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According to the 2021 State of Downtown Baltimore Report there are 42,478 people within a 1 mile radius of Pratt and Light streets which is 12th in the country. Just another way of looking at it. https://godowntownbaltimore.com/advocacy/resources/
The city has so much housing stock in the form or vacant/old buildings that are/have been converted for next to nothing this doesn't come at any surprise. The city has over 100k (and growing) living in <8 square miles (about the same geographic size as Center City) which puts it's core density at ~13,000ppm.
It has the potential to be an absolute monster of a greater DT core.
For a metric like this I think it's probably best to use the census tract tool since it will give official numbers. Vs. economic development websites or the list in the OP. It's hard to say what or how they are measuring, or how much area they are actually considering "downtown" to get to their totals.
I used the census tract tool on a few cities I am familiar with just to see how it would do. It's not perfect because census tracts don't follow neighborhood borders, but you can still get a pretty good idea. I should note that I did not consider periphery neighborhoods that could be considered an extension of the core(Detroit would have had over 60k if I included Corktown and Midtown) I focused only on where the central buisiness district build up starts and stops.
Louisville:
5 census tracts
12,713 people
3 sq mi
Jacksonville
4 census tracts
13,408 people
3.2 sq mi
Grand Rapids
4 census tracts
14,617 people
2.3 sq mi
Detroit
10 census tracts
20,140 people
4.6 sq mi
Louisville surprised me the most as the census tract that contains the core of the CBD was the least dense. Though downtown is largely an office park with not as much residential, it gets more dense around it.
Grand Rapids also surprised me but it was the most difficult because it's CBD is split between 4 tracts pretty equally and they each contain a few blocks of less dense neighborhoods. I'm guessing the population of just the core is probably closer to 12k.
Detroit was the easiest because it's census tracts were much smaller, and they were much easier to peice together what would most accurately consider to be "downtown".
Jacksonville also performed better than I expected it to. It is a bit more similar to Louisville in that downtown is more office related, but it's density also starts quicker from the core.
For a metric like this I think it's probably best to use the census tract tool since it will give official numbers. Vs. economic development websites or the list in the OP. It's hard to say what or how they are measuring, or how much area they are actually considering "downtown" to get to their totals.
I used the census tract tool on a few cities I am familiar with just to see how it would do. It's not perfect because census tracts don't follow neighborhood borders, but you can still get a pretty good idea. I should note that I did not consider periphery neighborhoods that could be an extension of the core(Detroit would have had over 60k if I included Corktown and Midtown) I focused only on where the central buisiness district build up starts and stops.
Louisville:
5 census tracts
12,713 people
3 sq mi
Jacksonville
4 census tracts
13,408 people
3.2 sq mi
Grand Rapids
4 census tracts
14,617 people
2.3 sq mi
Detroit
10 census tracts
20,140 people
4.6 sq mi
Louisville surprised me the most as the census tract that contains the core of the CBD was the least dense. Though downtown is largely an office park with not as much residential, it gets more dense around it.
Grand Rapids also surprised me but it was the most difficult because it's CBD is split between 4 tracts pretty equally and they each contain a few blocks of less dense neighborhoods. I'm guessing the population of just the core is probably closer to 12k.
Detroit was the easiest because it's census tracts were much smaller, and they were much easier to peice together what would most accurately consider to be "downtown".
Jacksonville also performed better than I expected it to. It is a bit more similar to Louisville in that downtown is more office related, but it's density also starts quicker from the core.
I wonder if it might make sense to instead go with something like an arbitrarily set square mile footprint of the densest contiguous tracts that are the same number of square miles for all of these and must include downtown to get a more apples to apples comparison. Something like five square miles for a greater downtown area and then stitch up the densest tracts overall including and contiguous with downtown.
I wonder if it might make sense to instead go with something like an arbitrarily set square mile footprint of the densest contiguous tracts that are the same number of square miles for all of these and must include downtown to get a more apples to apples comparison. Something like five square miles for a greater downtown area and then stitch up the densest tracts overall including and contiguous with downtown.
