Downtowns are back

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I calculated Tenderloin as part of Downtown San Francisco. It's 29,638 people living in 0.697 km² for a 42,500 inh./km² density (multiply for 2.59 for miles). That's comparable to the densest Paris arrondissements. It's very hard to reproduce elsewhere.

But it's beautiful this region. Lots of potential.

I got curious: I used 6 census tracts for Los Angeles Historic Core and it's a just a bit larger than the boundaries Google Maps came with:

-- 2020 --- 2010 --- Growth --- Area ----- Density
10,410 --- 8,312 --- 25.2% --- 0.686 km² --- 15,175 inh./km²

Coincidentally, exactly the same size of Tenderloin. Population and density three times lower.

Growth rate lower than Downtown LA as a whole (41% vs 25%), but it's quite a nice pace for an already dense area.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Many SunBelt cities have in fact more in common with Detroit in this regard. I intend to post Dallas and Fort Worth soon, and it's not that different from Houston, at least regarding numbers. Atlanta is the outlier here, but even for them is a more recent phenomenon.

But Houston, if we ignored the parts of Loop north of CBD, where the university campus is, they have grown quite decently. I imagine they're replacing the (in)famous parking lots with highrises.

Which is why I said "Central Houston". Central DFW is more intact than Houston's, all sun belt cities have the freeways cutting through them but most don't have the heavy industrial use so close. You didn't include the areas North or East of downtown which is what separates ATL, Miami, PHX, DFW from Houston, at least in my opinion.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I got curious: I used 6 census tracts for Los Angeles Historic Core and it's a just a bit larger than the boundaries Google Maps came with:

-- 2020 --- 2010 --- Growth --- Area ----- Density
10,410 --- 8,312 --- 25.2% --- 0.686 km² --- 15,175 inh./km²

Coincidentally, exactly the same size of Tenderloin. Population and density three times lower.

Growth rate lower than Downtown LA as a whole (41% vs 25%), but it's quite a nice pace for an already dense area.

Interesting results. I would've expected the density of the Historic Core to be a little bit closer if not on par with the Tenderloin. The scale of the buildings are quite massive as edale pointed out. The TL is generally comprised of smaller footprinted buildings in the 3-7 story range, with a few taller 10+ story buildings sprinkled in between.

https://goo.gl/maps/4kmeJ5p47stKFGzo8

[edale]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Interesting results. I would've expected the density of the Historic Core to be a little bit closer if not on par with the Tenderloin. The scale of the buildings are quite massive as edale pointed out. The TL is generally comprised of smaller footprinted buildings in the 3-7 story range, with a few taller 10+ story buildings sprinkled in between.

https://goo.gl/maps/4kmeJ5p47stKFGzo8

There are still a number of vacant or mostly vacant buildings in the Historic Core. A good amount of surface parking lots, too: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0416...7i16384!8i8192

Plenty of room to grow.

[Crawford]

I don't understand the comparisons between Tenderloin and downtown LA's historic core.

The Tenderloin is a longstanding, super-poor neighborhood of packed-in SROs (essentially welfare hotels). It hasn't gentrified, and won't gentrify, by design. SF Chinatown is similar (if without the drug/homeless/yuck issues).

LA's historic core is a traditional working class shopping district now being gentrified. They aren't particularly similar, even if the buildings have some resemblance. In LA, gentrification probably brings expensive loft apartments and hipsters, while Tenderloin is govt.-run housing for addicts, mostly.

Of course LA has Skid Row, which is sorta downtown core, and which has similarities to Tenderloin, but I don't think this is what we're talking about. Isn't LA's Skid Row mostly tent cities, and lowrise structures, not really wall-to-wall midrise SROs like Tenderloin?

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Again, thanks for putting together the data, yuriandrade. I took the liberty of compiling your data into a list, sorted by most dense to least.

