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when cities have highways built thru the center of them, are they uniformely worse off in their downtowns? Does the construction of a highway that cuts a residential neighborhood off from its downtown ultimately contribute to choking off and killing the downtown of that city?
One example: Rochester. The inner loop was built as a circular highway that completely choked off its downtown from the rest of the city. This inner loop was built right through RIT's old campus, causing the university to move to the suburbs. This caused the students, faculty, and nearby businesses to move with it, possibly leading to a downfall of its downtown.
My question is: Is this theory that an intrusive highway kills a downtown accurate? or is Downtown Rochester and similar cities just in bad shape because of its overall economy/high cost of NY taxes/being in the rust belt, etc etc??
A few other examples of this:
Detroit: I75/375 loop
Cleveland: I90
Providence: I95/rt. 6
South Bronx: Cross Bx Expressway
Dallas: 75/67/77/366
Ft. Worth: 377/35W
Houston: 45/10/59
Los Angeles: 110/10/101
im sure there are more examples of a downtown being encircled by a freeway, but those are some that come to mind...I don't see any of the cities that have lively downtowns having highways that completely encircle them..
I don't know. I think it's highly dependent on the individual situation. When I look at the cities on your list, the ones that have gone "downhill" generally have issues that extend far beyond a highway cutting through a downtown or residential neighborhood. The loss of industry is one big example (Detroit, Cleveland, etc). Other cities have had highways cut through downtown and do just fine. Boston has arguably improved since I-93 cut through the central part of the city (I-90 replaced an old railway for the most part not doing much damage). It's better now that I-93 is underground through downtown but Boston was gentrifying (even in cut-off neighborhoods like the North End) long before the highway was removed.
On the other hand, parts of Providence's Jewelery District really went downhill after the highway came in due to the separation from downtown. The I-Way project in PVD has help start the reconnection process by moving I-195. At the same time, Federal Hill is separated from downtown Providence by I-95 and is still one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. Then again, people often forget that Providence has a big industrial background and suffered through the loss of textiles and manufacturing like other cities of that type. The highway being put into downtown just happened to coincide with the decline of industry and I don't think the two were directly related. The Jewelery District happened to be home to a number of large warehouses which were not needed when the industry left. Providence subsequently reinvented itself with those highways still in place (though, again, I-195 is in the process of being moved away from downtown). It also happens that the Jewelery District is improving and being better connected to downtown via the removal of I-195 will make that transition even easier.
I think highways can alienate certain neighborhoods and make them more poorly connected. This can be bad from the standpoint of individual neighborhoods as they are more poorly connected to the downtown district, but I don't think it kills entire cities. I don't even think it kills a downtown area.
One smaller city near me (New Bedford, MA) has a highway that stands between the city's very beautiful and historic downtown district and the city's waterfront. The highway has been credited with doing significant damage to the vitality of the downtown area. However, the vitality of the downtown area is being restored significantly and the highway is still there (though they're in the process of removing it). In the same city, the South End was essentially destroyed by the destruction of a neighborhood to make room for the highway. That neighborhood hasn't recovered and I wouldn't say it's the highway's fault (the highway intended to actually better connect the South End to downtown). It was the careless clearing that did the neighborhood in.
In short, I think highways can do a great deal to damage connectivity (on a pedestrian level) to downtown areas from neighborhoods on the other side of the highway. If these neighborhoods were pedestrian friendly beforehand, they can take a major hit (South End of New Bedford and Providence's Jewelery District are perfect examples). A highway is a barrier and a difficult one to cross. It really messes with the flow that exists between a downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods. Still, I don't think you can blame a highway for the downfall of a city (a neighborhood? absolutely... a city? no.). It's just not that black and white. Most "dying" cities have issues that go way beyond a highway or two.
My personal belief is that I-285 around Atlanta helped suck all the people with money away from the urban core. Dayton, OH has a partial loop around the East side of the city (I-675). Much of the growth in the last 15 years or so was along this corridor. I believe that loops can aid in helping those who can afford it to move away from the city center. But there's also a trend to reawaken our urban cores. Just what do you do with the people who can't afford to live in the redeveloped (read: more expensive) housing?
