What Happens to Downtown?

[BrettM]

Not seeing how this is linked? The downtown areas aren't owned by the local authority are they, they are not gaining income from renting out their properties are they?

The owners of downtown properties collect rent from their tenants. Part of this rent is used to pay rates imposed by the local authority. If there is no rental income, the owners cannot pay rates, and the city eventually decays.

 

[Darat]

1. If you want a vibrant outdoor social area why does it have to be Downtown?
2. Whenever urban planners talk about "social" they always mean two groups: Young adults who want to drink and hook up and families with children. Their ideal social planning always seems to be an endless field of 50% singles bars and 50% Chuck-E-Cheeses. Couples with no children and anyone single with interests other then hooking up get to eat ****.
3. This kind of thing has to happen organically. A soulless city council can't just rubber stamp a few hipster microbreweries and a sidewalk art market down in the slums and go "There. It's cool now."

Yep.

The reason these areas are no longer used or no longer as busy is because people have "voted with their feet", how we socialise has simply changed, how our worklife and personal life is organised has changed. In the UK the lament is about the "High street dying" - yeah they are dying because overall people no longer want what they offered. It's what Cnut^* demonstrated, the tide has changed and there is nowt you can do about it, and I've no idea why people want to do anything about it since they've already decided they don't want what these areas offered us in the past.





*How school kids must chuckle since it's now fashionable to use "Cnut" instead of the "Canute" of my childhood - hey things have changed!!!

 

[Darat]

The owners of downtown properties collect rent from their tenants. Part of this rent is used to pay rates imposed by the local authority. If there is no rental income, the owners cannot pay rates, and the city eventually decays.

Then the cities will have to change where they generate their revenues from.

 

[Dr. Keith]

The owners of downtown properties collect rent from their tenants. Part of this rent is used to pay rates imposed by the local authority. If there is no rental income, the owners cannot pay rates, and the city eventually decays.

I don’t live in a city. I don’t own property in a city. This is a problem best addressed by those who have invested heavily in such property.

When I invested in a neighborhood I worked to protect and enhance that investment. I didn’t expect random outsiders to do it for me out of fear that my area could become a slum. I don’t remember any “what do we do about the suburbs” threads when the housing market tanked. Maybe I was too busy working with my HOA to notice.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Yep.

The reason these areas are no longer used or no longer as busy is because people have "voted with their feet", how we socialise has simply changed, how our worklife and personal life is organised has changed. In the UK the lament is about the "High street dying" - yeah they are dying because overall people no longer want what they offered. It's what Cnut^* demonstrated, the tide has changed and there is nowt you can do about it, and I've no idea why people want to do anything about it since they've already decided they don't want what these areas offered us in the past.





*How school kids must chuckle since it's now fashionable to use "Cnut" instead of the "Canute" of my childhood - hey things have changed!!!

People who claim to love free speech often don’t like it that other people get to talk. Capitalism seems to suffer from the same illness.

 

[Steve]

I currently live a four hour drive away from the nearest city that could be said to have a downtown. Yet somehow people here are still able to go out to drink in bars, eat in restaurants, hook up with members of the opposite, or same, sex as per their preference. Families spend quality time together in public areas. There is no shortage of festivals and other special events that are well attended. And businesses that are normally conducted from offices are still able to carry on their daily affairs. The idea that "downtowns" are required for any of this seems a little short-sighted.

 

[BrettM]

The reason these areas are no longer used or no longer as busy is because people have "voted with their feet", how we socialise has simply changed, how our worklife and personal life is organised has changed. In the UK the lament is about the "High street dying" - yeah they are dying because overall people no longer want what they offered. It's what Cnut demonstrated, the tide has changed and there is nowt you can do about it, and I've no idea why people want to do anything about it since they've already decided they don't want what these areas offered us in the past.

I agree wholeheartedly. I lived near a big city for many years. About 5 years ago, I moved to a small community to retire. It was a very liberating experience, for all the reasons mentioned upstream.

In those 5 years the community has doubled, largely due to the construction of housing estates and retirement villages. The slum dwellers from the cities have followed this exodus, because this is where the new employent opportunities exist. (To put this in context, I live in a third world country with an official unemployment rate of 40%).

So what to do? Do I up anchor and move again in 5 years' time? Should I hope that death overtakes me first?

 

[ahhell]

Denver is talking about rezoning all the commercial space to allow residential. Obviously not easy to turn office space into residential but it can be done and that could resurrect downtowns. Every former office building turned into a mix of offices, residential, and commercial. Folks won't mind the commute if its just a few elevators and a walk around the block or just an elevator, not to mention the home near the night life.