City ---- 2020 ---- 2010 ---- 2000 ---- 1990 ---- Area ---- Density

Lower Manhattan ---- 88,744 ---- 71,847 ---- 46,581 ---- 35,316 ---- 23.5% ---- 54.2% ---- 31.9% ---- 3.5 km² ---- 25,384.4 inh./km²

San Francisco ---- 134,974 ---- 110,719 ---- 97,737 ---- 88,944 ---- 21.9% ---- 13.3% ---- 9.9% ---- 8.0 km² ---- 16,886.5 inh./km²

Chicago Near North Side ---- 105,481 ---- 80,484 ---- 72,811 ---- 62,842 ----- 31.1% ----- 10.5% ----- 15.9% ---- 6.8 km² ---- 15,500 inh./km²

Miami ---- 58,439 ---- 31,697 ---- 12,885 ---- 9,218 ---- 84.4% ---- 146.0% ---- 39.8% ---- 4.34 km² ---- 13,500 inh./km²

Boston ---- 47,825 ---- 39,046 ---- 33,151 ---- 28,800 ---- 22.5% ---- 17.8% ---- 15.1% ---- 3.9 km² ---- 12,332.4 inh./km²

Chicago Loop ---- 42,298 ---- 29,283 ---- 16,388 ---- 11,954 ---- 44.4% ---- 78.7% ---- 37.1% ---- 2.9 km² ---- 10,800 inh./km²

Philadelphia ---- 91,510 ---- 68,836 ---- 57,552 ---- 51,302 ---- 32.9% ---- 19.6% ---- 12.2% ---- 8.92 km² ---- 10,300 inh./km².

San Diego ---- 39,538 ---- 27,918 ---- 15,482 ---- 12,771 ---- 41.6% ---- 80.3% ---- 21.2% ---- 4.7 km² ---- 8,457.3 inh./km²

Denver ---- 15,198 ---- 7,998 ---- 4,181 ---- 2,795 ---- 90.0% ---- 91.3% ---- 49.6% ---- 2.3 km² ---- 6,736.7 inh./km²

Atlanta Midtown ---- 32,240 ---- 20,225 ---- 13,643 ---- 9,631 ---- 59.4% ---- 48.2% ---- 41.7% ---- 5.0 km² ---- 6,415.9 inh./km²

Oakland ---- 21,616 ---- 18,547 ---- 13,652 ---- 11,357 ---- 16.5% ---- 35.9% ---- 20.2% ---- 3.6 km² ---- 6,044.7 inh./km²

Los Angeles ---- 74,349 ---- 52,538 ---- 40,836 ---- 32,786 ---- 41.5% ---- 28.7% ---- 24.5% ---- 14.86 km² ---- 5,003 inh./km²

Atlanta Downtown ---- 21,026 ---- 14,615 ---- 12,089 ---- 8,635 ---- 43.9% ---- 20.9% ----- 40.0% ---- 5.1 km² ---- 4,114.7 inh./km²

Houston Midtown ---- 10,820 ----- 7,441 ---- 4,710 ---- 2,761 ---- 45.4% ---- 58.0% ---- 70.6% ---- 2.8 km² ---- 3,861.5 inh./km²

Houston Downtown ---- 17,138 ----- 14,342 ----- 11,882 ------ 7,029 ---- 19.5% ---- 20.7% --- 69.0% ---- 4.5 km² ---- 3,834.9 inh./km²

Detroit Midtown ---- 16,921 ---- 14,550 ---- 16,877 ---- 16,692 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.8% ---- 1.1% ---- 5.4 km² ---- 3,141.7 inh./km²

San Jose ---- 14,589 ---- 10,656 ---- 10,145 ---- 9,249 ---- 36.9% ---- 5.0% ---- 9.7% ---- 5.7 km² ---- 2,549.2 inh./km²

Cleveland ---- 13,338 ---- 9,471 ---- 6,312 ---- 4,561 ---- 40.8% ---- 50.0% ---- 38.4% ---- 7.8 km² ---- 1,705.6 inh./km²

Detroit Downtown ---- 6,151 ---- 5,287 ---- 6,141 ---- 5,970 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.9% ----- 2.9% ---- 3.7 km² ---- 1,668.3 inh./km²

Great data, but there's no way Miami's Downtown is more dense than Chicago, Boston, and Philly's. Seems like a case of conveniently drawn boundaries.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't understand the comparisons between Tenderloin and downtown LA's historic core.

