Most downtowns are built for commuters rather than residents. They forced out residents in favor of building higher cost commercial real estate. What residential buildings there is targets only the highest incomes. No surprise they are struggling.
Hear me out, and this might sound crazy: but what if we build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with shops, parks, and libraries? That way people will boost local economy instead of getting into car and driving to centralized locations like Walmart or malls?
That sounds like some of that communist soci-libral nazism to me, for sure for sure /s
We had that. We bulldozed it.
I mean, what kind of healthy life are you trying to live?
You must be talking about that liberal agenda to make communist “15 minute cities!”
Not today, bill gates!!
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Aw, man, two thirds through your comment I upvoted you cuz I felt bad your joke got taken wrong.
But the winge-fest in the edit… Dude sometimes a joke doesn’t land, take the L.
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We have a dramatic shortage of residential property. We have a dramatic oversupply of commercial property. IF ONLY THERE WAS A SOLUTION
IF ONLY THERE WAS A SOLUTION
Middle managers: I agree. From now on you’ll be required to be in office 4 days a week instead of 2!
Unfortunately, in most cities that is illegal. Zoning laws prevent turning commercial property into residential even when it is possible. It also prevents developers from building moderate, high, and even certain types of low density housing.
In most US cities. Hmm, I wonder if we can spot a solution…
Oops, thanks
For the millionth time it’s not that simple. Retrofitting commercial buildings is often impossible or more expensive than just demolishing and building new which is also ungodly expensive especially with how high interest rates are right now. Unless cities step in with millions of dollars per project it’s usually not financially possible.
Retrofitting commercial buildings is often impossible or more expensive than just demolishing
That sounds like a “them” problem.
They can watch their investments dry up and lose billions, or pivot to the new market. Not our fault they’re stuck in the 80s.
I live on the North end of the SF Bay Area and literally every empty lot and a shit load of pasture land and open space is currently being developed into either low income apartments, high end apartments, town houses or track homes. It’s honestly kind of shocking. Everywhere you go, new residential development.
Sonoma County supervisors were supposed to vote on a housing development plan in January, but failed to do so until August, and in the meantime there was a special rule that allowed builders to go ahead without most of the red tape they usually face. They took the opportunity and ran with it.
This is such bullshit. It doesn’t cost millions of dollars to add new plumbing, HVAC, and interior walls.
Actually it’s not bullshit. Most office buildings are designed with large core space where the elevators and stairs etc go. That’s not at all how apartment buildings are designed. Changing that is extremely expensive.
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Buildings not even built strong enough for multipurpose use. Ahh the “efficiency” of capitalism…
Also, no one said it has to be rennovated to be exactly like normal apartments. Some mixedly shared living spaces exist in some entire cultures for crying out loud.
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Because most non-US cultures didn’t decide to build their cities in the stupidest way possible.
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Brazil is as young as the US and, despite interference from the former, still managed just fine to build walkable cities. Japan too.
I’ll take an entire floor for the cost of one bachelor unit.
If you think that’s not fair to the building owner, I agree, they made a bad investment.
That’s what I’m saying, convert them to ridiculously high end massive floor plan condos, we don’t need whole buildings of studios and 1br
This might come as a shock to you but, human dignity doesn’t give a fuck about commercial real state value. Because commercial real estate owners don’t give a fuck about human dignity. So reciprocating the same level of care is fine for most.
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You’re a bad person. I’m glad that you recognize that. It puts my moral judgment at ease to know that you’re perfectly aware that you are a bad person.
if only there was a solution that wouldnt immediately destroy billions of dollars in commercial real estate.
Please. Will somebody think of the poor poor investors?
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most standard office floors dont have more than two or maybe 3 restrooms
Oh no! Too bad they don’t sell common plumbing supplies at the Home Goddamned Depot.
The 8000th “Covid killed cities” article, just shifting the goalposts and jumping around to different cities with different metrics out of context to make it seem worse than it is.
Capitalism killed cities, not COVID.
cars kill cities
They do too, but the cost of living (a problem exacerbated by capitalism treating property as an investment) has pushed workers out of cities, which kills the ability of businesses to keep employees, and thus the downtown empties of businesses like restaurants.
Urbanization has been increasing globally for hundreds of years. Nothing killed cities.
Therein lies your problem – USA is just barely civilized.
Walmart, suburbs, and the Internet killed downtowns IMO.
Are you saying that you don’t think cities are having issues?
I’m saying cities aren’t dying. Cities reinvent themselves when they have issues. Oh no, the textile industry is leaving NYC after WWII and the area those factories were in is considered a slum, the city is dying… and now that area is SoHo.
If this article was just trying to say “cities are still working their way back to pre-covid commercial activity levels” then sure, there is a temporary issue from a generational pandemic, agreed. But if you think people are going to stop moving to cities long term you are just wrong.
Gotta agree. I travel extensively and have seen downtrodden town centers as well as vibrant ones. There are multiple factors, not just “white flight” which has had decades to be mitigated or shift culturally. One of the truths is that people are generally moving to urban areas. That’s where the jobs are. That means leaving small towns. However, if that small town is near an urban area it stands a good chance of getting an economic boost as move in or people looking to “get away” dump money into the tourist market. Yeah, crime and poverty do a lot to keep economic improvement away, but even places like Oakland in California, a hotbed of crime in the ‘80s/‘90s, has seen an economic boost and an overall improvement as rising property values made the area more desirable. Towns will grow or shrink as economic opportunities leave or arrive.
There are going to be winners and losers, but the general trend is that urban areas are still going to be the bigger beneficiaries.
How much of the boost in Oakland was from SF just getting expensive as fuck to live in?
