Can Cleveland Become A '15-minute City'? Experts Say It's A Real Possibility

[mhays]

While a downtown benefits from other uses, it should also have a higher standard. I'd keep the 20,000/sm target for an area including the best downtown-fringe districts.

Cleveland was about 12k in 1.7 square miles in 2020, using the three tracts that best approximate things, somewhat. It surged from before, but it'll look a lot better with more boom years. (I'm particularly excited about an 800-unit conversion right in the core...)

[ChiSoxRox]

A startling perspective on the strength of downtown growth I just found is the makeup of the densest community areas in Chicago. (This is simple density, population / area.)

From Wiki, which is updated for 2020

1. Near North Side, 38,497 ppsm
2. Lake View, 33,029
3. Edgewater, 32,354
4. Rogers Park, 30,233
5. The Loop, 25,635

77 community areas in Chicago -- and the Loop, with all its parkland and business towers, is already top five in density, above everything but the North lakeshore spine.

Meanwhile, the Near North Side is everything between North Avenue and the River, and is now the densest neighborhood in Chicago

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Why hasn't Avondale shifted whiter while areas on both sides of it have?

avondale definitely shifted whiter last decade, but not enough to change it from being majority latino. it went from 64.4% latino in 2010, down to 52.3% latino in 2020, while the white population rose from 28.4% to 36.7%

avondale 2010: 39,262

latino: 25,295
white: 11,166
asian: 1,194
black: 991
other: 616


avondale 2020: 36,257 (-3,005)

latino: 18,968 (-6,327)
white: 13,291 (+2,125)
asian: 1,617 (+423)
black: 1,103 (+112)
other: 1,278 (+662)


if trends from last decade continue, then avondale will flip from latino majority to either white plurality, or possibly even outright white majority this decade, following in logan square's gentrification footsteps.

In fact, given census 2020 numbers are now over 2 years stale, Avondale has likely already crossed over from Latino majority to Latino plurality.

What's more, Avondale in the '10s is a textbook example of how early stage gentrification often leads to population loss. The number of households in Avondale actually increased by 7.5%, but the population still fell by -7.7% because the average household size plummeted by over 14% from 2.89 down to 2.45 as white singles, dinks, and 1-2 child families replaced larger Latino families.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

Maybe it's 20,000 if the area is primarily residents and retail that serves them. To add some nuance, jobs, hotels, and attractions can replace some of that figure.

yeah, i was speaking mainly about residential neighborhood urbanism, not so much downtown districts which thrive off of LOTS of outsiders coming in.

for the 15 minute city concept to work, we need strong downtowns of course, but we also need solid residential density out in the neighborhoods of the city (where the lion's share of most city residents live) to support that "15 minute" concept for the people who live there.

cleveland and many of the other rustbelters have lost so much population and household density over the past 70 years that rejuvenation from the core out is really the only viable path forward for most city areas. it'll be a long slow road, but it's the only one to take at the moment. unless something radically different changes to cleveland's growth trajectory this decade, i don't see most of the city transforming into this mythic "15 minute city" concept by 2030.

but an ever improving downtown core upon which to build is still light years better than continued decline.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

77 community areas in Chicago -- and the Loop, with all its parkland and business towers, is already top five in density, above everything but the North lakeshore spine.

what's more, roughly 1/3 of the land area of the loop community area is literally just grant park, so the functional average residential population density of the loop is actually closer to 38,000 ppsm, which would bump it up to second place in the city. and there's still a decent amount of sites to build on in the south loop!

of course, the average densities of lakeview and edgewater are also substantially reduced by large amounts of lakefront park land as well, so out of fairness those would need to get recalculated too.

one thing that's always been mildly irksome to me is that census tracts in chicago are not drawn to exclude the city's vast lakefront parkland where no one lives, which in some cases MASSIVELY reduces the density of many lakefront census tracts, but in some other cities like NYC and SF, large areas of contiguous parkland are sequestered into their own "uninhabited" census tracts. oh well, just another imperfection of census tracts.

