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DC's broad urban core is basically on par with Boston or Philly, but it lacks the peak mixed used intensity of Center City or DT Boston. The vast majority of DC's downtown is basically an office district with lots of glass/concrete post-war 10-story office buildings with large footprints. Penn Quarter is obviously an exception. But, even that is really only 3 or 4 blocks of 7th street, a couple blocks of F street and then the 2 blocks of city center. It lacks the peak activity of say Downtown Crossing or Rittenhouse. West End also has some residential, but is pretty quiet from an urban street life prospective. Conn Ave has potential, but has been struggling. About 5 years ago there was talk of making it into a Mich Ave type street, but it has gone backward in that time as the parts near Dupont have seen lots of restaurants shutter.
I like a lot of what is going on in DC. It's arguably a more world class city than Philly or Boston, but its activity is spread across lots of discrete commercial strips that are spread across a number of downtown adjacent neighborhoods (Georgetown, Dupont, Logan, Adams Morgan, U Street, Columbia Heights, Shaw, Mt Vernon, Union Market, H Street, Eastern Market, Wharf, Navy Yard.) Thats obviously a lot of activity across all those zones, but its not a contiguous zone of activity in the way center city or dt boston/back bay is. More like neighborhood commercial strips in low rise row house neighborhoods and half-built emerging 10-story apartment building neighborhoods (Mt Vernon, NoMa/UnionMarket, NavyYard, SW Waterfront). I like whats going on (the Wharf is a particularly well done), but living in Navy Yard isn't the same as living in Rittenhouse.
TL;DR: DC is a world class city that in many ways exceeds Boston and Philly. But, it lacks the organic mixed use downtowns of those cities.
DC's broad urban core is basically on par with Boston or Philly, but it lacks the peak mixed used intensity of Center City or DT Boston. The vast majority of DC's downtown is basically an office district with lots of glass/concrete post-war 10-story office buildings with large footprints. Penn Quarter is obviously an exception. But, even that is really only 3 or 4 blocks of 7th street, a couple blocks of F street and then the 2 blocks of city center. It lacks the peak activity of say Downtown Crossing or Rittenhouse. West End also has some residential, but is pretty quiet from an urban street life prospective. Conn Ave has potential, but has been struggling. About 5 years ago there was talk of making it into a Mich Ave type street, but it has gone backward in that time as the parts near Dupont have seen lots of restaurants shutter.
I like a lot of what is going on in DC. It's arguably a more world class city than Philly or Boston, but its activity is spread across lots of discrete commercial strips that are spread across a number of downtown adjacent neighborhoods (Georgetown, Dupont, Logan, Adams Morgan, U Street, Columbia Heights, Shaw, Mt Vernon, Union Market, H Street, Eastern Market, Wharf, Navy Yard.) Thats obviously a lot of activity across all those zones, but its not a contiguous zone of activity in the way center city or dt boston/back bay is. More like neighborhood commercial strips in low rise row house neighborhoods and half-built emerging 10-story apartment building neighborhoods (Mt Vernon, NoMa/UnionMarket, NavyYard, SW Waterfront). I like whats going on (the Wharf is a particularly well done), but living in Navy Yard isn't the same as living in Rittenhouse.
TL;DR: DC is a world class city that in many ways exceeds Boston and Philly. But, it lacks the organic mixed use downtowns of those cities.
I agree. Give DC 10 or so years and I think there will be a vibrant and large contiguous sea of urbanity. Also, the lack of peak mixed use activity can definitely be attributed to the height limit.
I dont think Downtown New York is that great. I thought it was too boring. Not much shopping. No real nightlife. I mostly hung out in the LES, Greenwich, Chelsea and parts of Brooklyn but never in Downtown New York.
LES and Greenwich Village are downtown! Downtown Manhattan is generally everything South of 14th street — AKA not just The Financial District.
But also “Downtown” in NYC just means Lower/Southern part of Manhattan. It doesn’t mean CBD or city center, like it does in most cities. Threads like these always get messy when talking about one unified “downtown” for NYC because there is no standard definition, and even many NYers will have differing opinions. Personally I’ve always though of NYC’s answer to that to be what we call “the city” which is generally Manhattan from 96th street down. Or maybe another answer I can see is 59th street down but I feel wrong leaving out Central Park and to a lesser extent parts of Uptown.
Last edited by That_One_Guy; 05-22-2018 at 10:48 PM..
Reason: Spelling
LES and Greenwich Village are downtown! Downtown Manhattan is generally everything South of 14th street — AKA not just The Financial District.
But also “Downtown” in NYC just means Lower/Southern part of Manhattan. It doesn’t mean CBD or city center, like it does in most cities. Threads like these always get messy when talking about one unified “downtown” for NYC because there is no standard definition, and even many NYers will have differing opinions. Personally I’ve always though of NYC’s answer to that to be what we call “the city” which is generally Manhattan from 96th street down. Or maybe another answer I can see is 59th street down but I feel wrong leaving out Central Park and to a lesser extent parts of Uptown.
Nope: anything south of Canal st.:downtown; Rest: lower Midtown and Midtown, then Uptown to the north.
LES and Greenwich Village are downtown! Downtown Manhattan is generally everything South of 14th street — AKA not just The Financial District.
But also “Downtown†in NYC just means Lower/Southern part of Manhattan. It doesn’t mean CBD or city center, like it does in most cities. Threads like these always get messy when talking about one unified “downtown†for NYC because there is no standard definition, and even many NYers will have differing opinions. Personally I’ve always though of NYC’s answer to that to be what we call “the city†which is generally Manhattan from 96th street down. Or maybe another answer I can see is 59th street down but I feel wrong leaving out Central Park and to a lesser extent parts of Uptown.
