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The Rust Belt city downtowns are all supported by outstanding suburbs. The Back-to-the-Burbs trend will only continue to spread throughout the US as the rich/poor inner cities continue to decline.
Not that it is dead by any means, but downtown Phoenix felt seriously underutilized to me on my visit there last December. It was so spread out, and the downtown area in general felt much smaller than other cities of comparable size. The city certainly sprawled throughout the valley it sits in, but Downtown seemed like just another district that just happened to have skyscrapers. No real vitality that I could see.
I felt the same way when I was there and it's not like there's a ring of vibrant/urban neighborhoods around it that are pulling people from it. You have to drive to Tempe to get any sense of activity in that part of Phoenix.
Downtown Albuquerque is small especially for the population of the city. Not alot of anything really. No one really has a reason to go downtown unless its to a club. The town i live in with 70,000 people has a more lively downtown than Albuquerque.
Despite what the people who have mentioned Albuquerque say, I don't think it's a non-functional downtown.
It is the most concentrated jobs center in the metro with about 40,000 jobs.
North I-25 has more jobs overall, but they are spread over an area 10 times larger.
It is foresaken by most people in the city, but it also has a dedicated and determined group of people who are working to make it the best it can be. This includes local leaders including our mayor, business people, developers, restaurant owners and entrepenuers.
Over the last three years nearly 1,000 residential units have been added to our downtown and plenty of new businesses, restaurants, coffee shops and breweries/taprooms have opened. A new, 12,000 square foot full-service grocery store opened last year as well. Downtown continues to be the destination for live music and entertainment in this city. Our convention center received an extensive remodel and our Civic Plaza is getting a facelift and new fountain as well. Civic Plaza has been reinvigorated and activated in the last few years with food truck events, tourist attractions, live theater and performances, movie screenings, basketball hoops in the summer, an ice rink in the winter, and a New Year's Eve countdown with a 'balloon rise' at midnight. It continues to be the gathering place for our city for rallies, protests, commemorations, etc. The heart of our new BRT system will be downtown, just as it is the hub for all of our existing public transit and the Rail Runner commuter train. New dedicated, protected bike lanes are also being added downtown. We may even be getting a new tallest building soon:
Downtown Albuquerque may not be as big or as vital as it could be, but it is far from dead or non-functional.
What is this back-to-the-burbs trend you speak of? I iive in the US where it generally works in the opposite after going that way for some decades.
I would agree with this, but I will say that some Rust Belt cities still have not seen enough infill to offset their population losses. The ones with growing metros are growing due to their suburbs. Still, many of the cities that are shrinking are doing better than they have in decades. Neighborhoods coming back to life, population decline slowing to a trickle, etc. Hopefully they'll be able to return to growth soon, like how Cincinnati recently did.
I experienced it myself not long ago, and was pleasantly surprised how active the nightlife was! Really changed my viewpoint on the city of Detroit (we stayed in Royal Oak, which was also quite impressive and happening, especially for a sleep suburb)!
Fishers, IN. This is a suburb of Indianapolis and basically bulldozed whatever downtown it originally had. While most of the neighboring suburbs have intact and nice downtowns, Fishers really doesn't have any downtown at all.
I felt the same way when I was there and it's not like there's a ring of vibrant/urban neighborhoods around it that are pulling people from it. You have to drive to Tempe to get any sense of activity in that part of Phoenix.
Maybe like a decade ago. The downtown area has exploded in popularity with residential towers popping up everywhere. The Roosevelt Row, which was a small vibrant art collective a decade ago has exploded in popularity. A decade ago most stuff closed up at 5pm when everyone went home unless there was a game or something going on, but the times have changed!
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