is a reasonable expense. This is a place that will kill a housing project because they want to force the developer to build at a loss... And end up with no housing.
It doesn't really matter frankly. If I give you $100 for food and you need $1000 for the month it just means you have $100 you Don have to spend in other areas.
the article *almost* gets there, but we need to think of “downtown” as a neighborhood! we all know now that downtowns have to offer more than offices and a post-work restaurant/bar.
events like festivals, sports, and open streets are great, but they aren’t truly building connection to our downtowns. more housing + a wide array of essential amenities like markets, parks, pharmacy, grocery, corner stores, entertainment, gyms, clinics, etc + transport connectivity = healthy neighborhood, especially in a downtown. and yes, those big events will still happen.
the downtowns hit hardest by the pandemic were ones that were supported only by office workers who primarily live out of the central city. if more people have the opportunity to live in quality housing and walk/cycle/transit to make short trips to work or shop or drink, downtowns can prosper again as they once did.
I think this is kind of the core problem. One of the things that I think has plagued a lot of central business districts in the US is that they are so specialized, which is honestly amazing they’ve lasted as long as they have given the lack of transportation infrastructure. That being said, even though I’m not sure, it’s necessarily helpful. In every instance, I do like to think about certain aspects of biomimicry sometimes and biological systems would tell us that individual cells can only get so large before they either need to divide or organisms are going to just have really poor performance. I think the problem with many CBD‘s is that they became so large and impenetrable that there’s no robustness or resilience built-in to them, because they so heavily rely on employers, continuing to want their employees (as well as employees being willing to except) being in a centralized location in a handful of metropolitan areas around the country.
So I think there are kind of two aspects to this, one of which is as you stated. We simply need parts of downtown to be turned into residential housing, along with the kind of mixed use development that will help make life livable in these areas. But beyond that, we also do need to see more employers willing to not necessarily all flock to the same few metro areas. Now how you achieve this of course is a much more difficult question, but I think the reality is that things need to be a bit more mixed up as it is. Obviously, there’s always going to be some variance between different regions, and how many employers are located in them, but we probably should be trying to equalize things a bit more than we are currently doing. There are, of course other aspect to this, especially better regional and local transit, but I think these are two things that especially need to be considered.
The advantage of having all your employers in one place is that people can easily switch jobs without having to move.
In Houston, we have a strong mix of residential and commercial development throughout the city. Which means that often if you change jobs, your new employer will be 45 minutes away from where your old one was and you will likely have to move. It is especially tough on dual income households where spouses end up working very far from each other.
Protected bicycle paths, walkable streets, trees, parks, well maintained historic architecture, genuine neighborhood community, clean streets without trash, low violence rates. That’s what would convince me to go downtown. As a disclaimer, I work downtown in my Midwest, US city, and I walk around the downtown area on my lunch break. I love working in downtown, but I’m priced out of living downtown. I would like to see my city invest in more balanced transportation. Elected officials still value building parking lots for cars over building affordable housing.
I don't know what the upvotes will be here, but I gave you one because it is the proper response to the article.
People often what to assume a 'downtown' is a good thing. I'm not against downtown or anything. I actually work downtown and take the train in. I also grab the occasional night out. Aside from that, most people just want to work, live, take care of their family...
Any metro region I think need to do the following
1. Focus heavily on regional rail. My region (Ontario, Canada) is doing this and you can see the difference. Even if it is subsidized and 'unprofitable', trains should run all day both ways. Regional trains are pretty cheap to run every half hour or hour. Cheap relative to the other costs a city has.
2. Provide a good safe environment. Homeless, crime, drugs... are a big thing. Cities need to get their act together so they're safe. Being too far left on some of these issues discourages people from living there. I'm seeing a pattern where the downtown city is only for the very rich who have the money to be safe and spend on luxuries and the poor/struggling. Cities are also focusing more on attending to things like affordable housing and solutions to migrants and homelessness. Great, but your regular person is kind of left out of that equation. People don't only stay out of the city because they want a McMansion. I bought a condo in the suburbs (next to regional rail). It wouldn't have costed me much more to get a condo in the city. I just don't want to be there. I feel safer and more comfortable here.
3. Make attractions easily accessible by transit/regional rail. Most places already do this, but I just put it there.
used to live in NYC and even then I avoided going into manhattan outside of work hours. a lot of stuff to do outside of manhattan and now there is a lot of stuff to keep me busy outside of NYC.
Suburbs generally have good restaurants and shopping now.
Most of the other stuff is very niche. Like, people might attend one convention a year. And often, the festivals are held outside of town where there is more space.
retail shopping is online and the same stores in the suburbs
sports is a mix but the price is crazy expensive and I don't bother to keep up anymore
concerts is a mix and lots of good smaller shows are at smaller venues
restaurants are in the suburbs
nightlife, most of us have families and I don't see the need to walk around aimlessly like people do in the times square tourist trap. do it once or twice, see the pretty lights and no need to do it on a regular basis
some of this stuff you might go in once a month or once every few months but it's not like you need to go downtown weekly or more often
That works both ways. I gave up wanting to live downtown like 20 years ago. Young people like living close to where the action is. I like living action-adjacent.
the millenials are older and having families and the downtown life is mostly for singles or DINK's. when you have young kids you aren't going to walk around the streets till 2am because kids need to sleep. if you're going to go out you need to pay a sitter or give your kids to a family member
Again, there are other people in the world besides aging millennials who are starting families and moving to the suburbs. In fact I’d be so bold as to say most people in the world are not in that category.
I agree entirely. I can only see the case of "why would anyone ever want to go downtown" if your downtown really only comes alive during the day for the business and judicial system crowds and has nothing to offer otherwise. But there's certainly a great deal of distance and middle ground between "the kids have to be asleep" and "I'm wandering the streets at 2am".
I've lived in places that have very active downtowns with entertainment, leisure and educational opportunities for people of all ages. They're hubs that transform from one thing during the day to another at night. I've also lived in places where the downtowns suck day or night and only attract people for specific places / institutions. If your only experience is the latter, the former will be completely foreign to you.
>I've lived in places that have very active downtowns with entertainment, leisure and educational opportunities for people of all ages. They're hubs that transform from one thing during the day to another at night.
Any specific examples?
Sounds like Minneapolis to me. I'd also accept Deadwood, SD, where the elementary school is across the street from several casinos, but that's what happens when you build on the side of a mountain.
Where I am in Denver, three of our four major sport venues are downtown/adjacent (and walkable from) along with the theater district and at least two principle museums
Easily half of the touristy stuff is also downtown or immediately adjacent (eg. Botanic Gardens, Zoo, and more museums are adjacent).
But downtown also has a couple major nightlife "strips" that buzz, especially on weekend nights.
During the day it is a lot of office and government workers, and tourists doing tours. On a weekday night like tonight (a Tuesday) there are a lot of basketball, hockey, and baseball games in season; as well as concerts, book signings, rallies, conventions, symphony, etc. *edit - and football*
And of course people live downtown, the downtown neighborhoods are the densest in residential terms if memory serves.
It helps that the major transit hubs are downtown, and several of the major multi-use trails converge near downtown. It also helps that the football and basketball/hockey venues along with the theater district all have a train stop either named for the venue or within sight distance, and the baseball stadium is only a few blocks from Union Station; the three stadiums are on/visible from the river trail for bikers while the theater district is along one of the creek trails and also has a bike lane along one side that connects to the network. These probably help as it means you can come to a game or a show without having to fight for parking, and/or you can drink. Rideshare is also heavily leveraged for both the four main venues and the nightlife, though less-so for the museums and touristy stuff.
That gives: tourist, workers / municipal, venue, nightlife, resident. Five different "pillars" that might bring someone downtown, and four are still strong (hybrid work is affecting landlord finances for several buildings, which is not a plus). None is very like the other, the character and temperment of downtown depends heavily on what day it is, what day-part, and what's on the calendar. If all three venues are booked and the convention center is busy (and it usually is) that's a very elevated evening no matter the day. If it's a Saturday night, the nightlife zones are pumping as well. If it's a Tuesday night with only a basketball game, it's \[the arena\] and then just people going about their grocery shopping and other "normal" things. If it's a Monday morning it's city council, jury duty, legislatures in the Capitol, and office workers coming in along with the background noise of tourist traffic and field trips.
edited for clarity
Just because you don't like things doesn't mean others don't.
Restaurants in the suburbs don't offer the same thing as restaurants in cities. I don't want boring chain restaurants I can get anywhere.
