Largest Downtowns/ Business Districts in the US

[Bailey]

I was wondering if anyone had a complete list of the largest downtown/ business districts in the United States. As you know many cities have more than one center or district.

The following article (link below) is quoted as saying that the Medical Center in Houston is currently the 17th largest business district in the US and is projected to be the 7th largest by 2014 by projected square feet.

Houston also has Downtown Houston and Uptown Houston as separate districts which are bigger than the Medical Center and should fit on this list somewhere above #16.

From that article I started a list but what would a complete list of the 20 largest downtowns or business districts in The United States look like?

http://www.texmedctr.tmc.edu/root/en...diaRelease.htm

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. ? -? (appx. 40 million gross square feet)
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16. Los Angeles- Downtown District (28.5 million gross square feet)
17. Houston- Medical Center- (28.3 million gross square feet)
18.
19.
20.

[Cirrus]

Off the top of my head:

1. Midtown Manhattan
2. Downtown Chicago
3. Downtown Washington
4. Downtown Manhattan
5. Downtown San Francisco

[204]

Manhattan (south of 59th) is the largest in the US (second largest in the world), followed by Chicago. No idea what comes next.

The largest downtowns (central business districts) in the United States attract large public transit work trip market shares. For example, the Manhattan business district, the second largest in the world after Tokyo, had a nearly 75 percent transit work trip market share in 1990. Chicago’s central business district, the second largest in the United States, attracted more than 50 percent of its workers by transit. Travel by transit to central business districts such as these is competitive with the automobile. Indeed, it is often faster. This demonstrates the fact that people will ride transit when it is competitive with the automobile.

Source

[204]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Off the top of my head:

1. Midtown Manhattan
2. Downtown Chicago
3. Downtown Washington
4. Downtown Manhattan
5. Downtown San Francisco

No offence, but... off the top of your head? What is that based on?

Well in that case... off the top of my head; Downtown (or Lower Manhattan) is third.

[204]

From Demographia:

RANKING: Central Business District EMPLOYMENT

1 New York 1,736,900
2 Chicago 541,500
3 Washington 382,400
4 San Francisco-San Jose 305,600
5 Boston 257,000
6 Philadelphia 220,100
7 Seattle 155,100
8 Houston 153,400
9 Los Angeles 143,700
10 Atlanta 129,800
11 Denver 126,000
12 Minneapolis-St. Paul 105,400
13 Cleveland 100,300
14 Baltimore 98,500
15 Miami 98,000
16 Pittsburgh 95,600
17 Columbus 88,800
18 Austin 86,000
19 New Orleans 81,400
20 Dallas-Fort Worth 79,900

Demographia, “United States Central Business Districts (Downtowns): 50 Largest Urban Areas 2000 Data on Employment & Transit Work Trips,” June 2006, at www.demographia.com/db-cbd2000.pdf.

^ Cool. Although not in the US, Downtown Toronto would be 3rd on the list with about 400,000 workers.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Off the top of my head:

1. Midtown Manhattan
2. Downtown Chicago
3. Downtown Washington
4. Downtown Manhattan
5. Downtown San Francisco

This sounds about right.

Sometimes I think we focus too much on whose the biggest and not enough on which are the best. I mean, most cities have clusters of tall buildings in their CBD(s) but its the street action that's more interesting imHo.

[Cirrus]

off the top of your head? What is that based on?

Would it help if I edited "off the top of my head" to read "IIRC" instead?

Seriously. All it means is I've seen the info but don't have a source handy.

[hudkina]

This list could never happen due to the subjective nature of defining a downtown district. Some "downtowns" are defined using areas as large as 5 sq. mi. while others are less than 1 sq. mi.

[alexjon]

Yay Seattle!

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by hudkina

This list could never happen due to the subjective nature of defining a downtown district. Some "downtowns" are defined using areas as large as 5 sq. mi. while others are less than 1 sq. mi.

That is so true, as in the example that downtown Los Angeles is 17th largest in the USA. If anyone has ever traveled the country, and visited many big city downtowns, you'll know for sure its one of the top 10 in size, maybe even in the top 5. For one thing, downtown LA has more than 143,000 employed in the local area. I heard it estimated from a low of about 200,000 to a high of 400,000. The 400,000 was when they included the mid-wilshire district up to about Western Avenue.