The Tenderloin is a longstanding, super-poor neighborhood of packed-in SROs (essentially welfare hotels). It hasn't gentrified, and won't gentrify, by design. SF Chinatown is similar (if without the drug/homeless/yuck issues).

LA's historic core is a traditional working class shopping district now being gentrified. They aren't particularly similar, even if the buildings have some resemblance. In LA, gentrification probably brings expensive loft apartments and hipsters, while Tenderloin is govt.-run housing for addicts, mostly.

Of course LA has Skid Row, which is sorta downtown core, and which has similarities to Tenderloin, but I don't think this is what we're talking about. Isn't LA's Skid Row mostly tent cities, and lowrise structures, not really wall-to-wall midrise SROs like Tenderloin?

The comparison comes from the Tenderloin and Historic Core being high density residential areas adjacent to their cities financial districts.

Many of the buildings in the HC were formerly SRO hotels, which I believe there were also quite a few of in the Tenderloin. There is still quite a bit of low-income housing mixed into the HC. Buildings like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0482...7i16384!8i8192
and this https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0488...7i16384!8i8192

Skid Row does have a considerable amount of permanent supportive housing and other homeless housing beyond the street tents. It's not wall-to-wall housing like the Tenderloin, but there is still a significant amount of housing there. The Historic Core is probably LA's best shot at achieving super high density ala the Tenderloin and Chinatown in SF. When you add Skid Row in with the HC, the similar high homeless populations furthers the comparison between the two.

[Yuri]

Downtown Kansas City




------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ---------------------- 9,743 ------ 5,089 ------ 3,755 ------ 3,856 ---- 91.5% ---- 35.5% --- -2.6% ------- 2.3 km² --- 4,275.1 inh./km²

Kansas City Metro Area ---- 2,136,403 -- 1,952,470 -- 1,757,083 -- 1,568,274 ----- 9.4% ---- 11.1% --- 12.0% -- 12,899 km²


Downtown Kansas City is all inside the freeway loop and the 4 census tracts match it exactly. Explosive growth and the adjacent neighbourhoods are also growing.

It's a perfect example on how even metro areas that people hardly associated with urban life, are also attracting tons of people to their downtowns.

[mrnyc]

question - is 20k living downtown still the modern rule of thumb for supporting decent retail downtown these days? like, i dk, a city target, dept. store or shopping area kind of thing.

i remember the 20k goal was the thinking for a fully activated downtown in the oughties.

thx for your thoughts.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't understand the comparisons between Tenderloin and downtown LA's historic core.

The Tenderloin is a longstanding, super-poor neighborhood of packed-in SROs (essentially welfare hotels). It hasn't gentrified, and won't gentrify, by design. SF Chinatown is similar (if without the drug/homeless/yuck issues).

LA's historic core is a traditional working class shopping district now being gentrified. They aren't particularly similar, even if the buildings have some resemblance. In LA, gentrification probably brings expensive loft apartments and hipsters, while Tenderloin is govt.-run housing for addicts, mostly.

Of course LA has Skid Row, which is sorta downtown core, and which has similarities to Tenderloin, but I don't think this is what we're talking about. Isn't LA's Skid Row mostly tent cities, and lowrise structures, not really wall-to-wall midrise SROs like Tenderloin?

Correct, however there is a lot of sro / mid rise supportive housing being built in skid row now. Dozens of buildings under construction, recently completed or proposed in the 5 to 20 story range

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Correct, however there is a lot of sro / mid rise supportive housing being built in skid row now. Dozens of buildings under construction, recently completed or proposed in the 5 to 20 story range

can confirm as i took a quick walk thru skid row last week on a visit. i saw some construction happening.

of note there were a lot more homeless there and all around town than my last visit a couple years ago. and very different types of homeless we dont see much of around nyc. like hardcore apocalyptic zombie looking people. very sad and i dk what can be done.

