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I can't believe Austin is not on this list. What a change the city has made in the past ten years, with much more to come! Chattanooga needs to be on this list too.
Back in the mid '90s, Chicago's downtown was looking shabby in parts, State Street had lots of vacancy, though The Magnificent Mile was booming with multi-floor retail centers. Flash forward 20 years and it's amazing how much development has occurred--from South of Grant Park to Millenium Park to Streeterville/River North, downtown has grown tremendously more active.
2nd would be DC. I spent a summer there back in '87 and the historic downtown was pretty desolate. I remember walking to the 930 Club on E (?) Street and seeing virtually noone on the streets. I was back for a week 3 years ago and was very impressed with amount of life in the core and amount of nearby residential.
3rd is Detroit: everytime I've been back, it's downtown is noticeably better and cleaner. They really spiffed up the core when they held the super bowl and haven't let up since.
4th is LA. The transformation of the historic downtown is amazing, with new life being added to the beautiful, but largely empty buildings lining Broadway made it feel like a big city downtown.
Austin and Miami also deserves note, due to its sheer increase in size and radical transformation of the skyline.
DOWNTOWN MIAMI its night and day. Complete overhaul and the biggest changes are just starting. There have been a lot of changes in downtowns across the U.S. but nothing compares to Miami two HUGE building booms, residential population has more than doubled. What used to be a ghost town besides for 9am-5pm is now a popular night life area, financial hub, tourist hub, museums, performing arts, professional sports.
The South End, Fenway, Charlestown, Bay Village, and North End neighborhoods have also changed a lot.
Didn't the Combat Zone become Government Center? If so, that is nothing to brag about as Gov't Center is a giant concrete scar in the core of the city.
While Boston has an improved core and a great core, I don't think it reached the lows DC, Philly and LA reached in their downtowns.
Chicago has improved in parts, but it is the consensus #2 downtown in the US, and has been for decades. Based on that, I don't think it qualifies as most improved IMO.
Didn't the Combat Zone become Government Center? If so, that is nothing to brag about as Gov't Center is a giant concrete scar in the core of the city.
While Boston has an improved core and a great core, I don't think it reached the lows DC, Philly and LA reached in their downtowns.
Nope. Government Center is the product of the urban renewal of the West End in the 1950s-1960s. Before Government Center was there, the area was known as Scollay Square.
"The Combat Zone" was the nickname given to the Chinatown/Theater District/Downtown Crossing area in the 1970s-1990s, which functioned as the city's red-light district, with a lot of strip clubs. The strip clubs are mostly gone nowadays and a lot of residential towers are being built there now.
And I agree with the last part. Boston hit it's all time low earlier in the 20th century, so the cleanup that the city has experienced between 1994 and 2014 hasn't been as drastic as in places like Philly and LA. I just wanted to show that DT Boston has changed a lot in that time period, too, even if the change is less dramatic.
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