Downtowns are back
 

2020 arrived and the US Census (and Brazilian as I'm based) will confirm the surge of Downtowns all across the globe, specially in Americas, where the urban decline hit the hardest.

We can use this thread to post numbers, forecasts, developments and general discussions about the renaissance of the hearts of our cities.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8fd2f6d0_z.jpg

I'll start with São Paulo, where I live. Downtown São Paulo has a loosen definition which is common in massive metropolises. I'll use as the definition the 9 most central districts, that counted 477,670 inh. (2010 Census) in 33 km² (12.7 sq miles) for a 14,400 inh./km² (37,300 inh./sqm).

It's still a rough area, where probably the largest "Crackland" (Cracolândia in Portuguese) in the world is located, all banks and big companies have migrated to new financial districts. However, on the past years new restaurants, bars, nightclubs, creative shops are popping all over the area. I wouldn't call gentrification yet, but it's definitely the coolest place to be. A bit like Kreuzberg and Neukölln in Berlin.

Let's get to the numbers:

------------------------------- 2010 --------- 2000 -------- 1991
In the 1990's, Downtown São Paulo was in Rust Belt kind of free fall. Crime rates in São Paulo were much higher back then and the region felt the impact as the middle-class left the region in droves.

The 2000's, even though the urban decay was and still very present, we saw a completely change on the trend, with Downtown São Paulo growing faster than the city, the metro area and even the macrometropolitan area.

However, the comeback started to be felt for good only in the early 2010's, with the southern edge (Bela Vista district, bordering Paulista Avenue) recovering first and growing northwards into the core direction (Sé and República districts).

That's why the 2020 Census will be very interesting. I wouldn't be surprised, even with the crisis and weaker Brazilian general demographics, to see the region growing close to 20% between Census, reaching 570,000 inh. and a 17,000 inh./km² (44,000 inh./sqm) density.

And as most forumers are from US and Canada, let's expand the discussion there as well.

I brought São Paulo as the opening example, but I'm aware Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto central areas are undergoing explosive growth as well. Even Detroit, in a much small scale and a much lower base, will probably see its Downtown population to double between 2010-2020.

are trains back?

Amen brother

I came across with this very interesting article from BBC, to give us an perspective across the Atlantic:

The UK's rapid return to city centre living

For England and Wales, the figures are between 2002 and 2015, and it was more intense on northern England, where urban decay hit the hardest: Liverpool city centre jumped from 9,100 to 25,600 inh. (+181%), Birmingham 9,800 to 25,800 (+163%), Leeds 12,900 to 32,300 (+150%), Manchester 14,300 to 35,600 (+149%) and Bradford 1,300 to 3,200 (+146%).

London, more modest on relative terms, but still impressive on absolute terms: 268,700 to 327,200 (+22%). Cardiff, from 6,700 to 12,600 (+88%).

For Scotland and Northern Ireland, the comparison is between 2001 and 2011 Census. Glasgow 19,700 to 28,300 (+44%), Edinburgh 10,100 to 12,600 (+25%) and Belfast 3,500 to 4,600 (+31%).

According to data, the growth is fueled by young people. On Sheffield, the number of students living in the city centre grew by 300% between 2001-2011. Overall, the 20-29 y/o population grew threefold in city centres across the country.

Downtown Toronto (17 sqkm)

1971: 115,070
1981: 106,498
1991: 133,836
2001: 154,149
2011: 199,330
2016: 250,000
2021 estimate: 295,000
2041 estimate: 475,000

https://i.imgur.com/61Ntm1g.jpg

here's data for two US Cities in the Midwest:

Minneapolis:
2006: 31,904
2018: 49,781
2019: 51,000, with 2500 units under construction as of Feb 2020

(Data from StarTribune & Downtown Council of Mpls)


Columbus, Ohio:
2002: 3,619
2010: 5,991
2014: 7,080
2019: 9,270
2020P: 10,700
2021P: 11,900
2022P: 14,000
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus..._news_headline

Downtown Cleveland

2012: 10,499
2013: 11,789
2014: 12,502
2015: 13,336
2016: 13,886
2017: 15,100
2018: 17,500
2019: 19,000 est (waiting for 2019 numbers due in March)
2020: 20,000+ est from units under construction

edit: For comparison, downtown Cleveland is about 3 square miles (~8 km2). About a third to half is vacant and underused land like surface parking and industrial.

