what happened to downtown Lubbock? (Houston, Dallas: 2014, home, neighborhood)

[kpl1228]

Visited Lubbock for the first time. Downtown was..........gone! Hardly any buildings, tons of parking lots......reminds me of "urban renewal" projects in Midwestern towns during the 1970s. But I've never seen it at the level I saw yesterday in Lubbock. What happened?

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by kpl1228

Visited Lubbock for the first time. Downtown was..........gone! Hardly any buildings, tons of parking lots......reminds me of "urban renewal" projects in Midwestern towns during the 1970s. But I've never seen it at the level I saw yesterday in Lubbock. What happened?

An F5 tornado almost completely destroyed downtown in 1970, and it never fully recovered. That said, there are big plans for revitalization, and they just finished updating the utility infrastructure to handle the projected demand. The North Overton neighborhood next door was revitalized with a lot of success, so things are looking up for it.

[kpl1228]

wow. had no idea. Just googled it.

[TheOverdog]

Lubbock is not really unique in that aspect as every downtown in the southwest has been destroyed as parking lots, superblocks, and overly large buildings have replaced tight downtowns.

Check this site out to see the dreadful results for the major cities in TX & Oklahoma:

60 Years of Urban Change: Oklahoma and Texas | The Institute for Quality Communities

[stanwood]

That's a great read, Overdog.

[augiedogie]

Nothing new. Most innner cities/downtowns across America are being or already are vacated. In some cases, like Houston or Dallas, they may still have a lot of big buildings with lots of businesses in them, but not many people living there. I was in downtown Houston about 5 years ago for a convention. We got up Sunday morning and found we had to walk about a mile, just to find an open fast food restaurant for breakfast.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by augiedogie

Nothing new. Most innner cities/downtowns across America are being or already are vacated. In some cases, like Houston or Dallas, they may still have a lot of big buildings with lots of businesses in them, but not many people living there. I was in downtown Houston about 5 years ago for a convention. We got up Sunday morning and found we had to walk about a mile, just to find an open fast food restaurant for breakfast.

Depends on your definition of new. Dying downtowns are purely a phenomenon of American post-WWII auto-centric urban planning (which Houston exemplifies). With high gas prices and a young generation that better appreciates the urban lifestyle, downtowns in the Sunbelt are getting new life. Texas cities and other trendy places are changing fast.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Lubbock's situation is that it literally has almost unlimited open space to grow into and even young Texans still seem to only want a city within commuting distance of their home rather than having a home in the city.

As fewer and fewer people have a need for downtown areas, the interest in keeping the areas alive will continue to diminish except for the few merchants and, in the case of Lubbock realtors, who still have financial interest in the areas. This is a pattern that has been reoccurring during my life and there is every reason to believe this pattern is accelerating as America ages.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

Lubbock's situation is that it literally has almost unlimited open space to grow into and even young Texans still seem to only want a city within commuting distance of their home rather than having a home in the city.

As fewer and fewer people have a need for downtown areas, the interest in keeping the areas alive will continue to diminish except for the few merchants and, in the case of Lubbock realtors, who still have financial interest in the areas. This is a pattern that has been reoccurring during my life and there is every reason to believe this pattern is accelerating as America ages.

Please don't take this the wrong way. It's an honest question, but have you spoken to many young people or been to any good downtowns recently? As someone who's studying transportation and urban planning, what you're saying is ludicrous. There is a definite trend toward downtown revitalization, general densification, and demand for public transit in most major cities in America.

[High_Plains_Retired]

There has been an interest in downtown revitalization and increased mass transit since I first went to work in several major cities 35 years ago. I don't see the interest in downtown revitalization per capita either increasing or declining. However, based on the people posting on C-D and planning to move to Texas, most seem to still be seeking the same as I and my then young co-workers sought, i.e., to live within commuting distance of the large city where we worked but not deep inside it. This is not to say people tied to a large city culturally by living in the area are not willing to pay increased taxes to keep their downtown areas alive. Many are and do now for Lubbock although the city as a whole is continuing to fast move west and southwest.

America is definitely growing older, much like Europe. What this means for living trends and interests, I would not try to guess because I dislike grouping people by age and generations. I only know how age and working in large cities changed me.

BTW, my old professors used to tell me often that biology was "where it was happening."