Sacramento got surrounded by freeways: Highway 50, Interstate 5, Business 80. They created a three-way moat around the old central city, then considered an unacceptable place to live, and walled off the "nice" neighborhoods (East Sacramento, Land Park/Curtis Park) from the "not nice" neighborhoods (Downtown/Midtown and Oak Park.) Interstate 5 is the most egregious offender--in addition to wiping out much of the old Portuguese, Japanese and African American neighborhoods, they cut off Sacramento from its waterfront. The only part spared was a six-block area that became "Old Sacramento" and the California State Railroad Museum. I-5 is now a moat that is very difficult to get across, mentally or physically--millions of tourists visiting Old Sacramento never see any other part of the city. And because of the effects of I-5 and urban renewal, there isn't much to see in the blocks just on the other side. In recent years the central/eastern part of the central city, known as Midtown, has seen a real renaissance--but it is the part of the central city farthest from the highways.
The idea of highways into the central city (other than their utility in getting rid of "undesirable" neighborhoods) is that they make it easier for people to go downtown. The problem is that they also make it easier for people to leave downtown. The end result was downtowns that go dead after 5 PM when the workforce goes home.
As far as what to do with the folks who can't afford the more expensive housing--They have to be included in the new housing mix, affordable housing MUST be part of the equation. The reason for this is twofold. First, if low-income housing is lost or destroyed and it is not replaced, the result is homelessness. In addition to being no fun for the displaced people, it can also torpedo efforts to fix up a neighborhood. Second, the existing low-income population can benefit from better job opportunities in a reintegrating neighborhood, their kids benefit from better schools as tax rates go up, they don't have to commute from other parts of town (easing traffic and economic pressure.) It's asinine for people who work at a coffee shop or other retail job in the trendy part of town to have to commute by car from a cheaper suburb. One other result of Sacramento's growth process was a huge number of unlovely but inexpensive apartment complexes: intended for low-wage state employees and students, they are so numerous that complete gentrification of the central city has proved nearly impossible. They're too profitable to landlords to want to get rid of, and mostly too ugly for people to want to fix up into condos.
It definitely can create an unpleasant barrier. The I-10 Claiborne overpass in New Orleans does not hamper downtown activity at all. However, it does create a barrier where people do not like to be, especially at night as it fosters crime. There is talk of it being removed.
when cities have highways built thru the center of them, are they uniformely worse off in their downtowns? Does the construction of a highway that cuts a residential neighborhood off from its downtown ultimately contribute to choking off and killing the downtown of that city?
One example: Rochester. The inner loop was built as a circular highway that completely choked off its downtown from the rest of the city. This inner loop was built right through RIT's old campus, causing the university to move to the suburbs. This caused the students, faculty, and nearby businesses to move with it, possibly leading to a downfall of its downtown.
My question is: Is this theory that an intrusive highway kills a downtown accurate? or is Downtown Rochester and similar cities just in bad shape because of its overall economy/high cost of NY taxes/being in the rust belt, etc etc??
A few other examples of this:
Detroit: I75/375 loop
Cleveland: I90
Providence: I95/rt. 6
South Bronx: Cross Bx Expressway
Dallas: 75/67/77/366
Ft. Worth: 377/35W
Houston: 45/10/59
Los Angeles: 110/10/101
im sure there are more examples of a downtown being encircled by a freeway, but those are some that come to mind...I don't see any of the cities that have lively downtowns having highways that completely encircle them..
You left out I 84 thru Hartford Ct,created a mess!!
Kansas City, MO is a classic example, surrounded by a freeway loop (I-35/70/29/670) and it's downtown has been quite "dead" for a long time, although I hear the new entertainment district they built is starting to reverse that.
I cam compare it to Denver, where there is only one freeway very near downtown. In Denver, you can easily walk from downtown straight into neighborhoods. Denver has a much livelier downtown and more people living downtown and very near downtown. It doesn't feel cut off at all.
DC has been lucky, having had its downtown only seperated from the rest of the city by its south and partly East side. I think that cities that DON'T have their downtowns seperated fare better overall.
Examples: all the major ones.
San Francisco: There used to be a freeway around the waterfront and downtown. It was severely damaged during the 1989 quake, and they decided to remove it altogether. This reconnected the waterfront to downtown, and has changed quite a few neighborhoods. The former freeway zones are being reclaimed for pedestrians and bicyclists. Now downtown is a lot more cohesive and the waterfront is more active. A shining example: the Ferry Building.
Oakland has a problem with downtown freeways. The freeway literally separates West Oakland from the rest of downtown and also cuts Oakland off from its waterfront. There are no plans to demolish the freeways, and their existence contribute to the disconnected feeling of Jack London Square, and the future waterfront development of Oak-to-9th.
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