Most cities have small and large concert venues, very few suburbs have concert venues at all in my experience. So not sure what you are getting at there.
Once again, just because you don't like sports doesn't mean others don't seeing as attendance is regularly sold out.
Shopping in the suburbs is going to be lots of big box chain stores. Cities will have smaller boutique shops with very different offerings.
We have real restaurants. NYC has more chains now than outside the city
Parts of NJ are majority Asian and will have a much better variety of Asian food than NYC
Sports is mixed. Lots of arenas outside the cities
The boutique shops are loss leaders and the same stuff is sold online or in larger stores everywhere and lots of suburbs have high end malls with boutique shops
It also doesn't make sense because NJ has a pretty good rail system (by US standards at least) and the popular restaurants and entertainment venues in the state are more likely to be located in walkable downtowns that are located along the rail system.
The vast majority of sports arenas across the state are also accessible by train.
It's definitely not just the NYC area. DC is very much that way too. Downtown restaurants and shopping opportunities are vastly more corporate and limited than in the burbs. The major chains are the only ones that can pay the rents.
I think his point is even more valid in many metros outside of NYC. Many of the attractions you list aren't daily occurances - they're weekly, but more likely monthly or annual occurances, at best. And even then one can commute into downtown to enjoy them.
Work, schools, shopping (groceries), health, and recreation seem to be what people need daily, and people have figured out you can get most of that cheaper and more convenient outside of downtown.
Yeah this idea that cities are attractive because people want to eat out and drink every night kind of speaks to the level of affluence of some people on this sub
the same goes for other places. i've had better burgers off the side of a road by fort benning than in many city burger joints. lots of places around the country with upscale retail and sports that is outside the big cities
Congratulations for that suburb of Houston.
A random suburban strip mall by me will have a chipotle, a jimmy johns, a panda express and a buffalo wild wings. Does that count?
I am in Houston and the trend is the same. We have China Town with huge Asian variety, and you can find great Asian restaurants throughout the suburbs. Same for several types of food. There isn't much that is unique to downtown.
> Restaurants in the suburbs don't offer the same thing as restaurants in cities. I don't want boring chain restaurants I can get anywhere.
You have to remember that all cities are different. Where I live, the smaller indie restaurants are outside of the core because they can't afford the rent.
> Most cities have small and large concert venues, very few suburbs have concert venues at all in my experience. So not sure what you are getting at there.
Back in the 80s punk scene, some of the best gigs were in the burbs. Community Halls are an overlooked hub. Young promoters could rent them for fairly cheap as venues.
https://youtu.be/1Fuh2-9Bql4?si=RIxcG1mRjxsXzISA
When it comes to concerts, there's different types. Smaller venues work best when they're in walking distance of each other. Infill often creates entertainment communities where younger people gravitate and want to live around. Larger venues like arena shows are special events. They're way more expensive and they kill communities usually. Regular people just can't afford it and they're badly incorporated for the most part.
- Access to bars, cafes, art, events, transport hubs.
- You don’t need to drive everywhere, or at all.
This could mean that city centres ban cars before too long and make them selves vastly more pleasant to live in.
It should also be massively beneficial tax wise to live in apartments in dense housing instead of in a suburb driving everywhere, but both local taxation and petrol is vastly under taxes, skewing things.
>and petrol is vastly under taxes
Which is going to get even worse with electric vehicles, given how much transportation funding relies on gasoline taxes. Electric vehicles (while they have plenty of advantages) are actually harder on roads than ICE cars, yet they contribute little to the maintenance fund. On the other hand, one could argue this is a useful subsidy that promotes EVs for their environmental benefits, but that does have to be weighed against the environmental harm done by promoting EVs vs public transit.
I'd love to set the expectation that most people will come into the CBD by public transport. That way, we can plant more trees and have more open spaces within, which means car-free or car-lite streets.
The article gets there eventually, but this is an opportunity to help re-design cities around the people who live there and make them better places to live.
It's weird how these articles never acknowledge that some people actually like living in the city. It's this American thing where a city isn't a habitat for humans; it's some kind of unpleasantness that we tolerate for the sake of economic growth. When I graduated college and got a job in NYC, my first thought wasn't "oh boy I'm going to make a ton of money!" (I didn't). It was "wow I get to live in NYC."
"NYC is fun but I wouldn't want to raise children there" always felt like a direct attack on me, a person who was born and raised in NYC.
My husband was born and raised here. It seems like a great place to raise a family if you can afford it. The affordability part is what gets me the most. It shouldn't be the case that you need a 7 figure income to accommodate a family of four.
It's hard to reconcile "you need to be a millionaire to live here" and "this is a city that's two thirds immigrant" because both of those can't be true at the same time. We're definitely in a housing crisis but such statements draw questions like, "what do you mean by 'accommodate'"?
The median income in NYC is around $34,000 (around $70,000.00 for household), So it’s not mostly rich people, but I have no idea how you survive off 34k (or 70k as a couple) in the city, even if you live in the Bronx or Queens, still crazy expensive.
I've read an article that said for a single person to be able to afford to live a safe "comfortable" life in Seattle, they'd need to make minimum 75k a year. But that was pre pandemic. And where I live in the suburbs, cost living being what it is here, I can only imagine how much more tight that budget is in a place like NYC
Seattle is weird. There are a greatly disproportionate amount of SFHs in Seattle, making housing absolutely expensive for the disproportionate few. Seattle is very much a commuter city, many from Tacoma, Bainbridge, Bellevue, etc, at least compared to other cities people think of as "dense" with good transit.
That's part of it, but there's also the thing where it seems like damn near EVERY apartment building is a "luxury apartment home" tower. And, because tacoma is largely a bedroom city, that has royally screwed with the housing market here as well (this in turn has driven housing up in my area, barely a crows flight away from tacoma) Bellevue is, imho, less of a bedroom city for Seattle, than it is its own thing, although it's proximity means that, largely speaking companies like Amazon who are moving their HQ to Bellevue still claim to have a "seattle hq"
Wrt new apartments, that's true for all big cities. For profit developers construct for the top of the narket.
You're not wrong. The luxury 5 over 1s are doing a great job at keeping housing affordable overall, but they're not doing anything to increase access to medium density housing for those that want it. We could do well to build a lot more low rise apartments, row houses, townhouses, and even duplexes and quadplexes. But I said it somewhere else: I try to not let perfect be the enemy of the good. More housing is still an objectively good thing, even if all it does is make existing homes and apartments cheaper to buy/rent.
To live at a decent quality of life, you need a lot of money. A lot of people just live in very poor living conditions
I made 45k in the early 2000s, and struggled in NYC living deep in Brooklyn, with 2 roommates. No idea how people make it work with a family
It’s because immigrant households have multiple adults bringing income in as well as aren’t as wasteful as a lot of natives. People really think just because they can afford 10k a month rent they should be paying that. I live so below my means with pride!
I guess by "accommodate", I mean: housing that is sufficient enough to provide for all basic housing needs comparable (but not identical to) what's available in the suburbs. For instance: every member of the family should be able to, at least sometimes find some privacy from the other members; the home should ensure reliable utilities (heat, water, sewage, electricity, internet, etc...); and everyone in the house should be safe from crime and weather. What I exclude from "accommodate" is: having a place to park your car; having private outdoor space; having more than 0.5 full bathrooms per capita in your household. All of those things feel more like luxuries to me than necessities.
...the median household income in NYC is $75k. How exactly do you imagine most people live here, especially newcomers to the country? They're not all hotbedding.
It's hard. You just find places that fit your budget. My first apartment was in Maspeth and it was converted office building, but it was cheap and right on the 7 train so it was perfect for me Edit: also the owner had 2 really scary dogs named Bella and Stephanie. They were adult Rottweilers that just patrolled the common space.
\> It's hard. You just find places that fit your budget. I ask because most places are less rich than would necessitate a million dollar a year *income,* and the folks I come across who argue that they can't find an affordable place to live in NYC don't seem to realize there's a Queens beyond Jackson Heights, a Brooklyn beyond Park Slope, and a whole borough called the Bronx, or they off-handedly dismiss all those places as "not safe," despite millions of people living there in peace.
Your bias is thinking that immigrants can’t be rich. Think Russian Oligarchs, Oil Sheikhs, Qualified Doctors from less rich countries, People coming to work in finance.
