The New City Donut

[M II A II R II K]

The New Donut


September 14th, 2014

Read More: http://www.urbanophile.com/2014/09/14/the-new-donut/

Former Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut used to like to say that “you can’t be a suburb of nowhere.” This is the oft-repeated notion has been a rallying cry for investments to revitalize downtowns in America for three decades or so now. The idea being that you can’t have a smoking hole in your region where your downtown is supposed to be. This created a mental based on a donut.

- Filling in the hole became every city’s mission. Pretty much any city or metro region of any size has pumped literally billions of dollars into its downtown in an attempt to revitalize them. This took many forms ranging from stadiums to convention centers to hotels to parking garages to streetcars to museums and more.

- It’s popular today to subsidize mixed use development with a heavy residential component. These efforts have paid off to a certain degree. Most big city downtowns have done very well as entertainment and visitor districts, eds and meds centers, etc.

- More recently we’ve seen an influx of residents, even in places where the overall city or even region has struggled or declined. Cleveland added about 4,000 net new downtown residents in the 2000s. St. Louis added 3,000. With most cities in some stage of an apartment building spree consisting of a few thousand units, these numbers should only improve.

- Key weaknesses remain in private sector employment (declining in most places) and retail (not enough high income residents yet). And other than the tier one types of cities like Chicago, few places seem to have reached a sustainable market rate development level yet – pretty much everything is getting public assistance.

- We’ve got three decades of experience in downtown revitalization, but much less in dealing with this newer challenge zone. I’ve said that suburban revitalization may prove to be the big 21st century “urban” challenge. This is where it is happening in many cases.

- These areas have an inferior housing stock (often small post-war worker cottages or ranches), sometimes poor basic infrastructure, and are sometimes independent municipalities that, like Ferguson, MO, are often overlooked unless something really bad happens. Unlike the major downtown, they are often “out of sight, out of mind” for most regional movers and shakers.

- What’s more, while downtown provides a concentrated location for massive public investment, this more spread out area is too big to fix by throwing money at it. And how many stadiums and convention centers does a region need in any event?

- This is where we need to be doing a lot of thinking about how to bring these places back, look at what’s being done, etc. And also, given the inequality in the country, to try to think about ideas that don’t involve gentrification. One project that appears to be in this kind of zone, for example, is Atlanta’s Beltline project, though there’s a gentrifying aspect to this one. Regions that figure this one out will be at a big advantage going forward.

.....

[mhays]

It's "doughnut" god damn it!

[eschaton]

I don't think this ist an apt characterization at all.

Downtowns across the country have of course revitalized. But just as important have been the revitalization of the core urban residential neighborhoods which managed to survive urban renewal. In virtually every city (even struggling rust belt cities) there will be at least a few of these neighborhoods which are on the upswing. And in high demand areas, basically all the close-in areas which aren't horrible ghettos begin to turn - and even those ghettos have huge institutional pressure to gentrify, such that developers begin encroaching on them block by block.

In contrast, in most metros, outer city neighborhoods are all stagnant to declining. The only examples I can think of where gentrification and/or redevelopment occurs in neighborhoods further out is if there's a secondary employment center (usually a major university) located on the fringes of the city.

So the new "doughnut" is more Downtown+urban core wealthy, outer urban+inner suburban as dis-invested, and exurbs as wealthy.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Its a bullseye! SHOOT IT!

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

In contrast, in most metros, outer city neighborhoods are all stagnant to declining. The only examples I can think of where gentrification and/or redevelopment occurs in neighborhoods further out is if there's a secondary employment center (usually a major university) located on the fringes of the city.

i live in chicago's edgewater neighborhood. it's an outer city neighborhood about 8 miles north of downtown that has been on a slow-track gentrification wave for a couple decades now without a nearby secondary employment center or major university.

as for the thread article, the geographies of many cities are too complex to work in neat little concentric circles like that. there's often a "favored quarter" that radiates out from downtown, through city neighborhoods, and extending into the burbs. chicago's northside and northshore burbs are a great example of this.

[mhays]

Usually statements about "most metros" should say "half of metros." Quite a few have generally strong and strengthening neighborhoods for most of their older cores, even if some areas have a lot of poverty. I mean Boston, NY, Philly (to a degree), Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, SD, Denver, Minneapolis...

[dc_denizen]

^ 'favored quarter' describes Houston's west side, Dallas's north side, Dc's west and north sides, Chicago's north side, LA's west side, Baltimore's north side, very well.

Philly, not so much, interestingly, more of a 'new donut' in the sense of the article.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's "doughnut" god damn it!

I know what you're going thru

[M II A II R II K]

Even in Detroit the GM enclave is a very tiny circle within it's downtown.

[montréaliste]

The cool thing for cities like Detroit and their "doughnut" factor is that it acts as compensation for their police forces'
lower salaries...

[Innsertnamehere]

in terms of income levels, this is absolutely accurate for Toronto. the poorest areas are the inner city suburban areas, usually built in the 1950's and 1960's.

[pdxtex]

my only hope is in the process of downtown revitalization across the country, city managers figure out how to maintain a mix of attainable housing for all incomes in the central city. good old free market america isnt always the best place to accomplish this, but it would be better for the city as a whole. as it is now, western coastal cities are becoming more and more upper class playgrounds and less and less a place to be poor in. the portland market pretty much gave the underclass the boot in the central city and now its mostly just middle class, rich or the homeless. thats a bad hand of cards.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

in terms of income levels, this is absolutely accurate for Toronto. the poorest areas are the inner city suburban areas, usually built in the 1950's and 1960's.