What about Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City ?
Nope: anything south of Canal st.:downtown; Rest: lower Midtown and Midtown, then Uptown to the north.
Lower East Side, SoHo, The Villages, etc. Midtown???
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. An example of Lower Midtown would be Chelsea. The rest is undeniabley Downtown
EDIT:
Quote:
Originally Posted by BPt111
What about Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City ?
I can definitely see an argument for including Downtown Brooklyn+Brooklyn Heights+DUMBO, as that whole area is definitely becoming more and more part of core NYC lately, and is continuous with core areas of Lower Manhattan other than the river inbetween. But there are 2 bridges and plenty subway lines connecting them making the river not too big of a barrier. Not to mention one of those bridges also being a huge tourist attraction too bringing countless tourists over to that side of the river every day...
I was intentionally keeping it conservative with my definition, only including Manhattan since I feel like it might be controversial if I included parts of Brooklyn/Queens right off the bat, but I’m glad you brought it up. Maybe in the not-so-distant future I could see this becoming a more popular opinion though.
Long Island City is a little bit further behind DTBK IMO. LIC is essentially becoming a small extension of Midtown’s skyline, but the neighborhood itself still very... blah and somewhat underdeveloped on the street level (outside maybe Vernon Blvd area) despite all the skyscrapers popping up. I think Flushing in Queens is actually still a larger CBD than LIC. LIC is definitely getting there but not quite yet IMO. Maybe in a few years.
Last edited by That_One_Guy; 05-23-2018 at 09:07 AM..
You just wrote an entire book report and didn’t even address anything I said in my post. I spoke specifically of daytime vibrancy which you didn’t mention once. I then specifically referenced D.C. neighborhoods by name which you didn’t mention once. Not once did I say that “D.C.’s downtown was overall more vibrant than downtown Boston or Center City” which you mentioned in this reply. So, unless you quoted the wrong person, you didn’t answer or address a single thing I wrote.
You went on to address not taking shots at D.C. which was never implied by me that you did so...I don’t know who you meant to quote on this reply, but it clearly wasn’t me. I’m confused.....
I’m a commercial real estate developer in D.C. so I would love to discuss what is happening in D.C. with you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MDAllstar
I guess a specific question for you would be what downtown neighborhoods are you referencing?
DuPont Circle?
West End?
Golden Triangle?
Penn Quarter?
Midtown?
Gallery Place/Chinatown?
City Center?
Judiciary Square?
Mt. Vernon Triangle?
Logan Circle?
NOMA?
Union Market?
The Wharf?
Capital Riverfront?
Buzzard Point?
Foggy Bottom?
SW Eco District?
Northwest One?
This is a pointless discussion without a reference point. I don’t even know which neighborhoods you’re talking about.
I was addressing you.
Comparing the neighborhoods you mentioned which make up the downtown area of DC to just CC Philadelphia, which would be river to river and we'll say Spring Garden to South (I am not including Northern Liberties, U City, South Philly, etc. because then it gets more complicated).
I am hard pressed to see how the overall daytime vibrancy of downtown DC exceeds that of CC. If you are looking at the general confines of DC to CC, they both offer an incredible amount of amenities: shopping, dining, nightlife, recreation, living arrangements, etc. but the difference is that CC is cohesive throughout, DC has a lot of quiet/ dead spots that break up the vibrancy of downtown. A large portion of downtown DC is an office district with massive buildings that that offer little to no street interaction for the pedestrian, it also gets super quiet after 6pm in many of those areas.
I don't know one neighborhood in DC that offers the daytime or nighttime vibrancy of Rittenhouse, which could be confused for NYC on a partially busy day.
The scattered nature of DC takes away from the overall measure of daytime and nighttime vibrancy, hence why I think it is still safely behind Philadelphia and Boston.
Another poster brought the world class argument in this, that is irrelevant, I am not arguing which city is more polished or world class, I am strictly talking vibrancy and activity, and CC as a whole pretty much offers that throughout every neighborhood, DC is more scattered, and if you compared DCs most bustling to Philadelphia's most bustling, it is clear Philadelphia is more vibrant.
Sidenote: I try to stay up to date on the DC development happenings, my market focus is NYC, Chicago and Philadelphia though.
Lower East Side, SoHo, The Villages, etc. Midtown???
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. An example of Lower Midtown would be Chelsea. The rest is undeniabley Downtown
EDIT:
I can definitely see an argument for including Downtown Brooklyn+Brooklyn Heights+DUMBO, as that whole area is definitely becoming more and more part of core NYC lately, and is continuous with core areas of Lower Manhattan other than the river inbetween. But there are 2 bridges and plenty subway lines connecting them making the river not too big of a barrier. Not to mention one of those bridges also being a huge tourist attraction too bringing countless tourists over to that side of the river every day...
I was intentionally keeping it conservative with my definition, only including Manhattan since I feel like it might be controversial if I included parts of Brooklyn/Queens right off the bat, but I’m glad you brought it up. Maybe in the not-so-distant future I could see this becoming a more popular opinion though.
Long Island City is a little bit further behind DTBK IMO. LIC is essentially becoming a small extension of Midtown’s skyline, but the neighborhood itself still very... blah and somewhat underdeveloped on the street level (outside maybe Vernon Blvd area) despite all the skyscrapers popping up. I think Flushing in Queens is actually still a larger CBD than LIC. LIC is definitely getting there but not quite yet IMO. Maybe in a few years.
Jamaica Center area is like mini Downtown area in Queens. NYC pretty massive the Brooklyn Bridge and lesser to extend Manhattan Bridge tourists are coming over from Manhattan they want see what Brooklyn like they going to LIC and Jackson Heights area also.
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