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Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

fortune.com

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Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#21

Post by sdwr »

ggm wrote: post #2

As the article says, it's a trend which proceeded Covid, but accelerated under lockdown. At best, the short term fixes are ameliorative. Free parking and lunch vouchers isn't going to "fix" this problem, and as the article also says (as have others published here) conversion to residential is a mixed bag: it is increadibly costly, major code issues abound, and from sales records has a high failure rate in the market:…

Don't want to be that guy (am that guy :( ), but the word is "preceded" - came before. "Proceeded" means came after, and has a direct subject.

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#22

Post by ggm »

sdwr wrote: post #21
ggm wrote: post #2

As the article says, it's a trend which proceeded Covid, but accelerated under lockdown. At best, the short term fixes are ameliorative. Free parking and lunch vouchers isn't going to "fix" this problem, and as the article also says (as have others published here) conversion to residential is a mixed bag: it is increadibly costly, major code issues abound, and from sales records has a high failure rate in the market:…

Don't want to be that guy (am that guy :( ), but the word is "preceded" - came before. "Proceeded" means came after, and has a direct subject.

Can't edit now. Thank you for being "that guy". Dear reader. Please read what I wrote in the sense implied by "that guy".

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#24

Post by JambalayaJim »

ggm wrote: post #2

As the article says, it's a trend which proceeded Covid, but accelerated under lockdown. At best, the short term fixes are ameliorative. Free parking and lunch vouchers isn't going to "fix" this problem, and as the article also says (as have others published here) conversion to residential is a mixed bag: it is increadibly costly, major code issues abound, and from sales records has a high failure rate in the market:…

Downtowns are generally the only “15 minute” cities around in any urban area.

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#25

Post by JambalayaJim »

RoyalHenOil wrote: post #16
gottorf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to distinguish between Covid and the absolutely irrational public policy response to Covid, because the latter is what really threw downtowns off. Pandemics will happen again; lockdowns don't need to, if we learn.

We won't learn. On the contrary, we have actually become stupider about handling disease: Hospitals are even more understaffed now than they were before the pandemic, and anti-vaccine hysteria has gone mainstream. If we get hit with another major pandemic in the relatively near future, we will be even less prepared for it now than we were with Covid, and I predict our lockdowns will be even worse because of it.

Our lockdowns simply can’t be worse in the future, at least not in living memory. The people who have lived through them simply won’t stand for them.

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#26

Post by deprecative »

JambalayaJim wrote: post #25
RoyalHenOil wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't learn. On the contrary, we have actually become stupider about handling disease: Hospitals are even more understaffed now than they were before the pandemic, and anti-vaccine hysteria has gone mainstream. If we get hit with another major pandemic in the relatively near future, we will be even less prepared for it now than we were with Covid, and I predict our lockdowns will be even worse because of it.

Our lockdowns simply can’t be worse in the future, at least not in living memory. The people who have lived through them simply won’t stand for them.

If people behaved rationally and with empathy we wouldn't need to lock down. But because we have a bunch of selfish pricks we'll always need lock downs. People cannot be trusted to do what it is good for the whole if it even slightly inconveniences the individual. In western culture(The United States in particular), I don't see that changing any time soon.

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#27

Post by deprecative »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #7
thegrim33 wrote: post #4

Not a single sentence about crime, drug use, homelessness, etc., but they threw in a quote from the communist manifesto to take a political jab at "capitalism". A+ totally unbiased journalism here.

No way am I going downtown anymore. Walking over a dead body on my way to work was enough for me to never return to the office. If the city doesn't enforce the laws on the books yet will hold me accountable for defending myself when the police won't I am not putting myself in a position to answer for laws against the lawlessness. I didn't mind after midnight crime when I lived downtown. It's now high noon crime with…

Cops have no duty to protect you in the United States. You might want to rethink your logical foundation for this particular hangup.

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#28

Post by nielsbot »

FTA: Developers over-built commercial real estate when it was profitable, and COVID just accelerated the implosion of the bubble.

Also, I think a key word missing from the title is "traditional". The sentence from the article reads "Traditional downtowns are dead, dying or on life support across the U.S. and elsewhere".

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#29

Post by tyjkrtyk »

deprecative wrote: post #27
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way am I going downtown anymore. Walking over a dead body on my way to work was enough for me to never return to the office. If the city doesn't enforce the laws on the books yet will hold me accountable for defending myself when the police won't I am not putting myself in a position to answer for laws against the lawlessness. I didn't mind after midnight crime when I lived downtown. It's now high noon crime with…

Cops have no duty to protect you in the United States. You might want to rethink your logical foundation for this particular hangup.

Why? Your added context only explains why a police officer might choose not to protect them. It's irrelevant because all it does is explain the observation they were making it doesn't make the observation less true.

Re: Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support, says urban policy expert

#30

Post by nunez »

1000%.

Go to basically any downtown in any city that isn't one of the big ones. All of the buildings, street art, and street grid are frozen in the 70s, 80s, or 90s.

All of the "action" (if you can call it that) is either in a suburban town square (that's mostly an outdoor mall) or spread out throughout neighborhoods in the suburbs. And you can bet your ass you'll need a car to get to them.

Between COVID having decimated downtown small business and the push into the metaverse, things do not look good for town squares in general. I would love to see the resurgence of walkable suburbs that are small and self-supporting, but it seems like the general "we" wants bigger houses, more chains and more isolation.

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