My list just at guessing would be as follow. This is also considering employment, , and warehouse, government, and overall office space, not just Class 'A'.

1. Mid-town Manhattan
2. Downtown Manhattan
3. Chicago Loop, including northside.
4. Washington
5. San Francisco
6. Los Angeles / Philadelphia*

*Not sure about these two, although it seems overall LA has more pedestrians when you combine the Fashion District, Historic District, Chinatown, Little Toyko, Fiancial District, and South Park. The Fashion District being the area that may put it over the top. Still Philly built up enviroment is very impressive, and seems to be the densest outside of Manhattan.

7. Houston
8. Boston
9. Seattle
10: Dallas

[Quixote]

Based on my research through a variety of different sources, the largest central business districts in terms of office space are:

1) Midtown Manhattan
2) Downtown Chicago
3) Downtown Washington, DC
4) Lower Manhattan
5) Downtown San Francisco
6) Downtown Boston
7) Downtown Houston
8) Downtown Philadelphia
9) Downtown Seattle
10) Downtown Los Angeles

[Austinlee]

here is a few figures for office square footage:


Manhattan - 356,983,563
Long Island - 45,491,607
Westchester - 27,721,608
Outer Boroughs - 35,946,358
NYC Metro Total - 466,143,136


Los Angeles:
CBD - 33,151,830
Suburban - 152,346,070
Total - 185,497,900
Inland Empire - 22,039,233
Orange County - 82,649,017
Metro Total - 290,186,150


Chicago:
CBD - 121,324,716
Suburban - 104,006,355
Total - 225,331,071


Washington DC:
CBD - 96,250,852
Suburban - 182,542,771
Total - 278,793,623


Houston:
CBD - 35,567,020
Suburban - 123,868,828
Total - 159,435,848

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by PA Pride

Los Angeles:
CBD - 33,151,830
Suburban - 152,346,070
Total - 185,497,900
Inland Empire - 22,039,233
Orange County - 82,649,017
Metro Total - 290,186,150

Where did you get these figures?

[mhays]

There's no such thing as an accurate list. For office space, people quote brokerage statistics but apparently don't realize that brokerages: a) don't define "downtown" in any consistent way (or just include the entire central city), and b) have very different standards for the types of space they count as "office" between one city and other.

Also, any "size of downtown" discussion has to go way beyond offices. Even if you define downtowns fairly tightly, over half the space in many downtowns is residential, hotel, retail, etc.

[MNMike]

According to the downtown council, Minneaopolis has 160,000 wokers downtown. I have heard other sources say 140,000...I have never heard an estimate as low as the 105,000 listed earlier in this thread, that seems a bit off. As far as square footage...I can't find the exact number, but I know its between 25 and 30 million square feet.

I agree with mjhays though, a lot of things need to be taken into account...just thought I would share a couple rough numbers for minneapolis as long as I was here.

[IdahoMountainBoy]

I saw a source once that Denver's claim to having the 10th largest downtown was based on the amount of retail and business square footage in the CBD...I guess that's another way to attempt to quantify it..

[borgo100]

man, Los Angeles could have a sweet downtown, after looking at that “United States Central Business Districts (Downtowns): 50 Largest Urban Areas 2000 Data on Employment & Transit Work Trips,”

5,000,000 jobs outside downtown

[dimondpark]

Q3 2007 according to Grubb Ellis
Downtown San Francisco 61,965,601 sq ft
Oakland/ East Bay 57,229,860 sq ft
San Mateo/ Peninsula 33,710, 855 sq ft
San Jose/ South Bay 60,480,956 sq ft

Total Bay Area Office Space 213,338,272 sq ft

[miketoronto]

Word of caution about the Demographia stats. While some are correct, others are not. Demographia sometimes makes downtown stats lower then they are. The LA number I know for a fact is wrong, as downtown LA has over 250,000 workers. Minneapolis is also higher.

So watch with his numbers, as it is Wendle Cox who puts those numbers together. Again some are right, other are not.

Also it does not matter how a place defines downtown. Just like cities are different, downtowns are going to be of different size in terms of land area, etc.

For NYC, the entire area of Manhattan south of Central Park could be considered one big downtown and should be clumped together. No need for midtown and then downtown stats. Its all one.