one of the most egregious examples is CT 314 up in uptown. the stats on paper say it has 5,221 living on 0.6 sq. miles of land for a density of ~9,000 ppsm. not terribly impressive. but in reality CT 314's 0.6 square miles is actually over 80% lakefront parkland, those 5,221 people are only living on 0.1 square miles of land at a density of over 50,000 ppsm!

that kind of density "watering down" occurs in census tracts all up and down chicago's vast lakefront which is lined with parkland for like 20 miles, which matters to a degree because chicago's lakefront is far and away the most densely populated part of the city and so many of what would be the absolute densest tracts in the city have large areas of parkland tacked on to them driving their density stats way down on paper.

[mhays]

True, census tracts aren't very fair. Central Park is its own tract, but similar scenarios aren't? Cleveland has a similar example with a long stretch of waterfront being in a tract that includes a little of Downtown, so I omitted that tract in my comments above.

But the denser the city, the more fair the tracts can be...because tracts get smaller to keep within the target population range.

I don't know if they create a new uninhabited tracts for cities. Usually they split tracts due to population only. I'm not aware of them combining any tracts either. In other words, no great re-dos to give other cities the Central Park treatment. Anybody?

[Steely Dan]

^ it is quite the mystery to me why some cities get large parks cut out of residential tracts, and then in other cities they're chopped up and mixed in with the tracts of the city. it seems awfully inconsistent to me.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by mhays

I don't know if they create a new uninhabited tracts for cities. Usually they split tracts due to population only. I'm not aware of them combining any tracts either. In other words, no great re-dos to give other cities the Central Park treatment. Anybody?

Pittsburgh has absolutely had census tracts combined over the years. Originally every one of our 90 neighborhoods was defined to align with one or more census tracts, but over the last 20 years lots of them ended up merged, meaning you have to break down to census block group to get a detailed analysis.

[mhays]

Interesting. Was that to keep within the target population range?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Originally every one of our 90 neighborhoods was defined to align with one or more census tracts

that's interesting. here in chicago, our neighborhoods are chopped up among many census tracts.

my neighborhood of lincoln square consists of 11 different census tracts.

lincoln park has 20!

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by mhays

Interesting. Was that to keep within the target population range?

Presumably. They were all very small neighborhoods. Some official neighborhoods in Pittsburgh have populations in the hundreds, and in a few cases historically had almost no population (though that's beginning to change with urban infill).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

They were all very small neighborhoods. Some official neighborhoods in Pittsburgh have populations in the hundreds

oh, that makes a lot more sense then.

with a handful of exceptions on the very low end, the vast majority of chicago's community areas have at least 10,000 people, and over 70% of them have at least 20,000 people, so "neighborhood" is being used a little bit differently between the two cities.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

oh, that makes a lot more sense then.

with a handful of exceptions on the very low end, the vast majority of chicago's community areas have at least 10,000 people, and over 70% of them have at least 20,000 people, so "neighborhood" is being used a little bit differently between the two cities.

Yeah, Pittsburgh really stretches the neighborhood definition. I mean, 90 "different" neighborhoods in 58 square miles... come on now.

In certain situations it totally makes sense, based on physical makeup, types of use, etc... and in Pittsburgh's case, topography, which completely separates areas that are in very close proximity to each other.

But it's often completely ridiculous. There's no good reason that many of these are officially considered separate neighborhoods. Some of them are never even uttered from a residents' mouths. It just goes to show the inane, fractured nature of the metro.

Within a 2-mile radius from my house, there are 9 different neighborhoods and 7 different municipalities...

[mhays]

Flying in and out of Pittsburgh is an interesting experience. Everywhere you look, little neighborhoods sit atop hills with little tops. Except the little neighborhoods in little river bottom areas.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's interesting. here in chicago, our neighborhoods are chopped up among many census tracts.

my neighborhood of lincoln square consists of 11 different census tracts.

lincoln park has 20!