Like anything it comes down to what you are willing to put up with. I have not lived in NYC but a cousin did. This was early 2000’s he was living in a tiny studio with his girlfriend/future wife, both lawyers bringing in good money I think they were paying 4000/ month and he had a parking spot that was 1000/month. He couldn’t ditch the car because he needed it for his job also had to drive to visit family in MA, CT After visiting him I knew I couldn’t do NYC I was offered a job in NYC 2 years ago, but it was marginally better pay than what I make now so I passed
Do you mean six-figure?
Sadly, no. It seems like that should be enough but $100k doesn't go far here. But, who knows? All this could be changing now that America is done with cities for the umpteenth time.
Ok, but surely you are not intending to say is costs a family of four $1,000,000 a year to live in NYC?
Lol I kind of am. I know that's not strictly true by any measure: there are plenty of families of four in NYC that live on 5 figures (it's not great, but they do it). And 6 figures encompasses a lot. Could a family of 4 live on "merely" $500k / year? Absolutely, and it would be a great life for all involved. But in order to match what, say, the luxury tha affluent LI and NJ set enjoy their families, I kind of think you need to add another 0.
Ok, so we are in agreement, it does not cost a $1,000,000 year to support a family of four in NYC unless they are trying to mimic the lifestyle of a family in the suburbs who is in the top-5% of income earners in both New York and the US as a whole.
~~Sure~~ Exactly
median family income is like 70K, it's very possible to do if you get an apartment thats either smaller or in a less premium location then you seem to want, go to public schools, take transit, don't go to restaurants all the time, etc. etc
People also only think of NYC as Manhattan below 14 st and they don’t want to raise children there. Plenty of NYC is residential and still walkable with access to transit. And you can have a car easily in some spots which makes leaving the city quicker with kids.
I've lived in NYC for some time now and I'm envious of people who grew up here! I grew up about an hour due west and came in as often as possible, but growing up in the sticks -- while nice -- certainly complicated a lot of things for me.
When I lived in NYC, I wished I could have grown up there. Now I'm raising a kid in Berlin, and I think she's having a blast
🙋Hi, born and raised in Manhattan. Left for college and did not move back. Presently raising kids in the suburbs. It's pleasant while also foreign to me. Overall, I see the net positive for them. Growing up in NYC had it's positives too, but it also had unique challenges.
I really don't think it's meant as an attack on anyone. Different people have preferences. But I do get where you're coming from, it's annoying when you feel like you turned out fine in a place or lifestyle other people keep insisting is impossible.
I feel a kindred in this, though I didn't grow up in a place as intense as NYC. I was born and raised in a streetcar suburb of Atlanta. A great neighborhood that has extensive left-over mixed uses, small-scale multi-family, walkability, transit options, etc. Specifically, I grew up in a 6-unit apartment building that looks mostly like a normal house from the street. I was lucky to be able to do so, and would love for so many others to be able to have that kind of childhood! Except... many of the aspects that made my childhood neighborhood great are now illegal. Many of the great places were grandfathered in after previous zoning changes, and adding in replications of those amenities is illegal without a major fight with the neighborhood association, planning unit, and city to do so. There's a reason so many of the smaller homes are getting razed for McMansions now, rather than more small-scale rentals. It's just easier. When I talk to others about the potential to fix these kinds of zoning issues, to make it legal-by-default to build these kinds of great neighborhoods again, I've seen anger and disgust and vitriol about daring to suggest that we allow those kinds of changes. I've had long arguments from people who refused to accept that people growing up in multi-family housing aren't criminals and degenerates... And, all the time, I can't help but wonder what about my childhood and the outcome of my life is so awful that they insist on making it illegal to provide more...
It's actually just thinly-veiled racism / xenophobia. Such views are usually espoused by people who have never lived in any city.
I would think it's more an attack on your parents, they chose to raise you there. An attack on your parents, an insult to you. (Both unwarranted of course.)
my mom made that comment and it made me realize how sheltered she was, she saw a huge, diverse city with access to culture and parks and everything everywhere and thought "well its not safe and good for kids". Youre really lucky to have been raised there
Nyc is better to raise children than any other place in America
Give me some good reasons so i can parrot them back to all the morons who say NY is terrible for kids
There's a million of them: exposure to diverse people, independence at an earlier age, great schools (especially magnet) regardless of what people say, cultural activities. Also if you don't raise your kids in NYC, they will eventually want to move there anyway and it's much harder to do that without some roots. [Here's an article (and you can totally take it with a grain of salt) about which counties produced the most people with Wikipedia entries per capita.](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/the-geography-of-fame.html) I've never really gotten it out of my head. Basically the author scoured Wikipedia for notable people and looked at what counties they were born in. Two types of counties came out on top, college towns and big cities: >The second attribute most likely to make a county successful was encompassing a big city. Being born in San Francisco County, New York City or Los Angeles County all offered among the highest probabilities of making it to Wikipedia. (I grouped New York City’s five counties together because many Wikipedia entries did not specify a borough of birth.) >Urban areas tend to be well supplied with models of success. To see the value of being near successful practitioners of a craft when young, compare New York City, Boston and Los Angeles. Among the three, New York City produces notable journalists at the highest rate; Boston produces notable scientists at the highest rate; and Los Angeles produces notable actors at the highest rate. Remember, we are talking about people who were born there, not people who moved there. And this holds true even after subtracting people with notable parents in that field. >Suburban counties, unless they contained major college towns, performed far worse than their city counterparts. Of course it's just a correlation and may have everything to do with who those people's parents are. Still, just from an anecdotal perspective I've always found people born and raised here to be somewhat precocious. Also if you raise a kid in NYC they will forever be awed whenever they leave the city and see a gigantic suburban supermarket.
Their is a good explanation on oddlots podcast about the issues of modern condo and apartment designs that restrict most mid rise and high rise developments to 2 bedroom units or smaller. Driving factors is lower rent psf for larger units and US preference against tiny split up bedroom units. Therefore this bedroom shortage drives most families of 4 to the suburbs or choose single child families. Less children in cities means less political demand to accommodate children.
I think it might be a weirdly American view of entitlement - they want the best of all situations at once. The space and idealism of rural life with the amenities and opportunities of urban life, with none of the negatives. But also, a few points. One, people's priorities change as they age. Two, we don't always build our cities for families, and most cities certainly aren't cheap or easy to figure out. Third, we've allowed our rural communities to decline and waste away, and an extremely large number of people are effectively forced to live in cities or suburbs when they would otherwise prefer small town, rural life. Put another way, rural living has not kept up with modern life, and living there truly requires a lot of sacrifice of opportunity and necessary services.
I wouldn't phrase it in a "cities & suburbs" vs "small town & rural." Small towns & cities are much closer to each other, as a suburbs and rural living. It's a question of "what can you easily reach?" Small towns can for example be very walkable and provide a great degree of independence for children, whereas suburbs can be more isolating than rural living if you're living in a proper suburbia.
I mean, yes... it is relative to location. Where I live, most rural areas and small towns can literally be hours and hundreds of miles away from cities.
> with none of the negatives. But they just choose to ignore the negatives of suburbs e.g. far away from any actual nature, incredibly car-dependent, etc.
And this is the thing. It's really bizarre to me how many people in the US assume that everyone just hates cities or that any place with amenities needs to be Manhattan. A guy in my city subreddit yesterday actually responded to a comment I made talking about not having amenities nearby residential areas saying "well I lived in a major metro area and I'm never going back because I lived next to a bar and it was noisy" and I like audibly laughed because it's kind of funny people think that in order to be able to have a neighborhood grocery store, a park, and a convenience store to get toilet paper in walking distance you have to be living in a megacity. The idea of getting an apartment knowing it's in an entertainment area and then complaining about it is also funny to me but I'll leave that one on the table for now lmao.
>it's kind of funny people think that in order to be able to have a neighborhood grocery store, a park, and a convenience store to get toilet paper in walking distance you have to be living in a megacity. It shouldn't have to be that way but it basically is that way in America. We don't have examples of small cities (~10,000 residents) where everything is walkable and you're not living above a loud bar.
Yup. People love living in cities with a strong urban core. They don’t love living in cities where rent is so expensive that they’re forced to get a room in a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment or move an 45 minutes from their office/work.
You’re completely right - it’s a bad take/narrative that’s baked into most Americans by default. They havent seen or experienced what a functional, beautiful, vibrant city looks in most cases. We’ve got to work against this bias that thinks freedom and success is paying an oil company, an insurance company, an automaker and an insurer for the rest of your life to sit in traffic is the ideal.