[Yuri]

Downtown Seattle




------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 50,837 ----- 34,522 ----- 29,078 ----- 17,002 ---- 47.3% ---- 18.7% --- 71.0% ------- 4.1 km² -- 12,393.2 inh./km²

Seattle ----------------------- 737,015 ---- 608,660 ---- 563,204 ---- 516,262 ---- 21.1% ----- 8.1% ---- 9.1% ----- 217.1 km² --- 3,394.8 inh./km²

Seattle Metro Area -------- 4,871,272 -- 4,199,312 -- 3,707,144 -- 3,088,224 ---- 16.0% ---- 13.3% --- 20.0% -- 25,604 km²


Everything doing perfect for Seattle, metro area, city proper and Downtown all growing fast. Now Downtown Seattle packs 51,000 people in only 4 km² area.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

can confirm as i took a quick walk thru skid row last week on a visit. i saw some construction happening.

of note there were a lot more homeless there and all around town than my last visit a couple years ago. and very different types of homeless we dont see much of around nyc. like hardcore apocalyptic zombie looking people. very sad and i dk what can be done.

Downtown LA is really that bad? Do they approach you, act agressively?

I moved Downtown SP, in an impulsive decision. The region has a massive problem of driver addicts/homelessness but we adapted quite fast and I’m completely in love. The energy, creativity of the region is unmatched. We go out pretty much everyday.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Downtown LA is really that bad? Do they approach you, act agressively?

I moved Downtown SP, in an impulsive decision. The region has a massive problem of driver addicts/homelessness but we adapted quite fast and I’m completely in love. The energy, creativity of the region is unmatched. We go out pretty much everyday.

He said skid row. It's avoided by 95 percent of people, residents or tourists. Probably 99 percent.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Downtown Seattle




------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 50,837 ----- 34,522 ----- 29,078 ----- 17,002 ---- 47.3% ---- 18.7% --- 71.0% ------- 4.1 km² -- 12,393.2 inh./km²

Seattle ----------------------- 737,015 ---- 608,660 ---- 563,204 ---- 516,262 ---- 21.1% ----- 8.1% ---- 9.1% ----- 217.1 km² --- 3,394.8 inh./km²

Seattle Metro Area -------- 4,871,272 -- 4,199,312 -- 3,707,144 -- 3,088,224 ---- 16.0% ---- 13.3% --- 20.0% -- 25,604 km²


Everything doing perfect for Seattle, metro area, city proper and Downtown all growing fast. Now Downtown Seattle packs 51,000 people in only 4 km² area.

Awesome, thanks.

What boundaries or tracts did you use?

Some define it more broadly. One definition is by the Downtown Seattle Association. It's a reasonable map, with my main objection being that SoDo is basically industrial. https://downtownseattle.org/about/where-we-serve/

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Great data, but there's no way Miami's Downtown is more dense than Chicago, Boston, and Philly's. Seems like a case of conveniently drawn boundaries.

The Loop and Downtown Boston are mostly office buildings. The Near north side where most of the residential high-rises are is, as expected, denser than Downtown Miami. Funny how everyone complains that Miami's skyline looks bad because it is mostly high-rise residential buildings and then wonders why its downtown population density is higher than cities with mostly high-rise office buildings. I lived in the Back Bay in Boston for 5 years. Its super dense (way denser than Miami), but its not really "Downtown" so its probably not included.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The Tenderloin is a longstanding, super-poor neighborhood of packed-in SROs (essentially welfare hotels). It hasn't gentrified, and won't gentrify, by design. SF Chinatown is similar (if without the drug/homeless/yuck issues).

