A Word from Eric Miller for October, 2004

The Downtowners

By Eric Miller

I've heard the place where I live called downtown, although most would contend it isn't. I've seen real estate listings for houses a lot further away from the "Central Business District" than my home advertised as being "downtown." There are practical (if not misleading) public relations reasons to use that word "downtown."

You won't see too many signs popping up advertising "Central Business District (CBD)"--at least not in the hip places. That name came with zoning, when malls and office parks provided activity-exclusive places. Downtown tried to compete by naming itself "CBD." If your city is using the CBD moniker, drop it. Downtown is a place to live, work, shop, and play. [NB: Look at the upper left corner of this site: www.downtownla.com .]

The most important of these activities is living.

Even in cities with declining populations, the number of residents living in center cities is growing. Among twenty-four cities studies by Fannie Mae Foundation and The Brookings Institution, eighteen saw increases in their downtown populations during the 1990s. (See /www.fanniemaefoundation.org .)

Downtown Memphis up 18%.
Downtown Milwaukee up 2%.
Downtown Houston up 69%.
Downtown Baltimore up 5%.
Downtown Cleveland's up 32%.

Pittsburgh's downtown population has more than doubled since then, yet a historically strong office market in the central core might have kept that growth low. Today that's changing, and pretty fast it seems.

On one end of the Golden Triangle, a new apartment building along Fort Duquesne Boulevard will provide panoramic views of PNC Park and the Allegheny River. Across town near the Monongahela, a new condominium complex will provide dozens of new homes for new downtowners.

This trend is occurring whether or not over-all population in a city is growing. Unlike other metropolitan population increases, downtown increases are not weighted with immigrants. They are apparently weighted with single whites and white empty-nesters who want to be near entertainment, work, and shopping. We'll call them downtowners. They're also tired of waiting in traffic. In that sense, I'd say parts of my neighborhood are "downtown."

I recently sent an e-mail to the Pittsburgh Downtown Living Initiative saying that if they are successful, there is little doubt the changes brought to the center-city by residents would have more of an impact than any recent effort at development. If you want lively streets, you need people at all hours of the day. Only residential units can provide this. Residential areas that don't allow retail or office uses can't provide this.

A healthy downtown needs people and places for them to go to.

In year's past, the focus here in Pittsburgh and in other cities had been shopping and office development. I recall being in Akron, Ohio, when the idea of putting apartments and offices in the same complex was nixed because well, you just don't want business people and moms (or dads) with laundry in the same elevator. If you go to Akron today and see people on the streets, you'll know those views have progressed.

Pittsburgh set out for a massive retail makeover, opening several department stores--all closed or slated to close in a few short years. After all, in many cases the same store is at the mall--with parking! Suburbs are for cars, cities are for people.

You need the people to shop before you have the store for them to go to.

Businesses follow people. We saw it with suburbanization and we're seeing it with new urbanization. Cities with strong retail--San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia--also have lots or residents in or around downtown.

If you want to develop your downtown, go with housing. That's clear, but how well those efforts succeed in specific cities will depend on other variables. Downtowners like things to be convenient. If the public transit isn't efficient (or available), it's not going to work. If retail development doesn't follow (for any number of reasons), it isn't going to work. When the downtowners move in looking for convenience and street life only to find themselves trapped without access to groceries or household items, they'll soon leave and go somewhere with a parking space.

A good downtown needs people living near places close enough to walk to, and a way to go to the places just out of a pedestrian's reach.

Eric Miller is editor of The New Colonist.

Go to A Word from Richard Risemberg

Return to Top