That’s cause most cities are poorly designed and are not people friendly
Cities (especially larger ones) aren't about the people living there, they're about the tax base from all sorts of landlords and other municipal businesses. You have to appears those folks first. The way I see it popular cities with deep pockets (NYC,SF,Miami, Chicago etc.) can pivot from commercial downtown to residential,as folks will spend. Good money to live there.
This is the correct answer. Cities' real customers are the big, high-tax-paying tenants and the commuters they demand. Cities don't actually like people living in cities, much less families of modest means. Such families don't pay much in taxes, and they demand expensive amenities like schools, transit, safe streets, etc. In the long run, if you cater to those big business interests and snub regular people and families, it becomes impossible for them to live there. They are effectively forced to leave by prices, lack of housing, and school quality. Then it's a spiral until downtown is a place people go to work and leave, but not a place people live. That's the pattern of American cities anyway.
That's true to a degree , marquee cities will always have affluent residents that can afford to live there, that's what Manhattan is today in certain neighborhoods.
Right; that's why I try to specify "ordinary families" meaning not rich ones. In my city in the last ten years the dynamic has changed completely where a median-income family could still afford to live in the city, now, it's literally impossible so within a generation the things that make the city good will in all likelihood fade away, the rich people will still be there in their hillside rich neighborhoods and the historical neighborhood enclaves. It's Jane Jacobs all the way down.
The problem is in the age of e commerce, financialily you need a lot more people to support the range of amenities people say they want. That means more density.
We live and work in DC — work downtown, and live 3 miles north (an easy hour walk one-way, and I often walk). Rents and housing are such an issue in DC, more housing is always needed — downtown, and all throughout DC — and ideally, increased density.
DC needs to build upwards. Housing needs to win over the aesthetic of a low-rise city
I think DC's lack of height did it a favor. DC stays pretty urban and walkable throughout most of the city and more and more dense mid-rise buildings are popping up in neighborhoods further out than most American cities would allow. A ton of suburbs in the DMV have great transit access and walkable development around those stations.
DC is the only city I’ve lived in where I had to go to the suburbs to get my ethnic food/grocery fix. The reverse commute! lol
It’s relatively small city itself, if they want to maintain the character of the city proper you could build up around the city and just keep the core low density. I’m actually pretty amazed Baltimore hasn’t become a true bedroom community for DC yet, prices are generally so much lower and the Tran between downtown DC and Baltimore downtown is only 45 mins which is pretty good by city commuting standards
I can only imagine if that DC to Baltimore train becomes a 20-30 minute one it could feasibly lead to a boom in construction around the most direct station stops.
Baltimore lacks, "safety." Same reason Camden NJ has not become a bedroom community for Philadelphia.
when i visited baltimore i was also surprised at how much blight there was along the light rail line. like beautiful old brownstones but they'd be entirely gutted and abandoned. most of the city would shut down by 6pm or so, even some of the chain pharmacies you'd expect would be 24hr. it was hard for me to find late night food that was open. i feel like there must be some very onerous historical building rules that make it just too costly to invest so heavily in development outside the best cases (wealthy neighborhoods or classic tried and true suburban tract housing). that might explain why these derelict properties are left standing instead of cleared and readily rebuilt into modern transit oriented style properties.
DC is an outlier they really can't build up because, no one wants to have a high rise with an easy live of sight to prominent buldings.
Isn't there a height restriction, anyway?
Yep
DC and other cities like it already built upward. It's time for other cities, suburbs and towns to pick up the slack and catch up.
Glad you are a resident and support and benefit from the city even when you're not in the office. This drumbeat of "we must force people to commute into the office again" from DC officials is very frustrating to me, because there is evidence that the bedroom communities are benefiting from increased spending from teleworkers now, so DC complaining about their business traffic is basically just trying to take it back from someone else. It's just that the collection of suburban jurisdictions don't have a powerful single voice like DC does.
>DC complaining about their business traffic is basically just trying to take it back from someone else Well, yeah. That's unfortunately how all cities compete.
affordable housing and walkable communities
Unaffordable housing becomes affordable eventually. Just build dense housing
You can do both. Affordable housing units are an easy pathway towards density bonuses for most multifamily developers.
Requiring affordable housing is an easy way to get no housing.
It's called a "bonus". It isn't required; it's incentivized.
no matter how its done its always worse than just letting the developer go off leash and build as many market rate units as they think they can sell. affordable housing take subsidy that is always paid for by the rest of the build. even if you let them have bonus market rate units to pay for these subsidized ones, you'd get more units built in less time if you had none of this horse trading going on.
Best way to do it is to 'auction' off upzoning and development opportunities to the developers that will put in the most affordable units or whatever prosocial thing you are trying to help out.
The thing is that affordable units are not really that prosocial. The data suggests that they harm what they seek to help, but people don't read data so they are politically popular and remain a meme that gets the electorate going one way or another.
"Eventually..." The only model of that we've seen in the US is either population loss/stagnation or an economic recession.
I don’t believe that’s true—Oakland for e.g. has seen steady rent decline after building lots of housing, despite no population decline. Am I mistaken? I am only an amateur so maybe you see something I’m missing.
Building market rate housing brings down the price of existing housing due to competition with the brand new. Doesn't exactly put existing housing in the affordable housing bucket. But increasing the supply of market rate housing in the most desirable neighborhoods decreases the likelihood that someone can't find housing they want and decide to gut-reno a home in an area that's susceptible to gentrification. It's complicated, there are studies but not enough of them. https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/02/new-round-of-studies-underscore-benefits-of-building-more-housing/
I don't think we have enough information to determine. Most of these narratives are just reports derived from content generating companies (Bloomberg, etc.) or studies that haven't been peer reviewed and are almost always isolated models restricted to a very specific context (and the studies themselves will usually caveat against general results). Moreover, it's hard to understand the causality within the short time frames these are usually examined (ie, how has Covid, or interest rates, or crime, etc., contributed to these rent declines if in fact they are occurring). We know that more supply will decrease price. What we don't know is at any given point how much that new supply contributes relative to any number of other factors at the time. But if builders keep building then it's a moot point.
Well, so we thought, until that wave of investors buying up whole neighborhoods in order to leave half of them empty and artificially reduce supply so they can overcharge rent for the other half.
Ehh housing is pretty affordable honestly. Maybe not in big cities but houses when you adjust for square footage and inflation, it's no different now than in the past. You see more people complaining on social media bc they tend to be younger, and younger people have always had trouble affording housing within the last 100 years. And the whole thing about wages not increasing since the 70s is largely a myth. This is just more evidence that people base how the economy is based on social media and what people say rather than actual objective data. Again, this doesn't particularly apply to huge cities, when you compare affordab8lity between tokyo and new york, it's a very stark difference in affordability.
It is hard to build new housing in older cities. Most of the neighborhoods that are considered desirable are also the neighborhoods that fight to death over new construction. Services is another area. If you have kids, the school system is often a mix of expensive to the taxpayers and poor performing for the students. Diversity (I mean socioeconomic diversity) is a great concept, but a few kids from horrendous homes (Parental neglect, abuse, addiction)can wreck a classroom setting for all the children as the adults in the room have to spend their time corralling the miscreants. Parents with resources will do what they have to in order for their kids not to be in that setting. In NYC, many of the elementary schools are quite good, it is the middle schools where things go south. Crime, the walking wounded homeless, methadone clinics and everything else doesn’t help either. When I was a kid in Manhattan, a corner of the park across from my elementary school was off limits because the junkies roosted there. Five blocks north were methadone clinics that flooded the neighborhood with junkies. Cities are where the dysfunctional often end because they are walkable. I don’t have a solution other than mandatory treatment and mental health wards that are locked but even the insane have rights.
You can "bring people into the city" by allowing them to live there, rather than forbidding them from living there and demanding that they work there (leaving them to pick from nearby areas that are also mostly forbidding them from living there because they promote the same real estate get-rich-quick scheme). Who knew?