In a very broad sense it's true, but there's still plenty of wealth in the inner suburbs and poverty in the inner city. If I remember correctly, the city's wealthiest census tract is in the Bridle Path, while the poorest is in Regent Park.



http://localnewsresearchproject.ca/2...mily-income-2/



A quick image search shows that most other major North American cities seem to be similar - either with a "favoured quarter" or a mish-mash of income levels. It generally seems to be true that the centre-most and outer-most areas are the wealthier than outer-city and inner-suburban ones, but (obviously) it's not so simple.


Montreal


http://www.learnquebec.ca/en/content...eal/1task.html


New York


http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-y...money-map.html


Boston


http://proximityone.com/lgsd.htm


Chicago


http://www.coloradonewsday.com/natio...-and-poor.html

[chris08876]

^^^^

What type of jobs do these people have that make 700k or more a year?

Seems like large neighbourhoods in Toronto has residents pulling in these type of figures.

[James Bond Agent 007]

It's all laws of physics.

• Video Link

Maybe over time it'll all smooth out to a uniform surface.

[mhays]

Family income? Sometimes "families" excludes singles, couples, roommate households, and so on, and instead focuses on a demographic that's often in prime earning years.

[memph]

Originally Posted by chris08876

^^^^

What type of jobs do these people have that make 700k or more a year?

Seems like large neighbourhoods in Toronto has residents pulling in these type of figures.

Not sure which neighbourhood has a $700k yearly income, but it's probably just one, the others are probably more around $160-250k. I'm guessing it's the Bridle Path, which is where all the CEOs and the like live. It's a pretty small census tract, and the location of much of Toronto's >1 acre lots so half the neighbourhood is $10-50 million dollar homes...

But yeah, I think the suburbanization of poverty in Toronto has been somewhat overstated. There's still working class areas in Old Toronto, and the wealthiest areas of Toronto are still not really in the core but more like the older suburbs: 1910s/1920s streetcar suburbs and 30s-40s auto suburbs and also 1945-1965 neighbourhoods, often with a lot of the original homes replaced with bigger new ones, most of these also being SFH dominated. At the same time, Old East York, SW Scarborough, S Etobicoke and York are still quite working class despite being about the same age. The more row house and multi-family neighbourhoods in the core are mostly working class, middle class and yuppy (i.e. relatively average total household income, but no children means more disposable income than average).

Some areas are gentrifying at a decent pace though, especially the east side.

The post-WWII suburban areas that are more single family tend to be pretty middle class, even the 40s-70s ones. It's the 50s-70s high-rise neighbourhoods that are really low-income. The thing is though that both types of housing are often mixed into a single census tract, but really they're not entirely low income but more like a mix of low and middle income.

And then the newer suburbs are pretty uniformly upper middle class.

[Double L]

Houston has improved its downtown but I don't think we have formed a "New donut" as is described.

We have seen downtown grow, some suburbs grow, and various suburbs go downhill. It's the same thing as the article described but it's scattered and not in the form of the new donut.

However before we revitalized our downtown, we definitely fit the "old donut" schematic.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

in terms of income levels, this is absolutely accurate for Toronto. the poorest areas are the inner city suburban areas, usually built in the 1950's and 1960's.

SO looking into it more closely, 1950s neighbourhoods of Toronto are more middle class to lower middle class and sometimes upper-middle class. The 1950s were still mostly about building bungalows, the big suburban apartment building boom was mostly late 60s to 70s. Not sure when exactly the TCHC housing in these neighbourhoods was built, if it was more 50s/60s or 60s/70s or even 70s/80s?

Highrises built in Toronto by decade according to SSP database

20s: 17
30s: 9
40s: 1
50s: 41
60s: 418
70s: 525
80s: 228
90s: 191
00s: 285

Also, I think you're increasingly starting to see poverty in older apartment buildings and even older condo buildings outside Toronto in Mississauga and Brampton. Sometimes in the newer (80s-00s) cookie cutter subdivisions too, in parts of Markham, Brampton and Mississauga.

Looking at other Canadian cities, many of them have "wedge patterns", like Toronto, in addition to doughnuts/reverse doughnuts.

Location of highest levels of poverty in major Canadian cities seems to be.

Vancouver: a lot in the middle ring suburban areas, often near Skytrain stations in areas with apartments and condos, and also east and south side of the city proper.

Calgary: mostly in NE suburbs (inner AND outer).

Edmonton: mostly urban core and inner suburban areas on north side

Winnipeg: northern and western part of the urban core

Hamilton: mostly urban core, parts of downtown and neighbourhoods east/northeast of downtown.

Toronto: mostly middle ring suburbs NE and NW of the city, also some inner and outer ring suburban areas

Montreal: kind of complicated, but mostly urban core and inner ring suburbs, north and east of downtown (except Plateau) and southwest of downtown. Also Cotes-des-Neiges which is more west of downtown (other neighbourhoods west of downtown are wealthy).

Quebec City: much of the urban core and inner suburbs except Boulevard Rene Levesque corridor and walled city.

Ottawa: kinda random and scattered but not in the outer suburbs.

So if I had to rank them in terms of which is closest to the old doughnut vs reverse doughnut.

Old Doughnut
Hamilton
Winnipeg and Quebec City
Montreal
Ottawa and Edmonton
Toronto and Vancouver
Calgary
Reverse Doughnut

[ue]

I'm sure it had to do with the industrial development closer to the lake pre-WWII, but I always found it strange that none of the older wealth neighbourhoods in Toronto were lakefront. Whereas in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, the wealthiest neighbourhoods are mostly the ones closer to water. Though I guess many of the Toronto ones are in or near the Don Valley...