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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

#41

Post by foxyv »

If you go to downtown Topeka and try to find a place to hang out on a weekend morning you will notice a really strange thing. A lot of the cafes, restaurants, and places to hang out are only open for the afternoon lunch rush and happy hour on weekdays. Literally the only customers they have are people who commute into the city for work.

Our cities are no longer places for people to live. They are places for people to drive to. Normal people can't afford to live in them anymore so they don't. Now that people aren't commuting either downtown will have to adapt or die.

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

#42

Post by JohnFen »

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:…

> 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

And it would mean living in a downtown area, which most people don't want to do.

In my town, the downtown area was a train wreck for decades, but they seem to have fixed it. They started by putting residential units around, but that had little effect. Since then, though, they've build quite a lot of boutique and fancy hotels. That did the trick. Downtown is lively now.

But it's also still not a place that people who live in the city go. It's for tourists. Good as a profit center, but it certainly didn't make the area a part of the community.

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

#43

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gottorf wrote: post #15
kylecazar wrote: post #10

COVID really messed up the improvements made to NYC's FiDi over the past decade.

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.

The "work from home" class were going to lock themselves down whether it was mandated by the government or not.

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

#44

Post by freedrock87 »

JohnFen wrote: post #42
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:…

> 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 And it would mean living in a downtown area, which most people don't want to do. In my town, the downtown area was a train wreck for decades, but they seem to have fixed it. They started by putting residential units around, but that had little effect. Since then,…

He states the reason why people don't want to live in downtowns. It's a self afflicting issue.

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

#45

Post by JambalayaJim »

devbent wrote: post #33
JambalayaJim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The people who have lived through them simply won’t stand for them. If another disease like the first COVID wave comes along I'll damn well vote out any politician who doesn't support lockdowns. When there is a super virulent disease spreading rapidly that we don't know the long term effects of (and we still don't years later!) a lockdown is the logical response until we have some idea wtf is going on.

And I’ll do the opposite.

The thing is, we relied on the novelty of something like covid to enforce lockdowns in the first place. Without that overblown fear, voluntary compliance simply won’t be there.

And any government that wants to impose lockdowns will be forced to implement a military response, akin to what China did during covid. That kind of response + hindsight to how useless it is won’t go well.

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

#46

Post by pizzafeelsright »

Kye wrote: post #8
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…

Which city is this?

Specific one but like most larger cities in California

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

#47

Post by Kye »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #46
Kye wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which city is this?

Specific one but like most larger cities in California

I'm not in California, so that doesn't tell me much. I see too much conflicting anecdata from over on the other end of the continent to form an opinion.

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

#48

Post by rospaya »

JambalayaJim wrote: post #24
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.

Maybe where you live, but my commie block has basic amenities (shop, butcher, small farmers market, few bars and restaurants, park, doctor... etc) in a 10 minute walk. 10 minutes away are buses and trams that take me to whatever else I need.

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

#49

Post by xcrunner529 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #11
xcrunner529 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really read the article? This is about office space and those reliant on office foot traffic. None of those things you mentioned are unique nor relevant here. Seems like you just wanted something to be true to fit what you see on Fox News. “older, denser downtowns reliant on professional or tech workers and located within large metros”

Are you saying that "office foot traffic" is unaffected by encounters with crime, homeless people and drug users? Seems to me perfectly reasonable that those things would decrease office foot traffic. Or are you claiming that those things don't exist (in any quantity that matters) in the downtowns of most cities?

If you actually read the article and weren’t just searching for words to confirm your biases you’d understand.

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

#50

Post by Grimblewald »

4death4 wrote: post #38
DoreenMichele wrote: post #13

It seems very likely that one reason downtowns have so much office space is because it's employment that's inoffensive in terms of city planning and zoning while potentially promising good salaries historically more associated with noisy, polluting industrial spaces. I remember seeing an article where someone was against zoning that completely eliminated industrial uses in their town or something. She felt that it wa…

Is there really such a thing as clean industry? Seems like wishful thinking.

There is no clean living but a build up of filth is a sign of someone not doing their job properly. The problem isnt clean vs dirty industry, truly it is all dirty, the problem is outsourcing clean up or consequences for a lack of clean up to the public.
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