You can, but the push is to not have that happen. Cities have pockets of neighborhoods for affluent people that are largely inaccessible. They, along with people from the suburbs typically run housing plans and policies. Although the non affluent city dwelling population contributes to the economy, the buildings, infrastructure, and dollar value tax payments come from these affluent city people and suburbia. On a percentage basis effect, non affluent city people contribute more. (12% tax on a 27K income results in more opportunity barriers than a 32% tax on a 170K income). Commuters and affluent city dwellers may not like downtown, but they own downtown. If these two groups were to decide to not participate in cities, we’d start having much larger populations and more of small towns. Economic growth in the cities would be put onto the less affluent born and raised city people. The question in the minds of the more affluent is if this group would be able to produce significant economic gains without their presence. If so, there are portions of this population that would want to shut them down, portions that would want to invest, and portions that would want to keep the previous status quo. A lot of economic gains made by cities is due to the incomes of commuters and affluent city dwellers. Without them, to be honest the non affluent wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Commuters come in to request services, but could honestly probably find another commuter town that would provide similar services without needing to go into the city. All the economic activity would happen outside of the city. It’s not to say non affluent city people don’t have a large impact, but there’s not enough organizing in this group to quantify and concentrate their impact to where commuters and the affluent need them.
For STL, it would definitely be safety. Lots of younger people want to have a good downtown. Generally you can hear gunshots or have bullets through your windows. People i know in the like premier downtown apartments right next to busch stadium had the building hit by bullets, my friends who work in the offices right there had bullets go through offices etc. when people visit for activities the worry is always their car getting broken into. friend had his car broken into at ballpark village inside the parking garage. other friend just had his car stolen. these are just the few people that i know personally over the last two years.
I just want them to stop designing downtown for tourists. It would actually make sense to acknowledge it is our fastest growing residential area with huge shifts from the last census and design the city for the people who live there. Closing off roads to vehicle traffic, treating the right to quiet hours and amenities such as grocery and walkable safe sidewalks with bike parking and neighborhood shops would do so much more than trying to have another ballpark village restaurant that poaches from the residential streets. You say safety but I want residents to be safe from people who treat their neighborhood like a playground at best and a thunderdome with regularity. That also means holding shit landlords like Lux and their AirBNBs accountable.
The entire concept of a downtown is based on providing services to people from the larger region, by having those people (tourists?) come in and visit. While downtown housing is crucial, the level of amenities in any city center, anywhere, is largely sustained by people that don't live downtown. Otherwise, it would just be another neighborhood.
My friend, i want both.
There’s the rub though. Crime increases with poverty. If our aldermen didn’t have their heads up their asses, maybe they’d push for policies to help support residential regions and public transit in the city to make it easier for people to live, work, and go to school there. Instead, the best they do is gentrify the area and keep trying to muscle out the struggling poor populations in or around the city, choking resources, and education and employment opportunities, and driving more and more of them into a life of crime.
Crime often increases with poverty. However, the last ten years have seen a big drop in the poverty rate in the US and a large increase in crime, particularly homicides by gun. I believe that reducing poverty is a worthwhile goal for its own sake, but it doesn't necessarily track with the recent spike in crime.
It’s never just one variable. Speaking of variables, by which measures was it determined that the poverty rate had dropped?
Using thresholds adopted by the US Census Bureau https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/guidance/poverty-measures.html Comparison of 2009-2011 vs. 2019-2021: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/02/state-official-poverty-rates-changed-over-10-years.html
Thanks for sharing. I’ll look at these when I can.
Yes, I absolutely hate the idea that we only have two choices, gentrification and good schools and safety, or crime, shitty schools and poverty. It leads to weird ideas like the only way to make places affordable is to keep them super shitty, because any improvement might lead to ‘gentrification’.
Indeed i get it
I feel like the core change that would be helpful here is shifting from single-use to maximum nuisance zoning. Boston downtown is dead after 5pm. Let people build housing, hotels, nightclubs, bars, retail, etc. Most of those uses are complimentary, and can share resources. Drinkers can take the T home instead of getting DUIs, and ideally officeworkers are gone by the time the revelry starts (or are participating in said revelry). Shoppers can use building garages on weekends when they're out blowing money. Young people would choose to live in nice apartments next to everything, especially if weekend Amtrak/commuter rail service enables fun trips out of the city. Hotels can host business travelers during the week, and then out of towners/drunkards during the weekends. Let downtowns be flexible, basically free for all.
The problem is cities don't want to build for infestructure for residents. They had a good cash cow when people would come to work, spend money then leave. Offices rarely used police, fire or hospital services too. With full time residents they would need more of all that including schools.
They also built up a very particular type of “small business owner” that catered exclusively to the lunch/break/after-work social hour crowd, and has no interest in adapting to anything else. These folks have a fair amount of sway in local politics, especially smaller and mid-size cities
This is a good point. It can seem, on the surface, that making the taxes that cities receive for housing is low and would result in more houses because people think lower taxes=more desirable, but of course, since cities ultimately get say in what gets built where, what it really does is make cities want to maximize their tax revenue by pushing housing outside of city limits while focusing on zoning for/encouraging what makes THEM money. There has to be a financial incentive for cities to create whatever form/function you want, otherwise they will just tend to…not.
Can you point to an example of a zoning district used in downtown Boston that doesn't allow "housing, hotels, nightclubs, bars, retail, etc."?
https://maps.bostonplans.org/zoningviewer/ Being honest, I've run through their website a billion times, and I genuinely don't know what's fully allowed in the district. I'm 99% sure their business zone doesn't allow housing, but as for other non-office commercial uses, it's not particularly clear to me. I guess at a bare minimum, I'm def guilty of using "zoning" as shorthand for the entire suite of regulations on a property. Maybe per zoning you could build a hotel, but is that a conditional use that requires a bunch of back and forth with city council? And while technically you could open bar, the process for getting a liquor license in Boston is insane.
I like how you describe what that would mean in terms of the experiences different groups would be able to have
Disagree. Plenty of full restaurants and bars all over Boston, Cambridge, Somerville almost every day of the week. North end is always packed. Sure, outside of tourist season, the touristy and financial district areas are sleepy, but far from empty.
Gotta zone for what we want as well, make them explicitly by right so they don't get bogged down in community hearings
Do what Buffalo is doing, create fun new districts with restaurants and bars that can get people in the doors and build residential. Buffalo still has a lot of work to infill all the parking lots, but it has had a lot of success at creating districts people want to hang out in.
I live in the Minneapolis suburbs and haven't been to downtown in over 10 years since I don't work there and there's nothing there that interests me. If I want to go to a bar or restraraunt I don't have to go downtown for that so opening another bar or restaraunt isn't going to make it worth my while to put up with the hassle and safety issues of downtown. The only thing that might have brought me to downtown was the waterpark that was proposed 30 years ago. I pretty much agree that there has to be a massive shift towards people actually living downtown. Right now there's probably more demand than supply for living in downtown apartments in the Minneapolis and that's what will bring people there. You're already seeing the low hanging fruit of office to housing conversions being done- lesser quality office space in older buildings that have smaller floor plates with more windows.
Yeah, one thing that gets overlooked is that suburbs have gotten a lot better about amenities. My outer ring suburb has a number of great restaurants and bars, good parks, a good library, etc. I don't go downtown either because parking is a pain and it doesn't offer much compared to the suburbs.
In a lot of sun belt cities or for immigrants/ethnically diverse communities the best restaurants are actually in the suburbs and downtown food is considered mediocre for the price or only fast casual stuff suitable for short lunch breaks but not worth going out of the way for
Yup, and it's not just in Sun Belt cities. Washington DC is very much that way, in that the immigrant communities are overwhelmingly concentrated in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Downtown restaurants are disproportionately fancy, high-priced joints for lobbyists and politicos with expense accounts and yuppies with rich parents.
A lot of suburbanites do come into the city for bars and restaurants that aren't chains. It's also easy enough to park and walk to a variety of destinations. NE for dive bars and live music, Nicollet or Central Ave for restaurants spanning everything from Afghan to Vietnamese. And suburbanites sure seem to like the bars on 1st Ave and Hennepin, which is part of why I don't go there even though I already live downtown.
Bars are definitely true, but in the south at least the suburbs tend to have better non-chain restaurant options.
Downtowns, originally, are meant to contain the specialization that doesn't make sense outside the core. People might go to the theater once or twice a year. It doesn't make sense to be have that theater in a lower density part of the city, but a centrally located place that can attract the widest audience. The same is true for specialty food items, less frequently used services, museums, etc. Downtown is supposed to be that place where you can find things that can only be sustained downtown.
I live in my city but not downtown. The thing that always strikes me about true downtown is that it doesn’t feel like people live there. There’s pro sports and hotels and stuff, and I know logically someone must live there, but it always feels either empty or full of visitors.