It also could alleviate some of the rise in housings costs. Anyrate, its a positive move, I'm sure it won't solve every problem with downtowns these days but it could help.

It also means new construction in downtowns might consider some flexibility or just including the combination of office and residential.

 

[Thermal]

We really don't have this concept of downtown like it seems to be used in the USA, yet we have vibrant towns, plenty of outside social stuff to do, restaurants and the like.

As do we. But I think the idea here is that some cities and towns are being hit harder than others. Much like we don't want to see residential neighborhoods get run down, we don't want that for commercial areas either. It helps no one to board up once hopping places and watch them rot. The trick is to get them hoping again, kick up revenue for the town and everyone is a little better off.

We have an experience here where people say they don't know their neighbors anymore. Socializing in general is going by the wayside, and I'm not confident that's a good thing. I kind of pine for the days when I could go to the mall and try on clothes. I just got a shot of culture shock recently when trying to buy clothes in a brick and mortar joint. The retail places are decimated.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Indeed. So stop pretending that the pandemic is over and start taking it seriously.

Why are you so reluctant to admit that it is now just endemic?

 

[Thermal]

Not seeing how this is linked? The downtown areas aren't owned by the local authority are they, they are not gaining income from renting out their properties are they?

Business licensing (merchanitle and otherwise), a plethora of taxes from any retail endeavor, city taxes on each worker/transaction...the town collects a significant piece of the action from any successful business.

 

[Steve]

Business licensing (merchanitle and otherwise), a plethora of taxes from any retail endeavor, city taxes on each worker/transaction...the town collects a significant piece of the action from any successful business.

Which is partially responsible for driving businesses out of downtown cores.

 

[Brainster]

Not seeing how this is linked? The downtown areas aren't owned by the local authority are they, they are not gaining income from renting out their properties are they?

No, not directly. But when the owners of those properties collect rents, part of the money goes to pay property taxes, which pays for a great deal of the services the city provides, like schools, road, mass transit, etc. If you stop maintaining those services, the city starts to deteriorate and it has the potential to turn into a death spiral--reduced services results in reduced desirability results in reduced population results in reduced tax collections results in further reduced services.

To be clear, I am talking about major downtown areas, like Manhattan in NYC, the Financial District in SF. This isn't about your local High Street. I get that property taxes are different in the UK, but there your landlords pay a pretty whopping rental profits tax (up to 45%), so the concept is similar; if the buildings in the City in London remain vacant there will be a sizable income loss to whichever taxing authority collects that tax. That loss results in reduced services, which will lead to reduced desirability which results in further vacancies and further service cuts.

I don't have a solution myself; I suspect the cities will be looking for handouts from their states and countries, but that is just sending good money after bad. And while I assumed that conservatives and libertarians would take the "Drop Dead" attitude to hearing about the impending demise of SF and NYC, I'm kinda surprised that it's also coming from the liberals and lefties around here.

 

[Delvo]

The reason these areas are no longer used or no longer as busy is because people have "voted with their feet", how we socialise has simply changed, how our worklife and personal life is organised has changed. In the UK the lament is about the "High street dying" - yeah they are dying because overall people no longer want what they offered.

The idea is that the ideal life of having most of the businesses & entertainment conveniently near home is something that people in most places have never been offered, so the choices they've made have been between other options instead. High Street, like a shopping mall, is a business district. You don't live there, so it's a place you need to travel to. Similarly on the other side of the coin, a residential neighborhood is also a single-use concentration, so going to any business in-person would mean needing to take a special trip out of the residential neighborhood to the business district. When these places get into trouble, the alternative that most people would be happier with is something nobody tries: scattering businesses and residences among each other so there's no chore of getting from one to the other. But this is usually prevented by nearly-universal zoning laws forcing them to be kept apart. (Those laws were written with giant ugly polluting noisy industrial buildings in mind, but they ended up applying to Mister Baker's corner store too because they weren't careful about how they defined their categories.)

But, of course, the question of what choices an individual is given only addresses the individual scale. The more serious problem is the difference between that and the population-wide scale. People might individually prefer to live in separate houses on lots with plenty of surrounding green around each house, but the problem is the overall sustainability of that model. It requires more road per residence, more sewer line per residence, more potable water line per residence, and more electrical line per residence. Those cost money, but the community only has so much money per residence. So the more spread-out areas are significantly less cost-effective overall. And that which is less cost-effective is more likely to fail. Whether it's what people want individually doesn't matter in the long run if their community can't afford to give it to them.