Sometimes the decision to use census tracts (or more block groups these days) leads to screwy borders. Like my own neighborhood, Morningside. The western border is set at Duffield Street, with the opposite side of the street the neighborhood of Stanton Heights. The thing is although technically part of a superblock, the north side of Duffield is pretty clearly part of Morningside, with only two roads connecting the two and a big steep unbuildable slope between the two.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

oh, that makes a lot more sense then.

with a handful of exceptions on the very low end, the vast majority of chicago's community areas have at least 10,000 people, and over 70% of them have at least 20,000 people, so "neighborhood" is being used a little bit differently between the two cities.

Some of the very small official neighborhoods do have their own identities, despite being tiny. Like Allegheny West had a population of 540 in 2020, but it has its own small neighborhood business district, community group, and historic district.

On the other hand, Pittsburgh has subdivided some neighborhoods historically for no reason that I have ever been able to tell. For example, Squirrel Hill is split into North/South, Lawrenceville into Lower/Central/Upper, Homewood into West/South/North, etc.

Pittsburgh also had a historic pattern of breaking off large public housing projects into their own neighborhoods. Historically these were: Northview Heights (on the North Side), Bedford Dwellings, Terrace Village (parts of the Hill District), Glen Hazel (part of Hazelwood), Arlington Heights, St. Clair (both in the southern hilltop area), and Fairywood (in the West End). Except for Northview Heights, Bedford Dwellings, and Glen Hazel, the projects are essentially gone, with Terrace Village redeveloped as mixed-income, Arlington Heights only having a single stand of public housing left, and St. Clair and Fairywood just being depopulated. Yet the neighborhoods were not merged in, which led to weird things like St. Clair now having only 183 people and being mostly white (since there were a few random blocks of old residential housing near the projects).

The worst example though of a neighborhood no one wanted to exist being recognized is Chateau. This was historically a portion of the (mostly still intact, black and now gentrifying) neighborhood of Manchester. During the mid-20th century they decided to destroy the major business district in the neighborhood (Beaver Street) and turn it into Route 65, a highway in all but name. Then they cleared out all of the residential between the highway and the Ohio River. The 2020 population of the neighborhood was only 19. Most of the residents live on houseboats in the small marina, but there are two homes left in the southern part of the neighborhood. This one behind a McDonalds is inhabited, but I think the one next to a Taco Bell is not. There are plans for a big new mixed-use project this decade, so it will actually have a few hundred residents by 2030 at least, but I don't understand why it was ever made a neighborhood.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by mhays

Flying in and out of Pittsburgh is an interesting experience. Everywhere you look, little neighborhoods sit atop hills with little tops. Except the little neighborhoods in little river bottom areas.

The interesting thing is topography tends to define neighborhood character a lot - like it even influences built form.

The oldest surviving urban areas of the city are all areas which were flat and by the rivers (lower North Side, Lawrenceville, South Side Flats, etc.). These areas are generally brick heavy, and tend towards attached housing. In a lot of places you could squint and it could look like any 19th neighborhood along the East Coast.

Then when you ascend into the hilltop neighborhoods, housing is generally wood framed and detached. These areas tended to be built out later as well (late 19th to early 20th century) so the built form is also different.

Most of the East End was only built out post 1890 or so, when the electric streetcar allowed for easy commutes into Downtown, and you see a pretty typical mix of late 19th/early 20th vernacular (local takes on foursquares and bungalows, scattered walkup apartments that wouldn't look out of place in Chicago, etc.), but these areas were wealthier and much more desirable than the older hilltop zones, so you see grand housing, more brick, etc.

[mhays]

I've always enjoyed Pittsburgh. Even went for a few days during last year's slight COVID break.

As for neighborhoods, it's important to differentiate between our concept of a neighborhood and the City's goal of dividing things up administratively. They're trying to break things into manageable chunks. They prefer for those chunks to make sense to people but they have to draw hard lines, focus on administrative needs, and include orphan areas somewhere.

The City's district name might just mean that X area mostly overlaps what most people think of as X neighborhood.

(I'm speaking generally, not about Pittsburgh specifically.)