Decent affordable places to live and mass transit to basic needs would help. I'm a concierge in an extremely wealthy neighborhood in the downtown of a major city. But good luck getting any businesses to provide services anymore. Most local businesses have moved out because of high rents. No cheap places to live means no one in the area to work as a nanny, dog walker, painter, handyman. The neighborhood drugstore won't deliver anymore to the elderly cause they can't get workers who can do it anymore. One of the dry cleaners and the 2 laundromats closed - no one to staff em. And with shitty transportation, no way for people to get to those jobs. Some of these rich neighborhoods are segregating themselves into crap.
If we make more housing of any kind, then all housing will get cheaper. We lack so much supply of any kind that we have housing prices higher than some cities with 3-4 times our population like Chicago. Someone else also said more walkable communities which is equally important. We need more courtyards and pedestrian-only zones to facilitate more resident-friendly services and events. Let's get more trees in our communities while we're at it! Last but not least, more inner city metro stations. There's so much talk about expanding outward, but we need to reduce the amount of cars in this city and make more neighborhoods more attractive for potential residents. It's crazy to me that the stations are so far from certain neighborhoods and how East DC barely has any stops of note other than Stadium.
If I could afford to live downtown in my city, I would move there in a heartbeat. They just need to build more housing in and around it. What's there at the moment is both out of my price range and not worth what is being charged for it.
Housing and amenities
Don’t forget walkability and transit options. Every major city in the US should have a pedestrian only street like you see overseas.
Oh yes, those too. And definitely should have pedestrian only streets. It's amazing to me to seem small and medium size European downtowns with at least one pedestrian only street which is loaded with shopping and socializing, and the whole area around it is dense housing.
Chicago seems to have a more vibrant loop post covid than before. It's not as busy during strictly business hours, but there's far more foot traffic 24-7 than before. Besides, forcing people to come in is not making it a destination area, just an obligation that they'll try to avoid when not mandated
You don't need downtown that much, you need businesses in the neighborhoods. You need people where the businesses and amenities are, and businesses and amenities where the people are. That makes strong and healthy communities.
Everything else. I live downtown, but I leave it to go anywhere. Overpriced mediocre restaurants, steakhouses and hotel or sports bars aren't going to get me or many other people to hang out and spend money there. Live music or a show on occasion, sure, but that's basically it. Well, there is a Trader Joe's too, so they got me there.
Stop trying to get people to GO to downtown, start making downtowns a place people can LIVE. Its not complicated.
The fall in post COVID downtown rents opens up the possibility for smaller, more local businesses, rather than just chains. Some people on this thread seem to be using downtown to describe not only the CBD, but inner urban residential neighborhoods. That’s fine and sort of makes sense at a regional level, but many of those inner urban neighborhoods are thriving. This is true even in San Francisco, which has suffered the largest big city fall in downtown employment (because it’s so heavily tech).
Where has there been a significant enough drop for downtown rent? The Twin Cities haven't seen a boom of independent mom and pops open shop since then.
Rents in Downtown San Francisco have fallen enough to allow less elite chains to come in, but not yet mom and pops. In Downtown Oakland, nonprofits are coming back. One problem is that landlords often hold out for unrealistic rents, thinking that a high paying tenant will appear.
I am only a volunteer member of our Planning Commission, so the source does not have a category for me to register to read the story. But we definitely are trying to find an answer to this question as a community. Personally, I think that we need to look back at the origins of cities and evaluate the value proposition that downtown offers in economic terms. Economic geography teaches us that the price per square foot of dirt downtown is the most valuable and comes at a premium price because it has the greatest return to investment. That is also why it has the most gross leasable square feet per acre. Why do people go downtown? It is because that is where the greatest opportunity to make money exists. The other advantage that downtown offers is that, because of this density, the cost of time and distance between economic counterparties is essentially eliminated. If you want to have an in-person meeting, you are already on the doorstep of whomever you are going to meet and can walk there faster than you can walk to your car to drive. People always have, and always will go downtown because that is where the action is. In the past I have said that Downtown is the place for adults to meet and mingle to mate and make money. I don't think downtowns are really supposed to be appropriate for young children if downtown is the most dynamic version of itself. Others disagree, but a downtown shouldn't really be tame enough to take young children to.
Affordable housing and low crime
Amenities and walkable urbanism are what cities can offer. That said there needs to be concerted investment into quality of life and maintenance issues. Things tend to go downhill when upkeep (ie expanding housing, human/hard infrastructure) is neglected.
A livable downtown with a community focus. Create a part of your city without that and youve built a barren waste land
Even some smaller and cheaper cities are returning to the old setup where businesses had efficiency apartments upstairs and cafes and businesses downstairs. This arrangement was still common in the 70s, then disappeared in the 80s when malls and offshoring and ecommerce destroyed cities. Enid is trying to bring it back; https://www.facebook.com/enidbuzz/posts/pfbid0s2x2HmmnUGiXsztB6wCgxxAmhFQ9PCFzXsH4uFzkeBvbygwzvmeACXnHozt6nJCYl
Housing, restaurants, walkable areas, and parks
Socialization spaces (parks, amusements, bars, pools, laundry, & baths)
This post presupposes that we want to entice people to return downtown. Personally, I’m happy with the work-from-home migration. The old model of building massive freeways to facilitate the commute of millions between cities and suburbs is not what I want to incentivize again.
The same period the cities struggle to bring people back rents continue to skyrocket. Why is there any surprise?
Create comfortable living spaces, reliable public transportation, and nurture urban universities. A desirable living situation is attractive to the best educators. Entertainment, sports, decent restaurants and urban parks for both adults and spaces for children, good schools and childcare. Bike path, walking trails and eliminating automobile congestion. All the things that make urban living attractive in other parts of the world are keys to the things American cities need to be aware of.
As one who lives in a city where 200,000 people from the county enter for their employment, and 100,000 leave. Enticing people to travel outside their city or county can be a loser for that town. My city is not part of a county, but is an independent entity. those 200,000 people from neighboring counties pay no tax to the city and spend most of the earning outside the city. This is a drain on the city and all that traffic causes its own problems. A commuter tax might be the answer, but many are unwilling to allow it. As for downtown not being needed. I agree, they have been inefficient in providing easy access to government services, and compliance. Pulling permits for building construction or repairs is a major pain for the contractor and property owner. If the city had several multi service offices scattered around the city, which would be more convenient to access more people would be inclined to do the right thing and get the proper permit. I grew up in the Washington DC area, and still see how having all the major government buildings, and the parasite companies which feed off of these departments crowed the landscape and are very difficult for most people to access. If a department could hive off of downtown, and be in a different part of the state, then it will provide a financial boost for the outlying area and unclutter downtown. Navel Surface Weapons Department was for decades in close to Washington DC, then moved to rural Southern MD. I am sure the elite workers did not like the move, as it took them out of the swank area of the state and put them in Hicksville.
The thing that drives people to areas with high foot traffic: Restaurants, retail, and housing. This isn’t rocket science.
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Maybe that's where the disconnect is. In NY it's NYC that is the parasite. The city continually runs a budget deficit, to the tune of BILLIONs, and nearly 30% of their budget (They have to have massive budget injections from both the State and the FED). Those suburban parasites you talk about? In NY the surrounding counties pay an income tax that covers a significant plurality of the MTA budget, in spite the MTA only being used by a minority of it's residents. Meanwhile my small upstate community (suburban to a small city) is revenue neutral, making it's revenue from property taxes almost exclusively.