Quite a lot. I didn’t want to make a pedantic and exhaustive list of economic causal factors, but buyers being outpriced in a nearby area forcing them to look at previously undesirable areas can certainly be a factor.
Interesting, nah you’re good man. Not from the area nor a field anything about, just was curious
I mean the author is basically saying what you’re saying. the title definitely left off a keyword from the title : "[Traditional] Downtowns are dead, dying or on life support… " with their definition of traditional downtowns being only business focused downtowns, rather than muxed usage downtowns
Decades of rebuilding downtowns to accommodate vehicle traffic and commuters is the problem.
- people commuting from the Styx often do not reside within the same county they work in. County/City budget revenues decreased
- even if those residents happen to live in the same county or municipal area, cities were rebuilt to accommodate vehicle traffic. Highways cutting through urban cores. Areas where people once lived are replaced with parking lots/garages.
- city budgets further decimated by having to increase coverage of services (water, electric, sewage, …). Increased coverage requirement means new infrastructure. New infrastructure means more maintenance cost as the years progress. Also, first responders often stretched. Cities struggle to hire the correct amount of people to cover area
- poorly zoned cities with single use zoning are largely to blame as well. Many cities have dedicated commercial or residential only zones. Thus creating this strong coupling on vehicle commuters to come to office, spend money on lunch, then fuck off back to their shitty suburban home. If cities rezoned and allowed for more diverse zoning (mixed use, higher density). The problem of businesses that relied on commuters becomes a non-issue since that is largely replaced by walkin traffic.
- poorly designed cities replacing walkability with “vehicle accessibility”. This means the city has to maintain expensive road infrastructure. Also makes it very difficult to consider alternative forms of transportation to get to/from restaurants, entertainment, general living, grocery store.
It’s “the sticks”, not “the Styx” unless they’re coming from a Tommy Shaw concert or commuting from the bowels of hell. :)
If anything they would be commuting to Styx.
Decades of rebuilding downtowns to accommodate vehicle traffic and commuters is the problem.
More like “demolishing” than “rebuilding,” but otherwise you’re spot-on!
I have a strong hatred for how many storefronts are taken up by “antique shops” (i.e. dusty warehouses full of junk you couldn’t give away) instead of actual businesses in the last two small towns I lived in. Makes it so you can’t really get that much shopping done downtown.
Don’t hate on the antique shops. Hate on the big box stores that everyone goes to shop and has left the only possible business for a small store to become an antique shop.
EDIT: Also fuck dollar general
The tax write off shops for bored housewives needing something to do.
Could probably use some more stadiums and parking lots.
That’ll perk things up.
I can’t afford food for myself, and every day gets worse and worse, I’m sure I’m not alone, this is what happens when you let the working class go so far down the hole all they can afford to do is work and sleep.
Are you living in the US by any chance?
Yep.
How the fuck does this article define “downtown”? Can’t find an explanation in it.
In my small town (15K) in MA, we call it “uptown” and it’s doing great!
Small theater with plenty of live events. Well used library. New brewpub in the old fire house. New sushi joint. Brand new ice cream shop. Small, but, functional dessert bakery, Pho shop, and soon a new butcher/seafood shop.
Throw in other restaurants, pizza joints, barber, salon, liquor store.
Plenty of people living right there also. It’s a very successful New England “village”. There’s even a really nice band stand on the center park where they have all types of activities. Free concerts every Thursday night during Summer and Christmas caroling the Thursday before Christmas.
I pray you guys never get a walmart
Definitely not in town center. There are 2 Walmarts within 15 minutes. 2 Targets also within 15 minutes.
We also have a NFL stadium in town. It is very isolated in the business/commercial district.
I’d bet over a million people have been in town and never visited the center of our quintessential New England village.
That actually sounds cool. My experience with downtown areas has been less than positive… more of a maze, everything very overpriced… now that I think about it it’s very similar to a large airport.
Shame as it’d be nice to just walk around for all your needs… you’d think it would actually be more cost effective.
One of the most-striking experiences of my regional metro core’s death throes was needing to pee but my train was delayed. Tried walking across the way to the local train station to use their facilities but the security guy they’d hired to keep the homeless out about fought me to keep me from using the restroom.
If you wonder why your city streets and transit zones smell like piss, it’s because when you lock up your bathrooms to keep the homeless people away, they’ll piss on your street
In the town that we spent our summers in, there was a single, well hidden, public restroom on Main Street. This is a town that makes their living on tourism. You would think they wouldn’t want people have quit shopping and leave downtown to pee.
In the middle of the 20th century there was a huge migration of people out of city centres and into suburbs. Some of my relatives bought up properties back then and made bank when the city expanded. I don’t expect inner cities to remain quiet forever, but the way they’re used might change.
huge migration of people
White people. Because due to desegregation, they were suddenly required to have black people in their neighborhoods if those black people wanted to buy a house there. So they ran away from the black people.
Not everyone lives in the US. While aboriginal people in Australia also tended to stay in the inner city they make up a much smaller proportion of the population, and the divide between city and suburbs was more along socioeconomic lines than racial ones; it just happened that due to racism the Aboriginals were in the lower socioeconomic group.
Shock and horror… White people mooooooved…
No one said it was shocking or horrific. Just typical systemic racism.
Redlining is systemic racism, people choosing to move away is just regular old racism.
Good. Much like malls, big cities are a thing of the past. People don’t want that anymore, cities are hell to travel around, dirty, stinky, expensive and unsustainable. Most people would have a vastly better time in a well developed small/mid town area.
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No. We’re sick of subsidizing suburbanites, like we have been for the last 80 years. Get with the times, or live in the country and leave your car at the edge of town.
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