Rate Your City's Downtown Area (best city, construction, law school)

[rah]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Is this based off of population? If so, NOLA should be on the developed list. And I figure the same for D.C. and probably SF too.

Downtown SF should definitely be "fully developed" if that list is going by population (SF has around 50,000-75,000 people within Downtown, as of 2010, depending on how you define "downtown")...but the studies on downtown areas that I've seen only include part of downtown SF (the financial district), while excluding other downtown areas such as the Tenderloin, Nob Hill, Civic Center, parts of SOMA, which are where most of the residents live.

[shoe01]

Originally Posted by jm02

I'm sure I'll get blasted for this (after all, "don't mess with Texas") but I find San Antonio to have the only vibrant dt in Texas. And I'm speaking of dt - not the Riverwalk. There is much there that caters to tourists, but there is ample residential within walking distance, with more and more residential development on the non-touristy parts of the river. The city preserved quite a bit of its historic architecture, re-purposing it for retail, hotels, restaurants, etc. at street level street, as opposed to the gleaming but empty office lobbies which predominate in the other large Texas cities. This, mixed in with the newer architecture, gives SA a more organic feel.

All good points. I think that Austin has a somewhat similar downtown to SA's, but with mostly newer buildings. I don't understand why owners of office buildings don't convert some of their lobby space to retail or restaurant space, since they could make a killing in lease revenue. Plus the workers might like to just have a quick bite just beyond the elevator. I think most residents of cities with downtowns dominated by 1970's and 1980's-era skyscrapers want their CBD's to be more lively and functional, but old developer habits die hard, perhaps.

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Is this based off of population? If so, NOLA should be on the developed list. And I figure the same for D.C. and probably SF too.

This study was conducted on 2000 data; for the life of me I cant figure out how SF is not considered fully developed. I have always felt that Boston, Chicago, NYC, Philly, and SF all separate themselves from the next pack on DTs; esepcially on the street you can just feel the difference in street level activity, people, vibrancy, and buzz.

NOLA to me is a notch below the others and is so much smaller than the others on the list, NOLA has more in common with Charleston in terms of DT size and feel but both have great DTs and way overindex on the size of their cities. I would assume that DC has moved up a tier (to the emerging category) since 2000 but still to me would be behind the other DTs considered fully developed.

Their criteria goes beyond pure population but was a factor.

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by kidphilly

This study was conducted on 2000 data; for the life of me I cant figure out how SF is not considered fully developed. I have always felt that Boston, Chicago, NYC, Philly, and SF all separate themselves from the next pack on DTs; esepcially on the street you can just feel the difference in street level activity, people, vibrancy, and buzz.

NOLA to me is a notch below the others and is so much smaller than the others on the list, NOLA has more in common with Charleston in terms of DT size and feel but both have great DTs and way overindex on the size of their cities. I would assume that DC has moved up a tier (to the emerging category) since 2000 but still to me would be behind the other DTs considered fully developed.

Their criteria goes beyond pure population but was a factor.

Size has nothing to do with it if they used a scale, downtown NO has be thriving since the beginning. Maybe they are counting just the CBD, which would make sense.

[nashvols]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Size has nothing to do with it if they used a scale, downtown NO has be thriving since the beginning. Maybe they are counting just the CBD, which would make sense.

Probably so. To some people, downtown is the entire built up, highly urbanized area, the thickest part of the core, comprised of several different neighborhoods...to others, it is very narrowly the "neighborhood" of the central business district that simply has no other name than "downtown" (or "uptown", if you're one of those backwards Charlotteans).

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Size has nothing to do with it if they used a scale, downtown NO has be thriving since the beginning. Maybe they are counting just the CBD, which would make sense.

I agree that NOLA is very vibrant and also believe they did have a strict definition for purposes closer to the CBD (hence why SF was left off) but do believe that the scale of the the developed downtowns and even the areas close in are on a significantly different scale from NOLA. This perspective comes from someone who loves NOLA and it is truly truly one of my favorite cities (both US and abroad) though NOLA never conjures up a big city. I believe you have said before that you have not visited other any or most of the other cities listed as fully developed; in person I do believe you would see the difference. That is no slight to NOLA as right about now I could most definately go for some debis from mothers

But NOLA does not have close to the population in the area, even those sorrounding of the other areas nor the business level. Tourism is very strong and does add feet to the street in NOLA. The quarter is an amazing place but again not quite the densisty of folks and the other side of the CBD with the garden district; an american gem of a neighborhood is not exactly urban in the same sense really on many accounts and dominated by single homes; more of a beautiful old neighborhood than an urban enclave, all said also an area that I love to visit

Most of these DTs on the list of fully developed have a population close to NOLA (the whole city) within a few sq miles and honestly that is part of what makes NOLA what it is; it wouldnt be the same place if larger or more densly developed; that is part of the charm and character of NOLA

[west336]

Originally Posted by K.O.N.Y

Can you explain this please. This doesnt make sense to me. A natural relationship between neighborhoods and buildings...wtf? You dont know what your talking about

Have you BEEN to Paris? Of course not.

I have lived in both New York City and Seattle but I would like to rate other city's downtown areas too. I would say 7-10 is a very good rank, a 4-6 is pretty good/ok/pretty bad rank, and a 1-3 is a very bad rank.

I personally like and respect anything above a 4. There is a huge cutoff between 6 and a 7, as well as a 4 and a 5.

For cities in the USA:
New York City: 9 out of 10
Seattle 7.5 out of 10
Chicago: 8.5 out of 10
San Francisco: 8 out of 10
Washington DC: 7 out of 10
Boston: 7.5 out of 10
Philadelphia: 7.5 out of 10

Denver: 6 out of 10
Charlotte: 5 out of 10
Atlanta: 4 out of 10
Minneapolis: 4 out of 10

Saint Louis: 3 out of 10
San Jose: 2 out of 10
Phoenix: 1 out of 10
El Paso: 1 out of 10
Jacksonville: 1 out of 10

For selective cities outside the USA:

Paris: 9 out of 10
London: 9 out of 10
Hong Kong: 9 out of 10
Shanghai: 9 out of 10

Tokyo: 8 out of 10
Seoul: 8 out of 10
Amsterdam: 8 out of 10
Stockholm: 8 out of 10

Montreal: 7.5 out of 10
Singapore: 7 out of 10
Sydney: 7 out of 10

Beijing: 5.5 out of 10
Moscow: 5.5 out of 10
Oslo: 6 out of 10
Berlin: 6 out of 10
Calgary: 5 out of 10
Winnipeg: 4 out of 10

Mexico City: 3 out of 10
Perth: 2 out of 10
Kinshasa: 1 out of 10
Karachi: 1 out of 10

[2Easy]

Los Angeles

10 - based on what it was just 10 years ago
8 - compared to other sunbelt city downtowns
3 - based on what it should be for a city it's size

6 - my opinion of where it is all things considered. I could live there and it's still improving. New and redeveloped buildings are opening almost every month even in this down economy.

[2Easy]

Originally Posted by ainulinale

What is a large city without a metro?

I'm late to the conversation, but I believe that he meant "metro" as in subway/trains downtown.