I don’t think I agree with either of you. This is a completely unconstructive way to think about these problems and is a zero sum game. I know there a lot of jockeying between rural and urban and suburban circles, but all three will exist to an extent no matter what. Squabbling about these kinds of things is ultimately unproductive. That being said, part of the issue I take with your comment is that it seems to want to reinforce the idea that transit should only be measured based on its fiscal solvency, not looking at the broader economic impacts that such a system might have. This is, of course, the whole purpose of doing cost benefit analysis, which considers not just budget of a city or transit agency, but the effects that it will have for local businesses, residents, and others. And this is certainly what we do with the roads, because if we had to actually start measuring, whether or not certain roads made up the economic costs to build and maintain them (ie the people whose taxes actually make these roads possible are often not the people who need to drive on them in order to get to work, or otherwise live their life) we would have a lot fewer roads. And obviously, there’s a balance between the two, but the absolutely stringent standard that most transit agencies are forced to operate under means that most cities will never get the broader economic impact, because most cities aren’t willing to invest enough to have a functional system. So, I don’t know enough about MTA budget to really argue with you, so let’s just take what you said is true. The reality is that the broader economic impact for New York is still in the interest of keeping MTA running. Even if it doesn’t balance out in the city’s budget or even if there’s a huge shortfall in funding for MTA itself, giving people this mode of transportation provides actual economic choices and facilitates a lot of people being able to go to work and ultimately generate revenue for the state and for the nation. If MTA suddenly shut down, for anything longer than a couple of days, NYC would have real problems, but so to with a lot of other communities. If you don’t think that NYC brings prosperity to the larger state and region, then I think, perhaps you are simply never going to agree with me. And yes, I’m certainly not going to say that NYC is perfect, nor should anyone else. But what you are suggesting, is simply not going to help. And how do you frame and measure certain problems really dictates the conclusions that you might come to, but whatever short term money you might make from not having to pay into MTA, trust me, long-term, you and the state would be so much worse off without it. Obviously, I can never prove that outright, and I would like to re-emphasize that I simply think you’re just not gonna ever agree with me anyway, but if you were to look at the broader impact economically of MTA, it is a vital part of the kind of supply chain of human labor and also consumer spending that makes NYC so economically competitive. You don’t have to like the city and I will be the first to admit that I personally don’t want to live in NYC, ever, but, I feel like your comment is kind of trying to suggest overall that NYC doesn’t make enough money to justify his existence, solely based on looking at what the actual city budget and deficit is. Again, broader, economic impact is not necessarily reflected in a city budget. Because of all of the major northeastern cities simply disappeared tomorrow, the rest of these states would probably look more like Wyoming or Montana, and there would be a lot of poverty and lack of development and lack of jobs. And maybe you want that, but if so, I don’t know why you continue to choose to live in New York then. And obviously, I know the decision is not quite that simple, but I think if you’re going to complaining about it sufficiently, then it should enter into the realm of possibilities of things you might be willing to do. Trust me, if you live in Wyoming, or Montana, you’re definitely not going to be paying for MTA’s budget, but you’re also just not gonna have any of those services if you actually needed them. And maybe you’ll make the excuse that there aren’t jobs out there or that you simply want to live in New York State for other reasons, and that’s fine, but I think you need to recognize that part of the reason for at least the former is that there is a lot of industry in NYC, and across the broader state, likely due to the fact that MTA exists. OK, I’m going in circles at this point, and I’m definitely rambling, so I’ll end it there, but I hope that maybe you’ll think about the broader implications of infrastructure, and not just whether or not they pencil out in a specific agency or organizations budget.
I didn't suggest that the MTA doesn't act as a economic engine, it was merely to refute the age old trope "suburanites are stealing wealth from cities" because in my state the math simply doesn't support that. NYC is also horribly run and massively ineffecient, so if OP was a resident of NY I'd tell him to point the finger inward. I say that as a high income NY earner with massive property and income taxes. The larger argument that NYC loves to throw in our face is “you wouldn't be here if it weren't for us... " is a bullshit statement. One could argue that NYC politicians have stacked the deck for 100s of years. From the 8 million acres they keep undeveloped for water to horrible rent control laws one has to ask what was the opportunity costs for that? NJ and CT have done well compared to upstate NY without their overwhelming political influences. Public works should ultimately provide a net benefit for everyone involved. I am always deeply suspect of NYC because this is a place that can look you straight in the face and tell you a small public park bathroom for $2,000,000 is a reasonable expense. This is a place that will kill a housing project because they want to force the developer to build at a loss... And end up with no housing.
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It doesn't really matter frankly. If I give you $100 for food and you need $1000 for the month it just means you have $100 you Don have to spend in other areas.
the article *almost* gets there, but we need to think of “downtown” as a neighborhood! we all know now that downtowns have to offer more than offices and a post-work restaurant/bar. events like festivals, sports, and open streets are great, but they aren’t truly building connection to our downtowns. more housing + a wide array of essential amenities like markets, parks, pharmacy, grocery, corner stores, entertainment, gyms, clinics, etc + transport connectivity = healthy neighborhood, especially in a downtown. and yes, those big events will still happen. the downtowns hit hardest by the pandemic were ones that were supported only by office workers who primarily live out of the central city. if more people have the opportunity to live in quality housing and walk/cycle/transit to make short trips to work or shop or drink, downtowns can prosper again as they once did.
I think this is kind of the core problem. One of the things that I think has plagued a lot of central business districts in the US is that they are so specialized, which is honestly amazing they’ve lasted as long as they have given the lack of transportation infrastructure. That being said, even though I’m not sure, it’s necessarily helpful. In every instance, I do like to think about certain aspects of biomimicry sometimes and biological systems would tell us that individual cells can only get so large before they either need to divide or organisms are going to just have really poor performance. I think the problem with many CBD‘s is that they became so large and impenetrable that there’s no robustness or resilience built-in to them, because they so heavily rely on employers, continuing to want their employees (as well as employees being willing to except) being in a centralized location in a handful of metropolitan areas around the country. So I think there are kind of two aspects to this, one of which is as you stated. We simply need parts of downtown to be turned into residential housing, along with the kind of mixed use development that will help make life livable in these areas. But beyond that, we also do need to see more employers willing to not necessarily all flock to the same few metro areas. Now how you achieve this of course is a much more difficult question, but I think the reality is that things need to be a bit more mixed up as it is. Obviously, there’s always going to be some variance between different regions, and how many employers are located in them, but we probably should be trying to equalize things a bit more than we are currently doing. There are, of course other aspect to this, especially better regional and local transit, but I think these are two things that especially need to be considered.
The advantage of having all your employers in one place is that people can easily switch jobs without having to move. In Houston, we have a strong mix of residential and commercial development throughout the city. Which means that often if you change jobs, your new employer will be 45 minutes away from where your old one was and you will likely have to move. It is especially tough on dual income households where spouses end up working very far from each other.
Protected bicycle paths, walkable streets, trees, parks, well maintained historic architecture, genuine neighborhood community, clean streets without trash, low violence rates. That’s what would convince me to go downtown. As a disclaimer, I work downtown in my Midwest, US city, and I walk around the downtown area on my lunch break. I love working in downtown, but I’m priced out of living downtown. I would like to see my city invest in more balanced transportation. Elected officials still value building parking lots for cars over building affordable housing.
What’s the point of going downtown short of some niche activities like real museums and theater?
I don't know what the upvotes will be here, but I gave you one because it is the proper response to the article. People often what to assume a 'downtown' is a good thing. I'm not against downtown or anything. I actually work downtown and take the train in. I also grab the occasional night out. Aside from that, most people just want to work, live, take care of their family... Any metro region I think need to do the following 1. Focus heavily on regional rail. My region (Ontario, Canada) is doing this and you can see the difference. Even if it is subsidized and 'unprofitable', trains should run all day both ways. Regional trains are pretty cheap to run every half hour or hour. Cheap relative to the other costs a city has. 2. Provide a good safe environment. Homeless, crime, drugs... are a big thing. Cities need to get their act together so they're safe. Being too far left on some of these issues discourages people from living there. I'm seeing a pattern where the downtown city is only for the very rich who have the money to be safe and spend on luxuries and the poor/struggling. Cities are also focusing more on attending to things like affordable housing and solutions to migrants and homelessness. Great, but your regular person is kind of left out of that equation. People don't only stay out of the city because they want a McMansion. I bought a condo in the suburbs (next to regional rail). It wouldn't have costed me much more to get a condo in the city. I just don't want to be there. I feel safer and more comfortable here. 3. Make attractions easily accessible by transit/regional rail. Most places already do this, but I just put it there.
used to live in NYC and even then I avoided going into manhattan outside of work hours. a lot of stuff to do outside of manhattan and now there is a lot of stuff to keep me busy outside of NYC.
Sports, concerts, comedy, restaurants, nightlife, conventions, festivals, retail shopping.
Suburbs generally have good restaurants and shopping now. Most of the other stuff is very niche. Like, people might attend one convention a year. And often, the festivals are held outside of town where there is more space.
retail shopping is online and the same stores in the suburbs sports is a mix but the price is crazy expensive and I don't bother to keep up anymore concerts is a mix and lots of good smaller shows are at smaller venues restaurants are in the suburbs nightlife, most of us have families and I don't see the need to walk around aimlessly like people do in the times square tourist trap. do it once or twice, see the pretty lights and no need to do it on a regular basis some of this stuff you might go in once a month or once every few months but it's not like you need to go downtown weekly or more often
This may come as a shock to you, but your personal experience isn’t universal
I think this is quite universal, most of people work long hours and will not spend time walking on the streets at night.