From the point of view of San Francisco officialdom and possibly in reality there really aren't that many--enough they argue--SROs left in the Tenderloin. Decades ago San Francisco put in bans on conversion to tourist "by the night" hotels and to a certain extent that preserved some of them, but many others have been taken over for other uses including student dormitories and non-profit housing (after extensive renovation in many cases), and some have just flat been torn down and replaced with new buildings. If you walk around the Tenderloin today, there's an impressive amount of newly constructed low income housing mostly built by non-profit developers using funds provided by the city's mandate that for-profit developers provide a percentage of low income housing on or off site or contribute to the pool of funds available to the non-profits. And what's not new is usually renovated. There really are few old-fashioned, poorly maintained flop houses left.

Finally, much of the non-profit housing, both new and old, is occupied by recent immigrant families, many of them Asian. So much of the Tenderloin now has a distinctly Asian flavor. So much so that part has been christened "little Saigon".

[homebucket]

Adding the newest additions to the list.

Again, credit to yuriandrade.

City ---- 2020 ---- 2010 ---- 2000 ---- 1990 ---- Area ---- Density

Lower Manhattan ---- 88,744 ---- 71,847 ---- 46,581 ---- 35,316 ---- 23.5% ---- 54.2% ---- 31.9% ---- 3.5 km² ---- 25,384.4 inh./km²

San Francisco ---- 134,974 ---- 110,719 ---- 97,737 ---- 88,944 ---- 21.9% ---- 13.3% ---- 9.9% ---- 8.0 km² ---- 16,886.5 inh./km²

Chicago Near North Side ---- 105,481 ---- 80,484 ---- 72,811 ---- 62,842 ----- 31.1% ----- 10.5% ----- 15.9% ---- 6.8 km² ---- 15,500 inh./km²

Miami ---- 58,439 ---- 31,697 ---- 12,885 ---- 9,218 ---- 84.4% ---- 146.0% ---- 39.8% ---- 4.34 km² ---- 13,500 inh./km²

Seattle ---- 50,837 ---- 34,522 ---- 29,078 ---- 17,002 ---- 47.3% ---- 18.7% ---- 71.0% ---- 4.1 km² ---- 12,393.2 inh./km²

Boston ---- 47,825 ---- 39,046 ---- 33,151 ---- 28,800 ---- 22.5% ---- 17.8% ---- 15.1% ---- 3.9 km² ---- 12,332.4 inh./km²

Chicago Loop ---- 42,298 ---- 29,283 ---- 16,388 ---- 11,954 ---- 44.4% ---- 78.7% ---- 37.1% ---- 2.9 km² ---- 10,800 inh./km²

Philadelphia ---- 91,510 ---- 68,836 ---- 57,552 ---- 51,302 ---- 32.9% ---- 19.6% ---- 12.2% ---- 8.92 km² ---- 10,300 inh./km².

San Diego ---- 39,538 ---- 27,918 ---- 15,482 ---- 12,771 ---- 41.6% ---- 80.3% ---- 21.2% ---- 4.7 km² ---- 8,457.3 inh./km²

Denver ---- 15,198 ---- 7,998 ---- 4,181 ---- 2,795 ---- 90.0% ---- 91.3% ---- 49.6% ---- 2.3 km² ---- 6,736.7 inh./km²

Atlanta Midtown ---- 32,240 ---- 20,225 ---- 13,643 ---- 9,631 ---- 59.4% ---- 48.2% ---- 41.7% ---- 5.0 km² ---- 6,415.9 inh./km²

Oakland ---- 21,616 ---- 18,547 ---- 13,652 ---- 11,357 ---- 16.5% ---- 35.9% ---- 20.2% ---- 3.6 km² ---- 6,044.7 inh./km²

Baltimore ---- 24,228 ---- 18,766 ---- 16,207 ---- 14,210 ---- 29.1% ---- 15.8% ---- 14.1% ---- 4.1 km² ---- 5,913.6 inh./km²

