What Happens to Downtown?

It can also mean the slumming part of town, as opposed to the upscale parts.

Annoyingly, my town calls it's business district/main street area uptown, and the residential area downtown. This appears to be based on nothing but calling north up and south down.
 
Thermal said:
It can also mean the slumming part of town, as opposed to the upscale parts.
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Well yeah that's the elephant in the room.

My city has a (conceptually and potentially) really nice downtown area. A lot of museums, a pro-sports team, a lot of nice small music venues and bars, a great main library with this amazing map room of maps that go back to the 1700s.

BUT it's one giant open air homeless shelter on a functional level.

And nobody gets (or will admit) that nobody is just going to hang out downtown while that is the case. People will GO Downtown to do something, but they do it and and leave, they don't hang around for the ambiance.
 
novaphile said:
Think 'Civic'

:D

Or Woden, or Tuggeranong, or Belconnen, or whatever the new one is called.
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Yeah, that's the weird thing about Canberra. We've got Civic, which is as far as I am concerned is never referred to as "downtown", but we've also got the large regional centres - as you say Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin - which isn't as new as we think it is. We've also got smaller regional centres like Kippax, Cooleman, Kambah and Chisolm, and most suburbs also have a local supermarket.

Canberra was a 15-minute city back in the 1970s. The locals started being phased out in the 90s, but they're starting to be revived. So I guess by JoeMorgue's definition they're "downtown" now?
 
arthwollipot said:
Yeah, that's the weird thing about Canberra. We've got Civic, which is as far as I am concerned is never referred to as "downtown", but we've also got the large regional centres - as you say Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin - which isn't as new as we think it is. We've also got smaller regional centres like Kippax, Cooleman, Kambah and Chisolm, and most suburbs also have a local supermarket.

Canberra was a 15-minute city back in the 1970s. The locals started being phased out in the 90s, but they're starting to be revived. So I guess by JoeMorgue's definition they're "downtown" now?
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I was going to post that Canberra predated the 'Garden City' movement, but am shocked to find how far that concept goes back in time!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement

Garden City principles greatly influenced the design of colonial and post-colonial capitals during the early part of the 20th century.
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I still miss the benefits.

From the local Vietnamese bakery (which made amazing curries) in Downer, to the local shops in Hughes.

Not to mention being able to cycle everywhere!!!
 
This has been a problem since the Model T Ford was invented, which made going from a small town to a big city for shopping a lot easier.

Wonderfully referenced in the opening "Rock Island Line" number in "The Music Man".
 
novaphile said:
I was going to post that Canberra predated the 'Garden City' movement, but am shocked to find how far that concept goes back in time!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement
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Canberra is one of the best exemplars of the garden city, but it's certainly not the ur-example.

novaphile said:
I still miss the benefits.

From the local Vietnamese bakery (which made amazing curries) in Downer, to the local shops in Hughes.

Not to mention being able to cycle everywhere!!!
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I used to be surprised that of all nationalities it was Vietnam that made the best fresh bread. Then I found out how long Vietnam was occupied by the French. Of course they make good bread!
 
arthwollipot said:
Canberra is one of the best exemplars of the garden city, but it's certainly not the ur-example.

I used to be surprised that of all nationalities it was Vietnam that made the best fresh bread. Then I found out how long Vietnam was occupied by the French. Of course they make good bread!
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Best French bakaries here in Sacramento are all owned by Vietnamese. One makes the most incredible crossants.
 
BrettM said:
MailOnline has an article entitled "Oxford Street is CLOSED for business: How London's iconic shopping destination has transformed with dozens of stores now lying empty"

The article is in the form of a photo essay, with before and after pictures of well-known London establishments that are now closed for business. Some of the pictures are quite depressing.
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The Heil shouldn't have so enthusiatically cheered tory policies down the years which hollowed out the high street. Bet you they didn't mention that in the article.
 
The San Francisco Chronicle covers the collapse of downtown SF. Here's how bad the transit woes are:

In January, downtown San Francisco BART stations had just 30% of the rider exits they did in 2019, according to a report from Egan’s office. Many Bay Area transit agencies, including Muni, are rapidly approaching a fiscal cliff.
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The Chronicle suggests improvements, starting with making downtown a residential area instead of solely commercial. This will present difficulties. As I have noted earlier, office to residential conversion is rarely feasible, and San Francisco has the banana problem in reverse; instead of build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything, they insist on tear down absolutely nothing anywhere. But a lot of those office buildings are going to need to come down and be replaced with dwelling units. And I'm not entirely convinced that that will work. Compared to the rest of SF, downtown is not that desirable; it's low-lying which means you miss out on the spectacular views available elsewhere, and at least until a lot of the high-rises are gone it's going to be rare to catch a glimpse of the sun.