I've seen some disagreement on this site about what constitutes "downtown Boston". Here are the zip codes and their corresponding land areas and populations that I'd consider "central" (i.e. adjacent to skyscrapers). In bold are the ones that are basically just skyscrapers.
Indy Downtown (~3.3 sq mi, using I-70 to the south, I-70/65 to the east, White River to the West, and I-65/16th St to the North as boundary) is almost 2x the size of Austin (~1.6 sq mi, using Colorado River to the South, I-35 to the East, MLK Blvd to the North, and Lamar to the West as the boundary), though. That being said, Indy downtown is surprisingly pleasant and nice for a Midwest city at least prior to the virus.
But either way, Downtown Austin grew from ~7500 peeps in 2010 to now ~14k peeps, so the growth is definitely there. But what makes the population relatively low compare to, let say, Indy is that Austin downtown residential growth are basically due to those "luxury" high-rise condos and not much else, while Indy downtown residential is more of a mix between cookie-cutter 5+1 apartments next to some townhouses next to some old warehouse buildings that was repurposed.
I'd point out that Austin has ~40k people that live less than one mile north of downtown. (UT Campus area). There is also 10k just east of downtown and about 5k just west of downtown. Plus 20k or so in census tracts bordering the south side of the lake. (South Lamar, South Congress, and Travis Heights areas).
As you mentioned "downtown" residential is almost 100% high rises built in the last 15 years. A lot of your 1.6 sqmi is also the state government complex that doesn't have any residential.
Using the radius tool posted above, I see 43k within 1 mile of downtown Austin, 70k within 2 miles and 150k within 3 miles vs. 30k, 50k, and 120k for Indy. So it's certainly not the case that Indy is "3x" Austin here. Roughly the same perhaps, but that isn't surprising to me considering Indy has a lot more historical urban form. If anything it's impressive that Austin comfortably leads... In 3 directions Austin's small downtown is ringed by neighborhoods with SFHs and yards. To get >20k ppsqm over that 3 mile radius is probably more than I would have thought, honestly.
Last edited by whereiend; 07-07-2022 at 08:31 PM..
For a metric like this I think it's probably best to use the census tract tool since it will give official numbers. Vs. economic development websites or the list in the OP. It's hard to say what or how they are measuring, or how much area they are actually considering "downtown" to get to their totals.
I used the census tract tool on a few cities I am familiar with just to see how it would do. It's not perfect because census tracts don't follow neighborhood borders, but you can still get a pretty good idea. I should note that I did not consider periphery neighborhoods that could be considered an extension of the core(Detroit would have had over 60k if I included Corktown and Midtown) I focused only on where the central buisiness district build up starts and stops.
Louisville:
5 census tracts
12,713 people
3 sq mi
Jacksonville
4 census tracts
13,408 people
3.2 sq mi
Grand Rapids
4 census tracts
14,617 people
2.3 sq mi
Detroit
10 census tracts
20,140 people
4.6 sq mi
Louisville surprised me the most as the census tract that contains the core of the CBD was the least dense. Though downtown is largely an office park with not as much residential, it gets more dense around it.
Grand Rapids also surprised me but it was the most difficult because it's CBD is split between 4 tracts pretty equally and they each contain a few blocks of less dense neighborhoods. I'm guessing the population of just the core is probably closer to 12k.
Detroit was the easiest because it's census tracts were much smaller, and they were much easier to peice together what would most accurately consider to be "downtown".
Jacksonville also performed better than I expected it to. It is a bit more similar to Louisville in that downtown is more office related, but it's density also starts quicker from the core.
Good overviews of each city.
I think of these 4, Jacksonville has the greatest opportunity for growth and additional population and residential density. Detroit has all the ingredients though, and can continue building on those numbers, and continue adding amenities.
Grand Rapids is about where I would expect the numbers to land, although they can definitely improve--but good for its size.
Louisville numbers are a bit disappointing, but hopefully they can gain traction over the next few years and add residents and residential buildings/units downtown. I feel like with COVID and the impact of the Black Lives Matter protests over the last couple of years, Louisville is one of the downtowns (although there are a ton) that got hit pretty hard.
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