 

[ahhell]

No, not directly. But when the owners of those properties collect rents, part of the money goes to pay property taxes, which pays for a great deal of the services the city provides, like schools, road, mass transit, etc. If you stop maintaining those services, the city starts to deteriorate and it has the potential to turn into a death spiral--reduced services results in reduced desirability results in reduced population results in reduced tax collections results in further reduced services.

To be clear, I am talking about major downtown areas, like Manhattan in NYC, the Financial District in SF. This isn't about your local High Street. I get that property taxes are different in the UK, but there your landlords pay a pretty whopping rental profits tax (up to 45%), so the concept is similar; if the buildings in the City in London remain vacant there will be a sizable income loss to whichever taxing authority collects that tax. That loss results in reduced services, which will lead to reduced desirability which results in further vacancies and further service cuts.

I don't have a solution myself; I suspect the cities will be looking for handouts from their states and countries, but that is just sending good money after bad. And while I assumed that conservatives and libertarians would take the "Drop Dead" attitude to hearing about the impending demise of SF and NYC, I'm kinda surprised that it's also coming from the liberals and lefties around here.

In the US the loss of property tax will be somewhat delayed in that its based on property value which requires assesments and what not. So it will take a bit. The loss of sales taxes is immediate. Lot fewer peope buying lunch downtown these days.

 

[Suddenly]

I currently live a four hour drive away from the nearest city that could be said to have a downtown. Yet somehow people here are still able to go out to drink in bars, eat in restaurants, hook up with members of the opposite, or same, sex as per their preference. Families spend quality time together in public areas. There is no shortage of festivals and other special events that are well attended. And businesses that are normally conducted from offices are still able to carry on their daily affairs. The idea that "downtowns" are required for any of this seems a little short-sighted.

A rural small town area has more in common with living in a city than it does living in the suburbs.

Suburbs are a dystopian nightmare. I've lived in the middle of a city and I live now in a town of about 2000 people. Very similar vibes. I do use a car more now, but there is no traffic or parking issues to speak of and my idea of a long drive is ten miles.

Unlike the burbs where I need to sit in traffic to as much as buy milk and the idea of knowing all the people at the grocery seems absurd, long commute in death race type traffic, etc.

 

[Steve]

A rural small town area has more in common with living in a city than it does living in the suburbs.

Suburbs are a dystopian nightmare. I've lived in the middle of a city and I live now in a town of about 2000 people. Very similar vibes. I do use a car more now, but there is no traffic or parking issues to speak of and my idea of a long drive is ten miles.

Unlike the burbs where I need to sit in traffic to as much as buy milk and the idea of knowing all the people at the grocery seems absurd, long commute in death race type traffic, etc.

We seem to enjoy a similar lifestyle.

Cape Breton Regional Municipality, my home, has a population of about 95,000 people spread over 900+ sq. miles. The population base supports many national chains of stores so most things we would ever need are readily available. The closest thing we have to an urban centre with restaurants, bars, etc is based along the water front containing boardwalks and other pleasant areas. Public transport is quite limited so we do travel everywhere by car. Most of my driving is taking the dogs for their daily run in the off-leash park - 10 acres, lake, open fields and wooded trails, a great place - 10 minutes drive away. Everything else we ever need to go to is within 15 miles of our home. Tank of gas lasts 3 weeks or more, and I have not paid for parking since we moved here.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Lord we've just looped right back to "Explaining to liberals that not everyone wants to live in an 80 story filing cabinet for people in the middle of a dense urban core" again haven't we?

 

[Suddenly]

I don't have a solution myself; I suspect the cities will be looking for handouts from their states and countries, but that is just sending good money after bad. And while I assumed that conservatives and libertarians would take the "Drop Dead" attitude to hearing about the impending demise of SF and NYC, I'm kinda surprised that it's also coming from the liberals and lefties around here.

There is reasonable suspicion that the "demise" rhetoric is being driven by people who will get wrecked if urban property values correct themselves. Cheaper rents and purchase prices would have a whole set of benefits but there is way too much political power aimed at preventing that.

Covid wasn't as much a problem due to fleeing the disease. It was a natural reaction to distorted urban real estate prices because of favorable tax policy and polices friendly to sketchy foreign investors. Not having to live near work created a rather large market inefficiency where moving to the sticks was a financial windfall.

Which is why a lot of people on the left aren't all that impressed with this. The status quo is not viable and maintaining it will mostly just keep the real estate crap game afloat. It won't be a pleasant correction, but the current state is hardly pleasant either.

 

[quadraginta]

Whether we had Covid or not, the end result would have been the same. Covid just made it happen sooner.

It also made it happen much more quickly, which creates an entirely separate set of problems.