Philly: 7.7 sq. mile downtown area, 2018 estimated population = 193,000.
Probably topping 200,000 in 2020.

How is this sustainable without growth in transit to serve a growing population? The loss in downtown populations in the past matched the loss of streetcars and bus service in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Are we really prepared to spend to provide real transit improvements rather than just vanity projects.

Even Toronto is struggling with growing congestion. Who knows when the proposed Ontario Line will actually be built.

Austin's downtown is pretty small. Only a little more than 1 1/2 square miles. From what I could find, there are around 12,000 residents living in downtown as of 2015. There has been a considerable amount more of residential construction since then. Most of the residential properties are around the river. To be clear, Austin's downtown area officially does not include the UT Campus or the West Campus neighborhood even though those two areas are immediately adjacent to downtown and form the same skyline that downtown does. There are around 7,300 students living on campus, and another 27,000 or so living in West Campus. Including the UT Campus and West Campus neighborhoods, that's around 46,000 living in a little more than 2 square miles. West Campus is the densest neighborhood in Austin with around 27,000 people inside of a little more than a quarter of a square mile.

There are as many people living in that area as there are living in my zip code which covers around 13 square miles.

Downtown

https://i.imgur.com/fTvxPPT.jpg

UT Campus

https://i.imgur.com/tWitIkv.jpg

West Campus

https://i.imgur.com/ba8G5tl.jpg

Not specifically about Toronto, but Downtowns are usually the most better served in transit, aside having a huge chunk of the jobs on the urban area, jobs that might even be reached on foot by those new Downtown dwellers.

Aside the reversion of urban decay, that's one of the most interesting aspects of the population boom: people will live near their jobs, reducing greatly commute times, improving economic productivity.

That's one of the big things that has been fuelling the downtown boom in Toronto: commuting by transit or car is an absolutely miserable experience here - so being able to walk or bike places is a huge deal.

São Paulo still has a long way to expand its subway and railway systems (only 350 km for a 22 million metropolis), but its Downtown area is served by four subway and five railway lines, plus counting with several massive bus terminus.

Even though employment centres migrated southwest as Downtown decayed, it keeps being an important job market on its own and easy to get from anywhere in the metro area.

Downtown Los Angeles

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a1f5b3d5d6.jpg

As the US 2020 Census numbers are available, I decided to bring some actual figures. For Los Angeles, I used a 25 census tract area, that matches with the most usual definitions for Downtown LA.


-- 2020 ---- 2010 ---- 2000 ---- 1990

74,349 ---- 52,538 ---- 40,836 ---- 32,786 ---- 41.5% ---- 28.7% ---- 24.5%


It's a 14.86 km² area, for a density of 5,003 inh./km². Lots of room to densify. The growth is nothing but impressive. Almost doubled in the past 20 years.

One interesting thing I noticed while put the numbers together is the only area dropping was the census tract where Union Station is located. And dropped big: from 10,800 in 2000 to 5,500 in 2020. It represented over 1/4 of total population back then and now it's mere 7.5%.

Downtowns are back, but not in Canada, due to the lack of freeways. Pro-transit, anti-car attitudes in Canadian cities killed their downtowns and continues to kill any hope for their revival.

I was just about to bring this up. I’m still coming back to Chicago for work, but every time I do, I’m amazed at all the construction going on. Downtown Chicago in the 80’s had a population of approximately 20,000 people. Today, the population is over 110,000 and growing. Apparently it’s the fastest growing downtown in the US.

https://i1.wp.com/www.brookings.edu/...2C9999px&ssl=1

There’s an interesting article from a few years ago about this very subject:

https://www.brookings.edu/research/b...e-coronavirus/

^ I wonder what the 2020 census says about downtown growth?

For 2010 the data showed that, within a 2 mile radius of city hall, downtown Chicago was by a huge margin the fastest growing downtown in the US. Not sure if that is still true for the 2020 census though

is there an official definition of "downtown" that can be used to compare cities?

The Union Station might be the jail related lol.
I can't think of another reason why it would drop. There isn't much housing in that tract...yet.
I wonder if you counted the tracts west of downtown and around USC?