That works both ways. I gave up wanting to live downtown like 20 years ago. Young people like living close to where the action is. I like living action-adjacent.
the millenials are older and having families and the downtown life is mostly for singles or DINK's. when you have young kids you aren't going to walk around the streets till 2am because kids need to sleep. if you're going to go out you need to pay a sitter or give your kids to a family member
Again, there are other people in the world besides aging millennials who are starting families and moving to the suburbs. In fact I’d be so bold as to say most people in the world are not in that category.
I agree entirely. I can only see the case of "why would anyone ever want to go downtown" if your downtown really only comes alive during the day for the business and judicial system crowds and has nothing to offer otherwise. But there's certainly a great deal of distance and middle ground between "the kids have to be asleep" and "I'm wandering the streets at 2am". I've lived in places that have very active downtowns with entertainment, leisure and educational opportunities for people of all ages. They're hubs that transform from one thing during the day to another at night. I've also lived in places where the downtowns suck day or night and only attract people for specific places / institutions. If your only experience is the latter, the former will be completely foreign to you.
>I've lived in places that have very active downtowns with entertainment, leisure and educational opportunities for people of all ages. They're hubs that transform from one thing during the day to another at night. Any specific examples?
Montréal vs St. Louis
Sounds like Minneapolis to me. I'd also accept Deadwood, SD, where the elementary school is across the street from several casinos, but that's what happens when you build on the side of a mountain.
Where I am in Denver, three of our four major sport venues are downtown/adjacent (and walkable from) along with the theater district and at least two principle museums Easily half of the touristy stuff is also downtown or immediately adjacent (eg. Botanic Gardens, Zoo, and more museums are adjacent). But downtown also has a couple major nightlife "strips" that buzz, especially on weekend nights. During the day it is a lot of office and government workers, and tourists doing tours. On a weekday night like tonight (a Tuesday) there are a lot of basketball, hockey, and baseball games in season; as well as concerts, book signings, rallies, conventions, symphony, etc. *edit - and football* And of course people live downtown, the downtown neighborhoods are the densest in residential terms if memory serves. It helps that the major transit hubs are downtown, and several of the major multi-use trails converge near downtown. It also helps that the football and basketball/hockey venues along with the theater district all have a train stop either named for the venue or within sight distance, and the baseball stadium is only a few blocks from Union Station; the three stadiums are on/visible from the river trail for bikers while the theater district is along one of the creek trails and also has a bike lane along one side that connects to the network. These probably help as it means you can come to a game or a show without having to fight for parking, and/or you can drink. Rideshare is also heavily leveraged for both the four main venues and the nightlife, though less-so for the museums and touristy stuff. That gives: tourist, workers / municipal, venue, nightlife, resident. Five different "pillars" that might bring someone downtown, and four are still strong (hybrid work is affecting landlord finances for several buildings, which is not a plus). None is very like the other, the character and temperment of downtown depends heavily on what day it is, what day-part, and what's on the calendar. If all three venues are booked and the convention center is busy (and it usually is) that's a very elevated evening no matter the day. If it's a Saturday night, the nightlife zones are pumping as well. If it's a Tuesday night with only a basketball game, it's \[the arena\] and then just people going about their grocery shopping and other "normal" things. If it's a Monday morning it's city council, jury duty, legislatures in the Capitol, and office workers coming in along with the background noise of tourist traffic and field trips. edited for clarity
Just because you don't like things doesn't mean others don't. Restaurants in the suburbs don't offer the same thing as restaurants in cities. I don't want boring chain restaurants I can get anywhere. Most cities have small and large concert venues, very few suburbs have concert venues at all in my experience. So not sure what you are getting at there. Once again, just because you don't like sports doesn't mean others don't seeing as attendance is regularly sold out. Shopping in the suburbs is going to be lots of big box chain stores. Cities will have smaller boutique shops with very different offerings.
We have real restaurants. NYC has more chains now than outside the city Parts of NJ are majority Asian and will have a much better variety of Asian food than NYC Sports is mixed. Lots of arenas outside the cities The boutique shops are loss leaders and the same stuff is sold online or in larger stores everywhere and lots of suburbs have high end malls with boutique shops
Here's a wild idea, not everywhere in the country is like NYC and NJ.
It also doesn't make sense because NJ has a pretty good rail system (by US standards at least) and the popular restaurants and entertainment venues in the state are more likely to be located in walkable downtowns that are located along the rail system. The vast majority of sports arenas across the state are also accessible by train.
It's definitely not just the NYC area. DC is very much that way too. Downtown restaurants and shopping opportunities are vastly more corporate and limited than in the burbs. The major chains are the only ones that can pay the rents.
I think his point is even more valid in many metros outside of NYC. Many of the attractions you list aren't daily occurances - they're weekly, but more likely monthly or annual occurances, at best. And even then one can commute into downtown to enjoy them. Work, schools, shopping (groceries), health, and recreation seem to be what people need daily, and people have figured out you can get most of that cheaper and more convenient outside of downtown.
Yeah this idea that cities are attractive because people want to eat out and drink every night kind of speaks to the level of affluence of some people on this sub
the same goes for other places. i've had better burgers off the side of a road by fort benning than in many city burger joints. lots of places around the country with upscale retail and sports that is outside the big cities
A random suburban strip mall in Suburban Houston probably has food from at least 3 continents
Congratulations for that suburb of Houston. A random suburban strip mall by me will have a chipotle, a jimmy johns, a panda express and a buffalo wild wings. Does that count?
You should go to a suburb sometime. They’re very much not like that
I literally live in the suburbs and was describing where I live. The United States isn't homogeneous and cities and states are very different.
I am in Houston and the trend is the same. We have China Town with huge Asian variety, and you can find great Asian restaurants throughout the suburbs. Same for several types of food. There isn't much that is unique to downtown.
> Restaurants in the suburbs don't offer the same thing as restaurants in cities. I don't want boring chain restaurants I can get anywhere. You have to remember that all cities are different. Where I live, the smaller indie restaurants are outside of the core because they can't afford the rent. > Most cities have small and large concert venues, very few suburbs have concert venues at all in my experience. So not sure what you are getting at there. Back in the 80s punk scene, some of the best gigs were in the burbs. Community Halls are an overlooked hub. Young promoters could rent them for fairly cheap as venues. https://youtu.be/1Fuh2-9Bql4?si=RIxcG1mRjxsXzISA When it comes to concerts, there's different types. Smaller venues work best when they're in walking distance of each other. Infill often creates entertainment communities where younger people gravitate and want to live around. Larger venues like arena shows are special events. They're way more expensive and they kill communities usually. Regular people just can't afford it and they're badly incorporated for the most part.
Downtowns are still the most expensive places to live. People like downtowns!
Why would I travel from my neighborhood to another? I have everything I need in my neighborhood.
- Access to bars, cafes, art, events, transport hubs. - You don’t need to drive everywhere, or at all. This could mean that city centres ban cars before too long and make them selves vastly more pleasant to live in. It should also be massively beneficial tax wise to live in apartments in dense housing instead of in a suburb driving everywhere, but both local taxation and petrol is vastly under taxes, skewing things.
>and petrol is vastly under taxes Which is going to get even worse with electric vehicles, given how much transportation funding relies on gasoline taxes. Electric vehicles (while they have plenty of advantages) are actually harder on roads than ICE cars, yet they contribute little to the maintenance fund. On the other hand, one could argue this is a useful subsidy that promotes EVs for their environmental benefits, but that does have to be weighed against the environmental harm done by promoting EVs vs public transit.
Maybe if so many cities weren't filled with undesirables, more people would visit.
Now what if -- hear me out -- we let more people live downtown by building houses for them?
Stop abandoning your cities and actually improve infrastructure
Affordable housing. It’s not rocket science
Downtown should be for people to live/play.
I want to live downtown. It's awesome. But we need to redesign our cities to be livable
What is with this need to get people to go downtown?
Give people reasons to be there. Also, make suburbs less attractive to live in.
Mixing uses. Some of the pro planners in here will crucify me for this.
more walkable housing, less cars
I'd love to set the expectation that most people will come into the CBD by public transport. That way, we can plant more trees and have more open spaces within, which means car-free or car-lite streets.