Los Angeles ---- 74,349 ---- 52,538 ---- 40,836 ---- 32,786 ---- 41.5% ---- 28.7% ---- 24.5% ---- 14.86 km² ---- 5,003 inh./km²

Kansas City ---- 9,743 ----- 5,089 ----- 3,755 ---- 3,856 ---- 91.5% ---- 35.5% ---- -2.6% ---- 2.3 km² ---- 4,275.1 inh./km²

Atlanta Downtown ---- 21,026 ---- 14,615 ---- 12,089 ---- 8,635 ---- 43.9% ---- 20.9% ----- 40.0% ---- 5.1 km² ---- 4,114.7 inh./km²

Houston Midtown ---- 10,820 ----- 7,441 ---- 4,710 ---- 2,761 ---- 45.4% ---- 58.0% ---- 70.6% ---- 2.8 km² ---- 3,861.5 inh./km²

Houston Downtown ---- 17,138 ----- 14,342 ----- 11,882 ------ 7,029 ---- 19.5% ---- 20.7% --- 69.0% ---- 4.5 km² ---- 3,834.9 inh./km²

Detroit Midtown ---- 16,921 ---- 14,550 ---- 16,877 ---- 16,692 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.8% ---- 1.1% ---- 5.4 km² ---- 3,141.7 inh./km²

San Jose ---- 14,589 ---- 10,656 ---- 10,145 ---- 9,249 ---- 36.9% ---- 5.0% ---- 9.7% ---- 5.7 km² ---- 2,549.2 inh./km²

Cleveland ---- 13,338 ---- 9,471 ---- 6,312 ---- 4,561 ---- 40.8% ---- 50.0% ---- 38.4% ---- 7.8 km² ---- 1,705.6 inh./km²

Detroit Downtown ---- 6,151 ---- 5,287 ---- 6,141 ---- 5,970 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.9% ----- 2.9% ---- 3.7 km² ---- 1,668.3 inh./km²

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 50,837 ----- 34,522 ----- 29,078 ----- 17,002 ---- 47.3% ---- 18.7% --- 71.0% ------- 4.1 km² -- 12,393.2 inh./km²

Seattle ----------------------- 737,015 ---- 608,660 ---- 563,204 ---- 516,262 ---- 21.1% ----- 8.1% ---- 9.1% ----- 217.1 km² --- 3,394.8 inh./km²

Seattle Metro Area -------- 4,871,272 -- 4,199,312 -- 3,707,144 -- 3,088,224 ---- 16.0% ---- 13.3% --- 20.0% -- 25,604 km²

Everything doing perfect for Seattle, metro area, city proper and Downtown all growing fast. Now Downtown Seattle packs 51,000 people in only 4 km² area.

Very impressive growth! While we all knew Seattle was making great strides, I think this shows that Seattle has definitely built its way solidly into the big leagues now.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by mhays

Awesome, thanks.

What boundaries or tracts did you use?

Some define it more broadly. One definition is by the Downtown Seattle Association. It's a reasonable map, with my main objection being that SoDo is basically industrial. https://downtownseattle.org/about/where-we-serve/

For Seattle, it went with a middle ground definition. Based on your map, the census tracts I used roughly include everything minus Uptown, South Lake Union, West Capitol Hill and Sodo.

Originally Posted by homebucket

Very impressive growth! While we all knew Seattle was making great strides, I think this shows that Seattle has definitely built its way solidly into the big leagues now.

Since 2000 Census, we started to think about the Big 12 regarding the largest US metro areas as they had a clear head over others. Now, both Seattle and Phoenix are about to overtake Detroit population wise whereas preserve a good lead over Minneapolis and Denver.

But Seattle is indeed a special case, as it's surpassed Phoenix on population growth while it's a massive economic powerhouse. And obviously, it's becoming increasingly urban in this process.

Our Canadian colleagues could provide us with Vancouver data. I know this comparison it's a cliché, but as Vancouver started its densification process earlier, it's interesting to see how Seattle is now.