And of course it's tough to lure people back with all the continuing reports of crime problems.

The deadly stabbing of tech executive Bob Lee in San Francisco was a shock to residents and a tragedy for his family, friends and colleagues.

Police said Lee was found early Tuesday morning bleeding outside a condominium building on Main Street near Harrison Street in the city's East Cut Neighborhood.
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Brainster said:
And of course it's tough to lure people back with all the continuing reports of crime problems.
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Not to mention the pandemic problems:
a city preserved — stuck — in the resin of the pandemic.
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Even though the SF Chronicle does its best to pretend that the virus is long gone:
Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a “doom loop” that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral.
(...)
And new census data shows that San Francisco’s population loss is slowing, a sign its pandemic exodus may be coming to an end.
But the city can’t afford to wait idly for things to reach equilibrium again. It needs to evolve — quickly. Especially downtown.
That means rebuilding the neighborhood’s fabric, which won’t be cheap or easy. Office-to-housing conversions are notoriously tricky and expensive. Demolishing non-historic commercial buildings that no longer serve a purpose in the post-pandemic world is all but banned. And, unlike New York after 9/11, San Francisco is a city that can’t seem to stop getting in its own way.
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It's easier to pretend that crime is the reason why people stay in the burbs than to do anything about the real problem. That would require that you are actually willing to acknowledge it.
 
dann said:
Not to mention the pandemic problems:



Even though the SF Chronicle does its best to pretend that the virus is long gone:



It's easier to pretend that crime is the reason why people stay in the burbs than to do anything about the real problem. That would require that you are actually willing to acknowledge it.
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Obama once described conservatives bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. You seem to be bitterly clinging to your Covid-19, but the rest of us have moved on.
 
It also seems like "No we want a revitalized downtown" is something people like to say more then they actually want on a real, personal level.

It sounds nice to say, but don't actually want it. Same way everyone wants to shop small and local but don't because I can't actually do my purchasing from a store in the hipster district with no parking, high prices, no actual inventory I want to buy, and who's is only open for 37 seconds on Thursday afternoon.

Ask people "Do you want a nice, vibrant downtown" and they'll say yes. Ask them "Okay so what actually do you want to do there?" and you get a lot more blank stares.
 
Brainster said:
Obama once described conservatives bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. You seem to be bitterly clinging to your Covid-19, but the rest of us have moved on.
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It's more like COVID is clinging to us. Rest assured, it has not moved on. Despite what the Cult of Wealth tries to preach, it is still killing hundreds of Americans weekly, especially the elderly and immunocompromised, and we stil ldon't know the full extent of log COVID.

Not to mention the economic, mental, and other types of damage a shock to our collapsing system causes.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Ask people "Do you want a nice, vibrant downtown" and they'll say yes. Ask them "Okay so what actually do you want to do there?" and you get a lot more blank stares.
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People want to live there and do things there without having to drive everywhere. Local stores within walking distance, bars without driving issues, places to eat, local parks, seeing your neighbors, that sort of thing.

A lot of us are at an age and demographic where popular culture and political rhetoric have led us to a reflexive dislike for urban living and we project that a bit.

Like fears of street crime while not thinking anything of a dangerous commute that wastes much of our lives, etc.
 
Brainster said:
Obama once described conservatives bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. You seem to be bitterly clinging to your Covid-19, but the rest of us have moved on.
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You are the one who clings to Covid-19 by denying that it's there instead of doing something about it. You bitterly insist that everybody else is to blame for the decline of downtown because they are unwilling to be in denial of Covid-19 the way you are.
The decline of downtown is the obvious sign that 'the rest of you' haven't moved on. You just like to bitterly pretend that you have.
 
Suddenly said:
People want to live there and do things there without having to drive everywhere. Local stores within walking distance, bars without driving issues, places to eat, local parks, seeing your neighbors, that sort of thing.
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If that's what you want why "Downtown" an area already pre-overbuilt?
 
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