
Nice Downtowns: How Did They Get That Way? People Made Them - jseliger
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/04/on-the-making-of-downtowns-from-fresno-to-seattle-to-shanghai/390873/?single_page=true
======
mcjiggerlog
As someone who has lived in the UK, France and Spain - the whole concept of it
being normal that "downtown" is grim is really strange. Over here the city
centre is typically the nicest (and most expensive) part of the city to live
in.

I guess it stems from the relative ages of cities in North America vs Europe.
A typical city centre in Europe would have been the entirety of the city at
some point and is therefore where the most historic buildings, oldest
businesses etc. are located. Whereas in NA, cities are a lot younger and grew
much faster meaning that is not so much the case.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, Boston, NYC, amongst others in the USA have nice downtowns. Not to
mention Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and other cities in Canada.

~~~
santaclaus
Native New Yorkers absolutely _looooooove_ Time Square...

~~~
ardit33
Union Square is the heart of NYC. Almost all lines intersect there, (the L
from Brooklyn as well), and it is next to (within 10mins walk) of East
Village, West Village, Lower East Side, Chelsea, FlatIron, Kips Bay, etc,
which are the most interesting parts of NYC and have both commercial and
residential buildings

It used to be a dangerous dump 20 years ago, and now it is awesome.

~~~
santaclaus
Ehhhh, that area is a bit B&T at night...

~~~
eclipxe
Really? I lived close by and never got a B&T vibe from Union Square.

~~~
avn2109
>> "...the Union Square area."

The Union Squarea?

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erikpukinskis
I feel a little sad when I read this "this used to be a crack house and now
it's a lovely restaurant" narrative. There is a glee with the notion of
cleaning something up. That's an admirable thing of course. But I wonder about
the people who were living in that "crack house". Where are they now? What
municipal policies led to them being there in the first place?

Was the problem really cleaned up, or was it just flushed away?

~~~
ebiester
This is where they went:
[http://www.salon.com/2013/12/17/more_proof_that_americas_pri...](http://www.salon.com/2013/12/17/more_proof_that_americas_prison_epidemic_is_a_complete_disaster_partner/)

By and large, we made it illegal to be poor in the city.

~~~
rayiner
That article triggered my "bullshit" detector:

> In 2010, The Economist highlighted a case in which four Americans were
> arrested for importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than in
> cardboard boxes. That violated a Honduran law which that country no longer
> enforces, but because it’s still on the books there its enforced here. “The
> lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got
> eight years apiece.” When the article was published 10 years later, two of
> them were still behind bars.

Yeah, that's a pile of shit:
[http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059964426](http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059964426).

TL;DR version: they were arrested and convicted for importing over $15 million
in illegal lobster tails. The plastic versus cardboard boxes issue is a red
herring--it was the means by which they concealed the undersized tails, not
the primary basis for prosecution. As for the Honduran law--the Court of
Appeals determined that the Honduran law was in fact valid during the relevant
time period. Moreover, the Lacey Act only criminalizes importing animals
harvested in violation of a foreign law when the importer knows or should know
about the law. The prosecution proved that the defendants took measures to
conceal the undersized tails and evade inspectors.

~~~
tptacek
They also at times routed their lobster tails through Canada to avoid
detection --- for lobsters sourced in the jurisdiction of Honduras and
destined for Alabama.

People love to fixate on the "undersized lobster" part of this story, but
that's an irrelevant detail. The important fact is that all fishermen were
required to take lobsters under a specific set of rules, and report their
compliance with those rules. This particular fisherman cheated the rest of the
market by ignoring those rules.

Nobody bats an eyelid when "banksters" are convicted and serve sentences† for
violating rules far more abstract and far less connected to real-world
consequences than overfishing regulations.

† _yes, this actually happens, probably more often than it does to fishermen_

------
joelgrus
So I live in downtown Seattle, and there are _not_ a ton of residents here.
For one thing, there are no schools in downtown Seattle, and so almost no one
with kids wants to live downtown. And while I wouldn't characterize it as
"dead and deserted" at night, it's not particularly _lively_ either.

In fact, most people think it's _weird_ that I live downtown. It's definitely
not a common choice around here.

It is largely true that young tech workers want to live "in the city" (as
opposed to in the suburbs), but (at least in Seattle) that means one of the
"cool" neighborhoods in the city, not _downtown_.

~~~
jrbancel
> In fact, most people think it's weird that I live downtown. It's definitely
> not a common choice around here.

That's a good thing, it keeps prices down.

I live on 1st & Union.

Everything is next door:

    
    
      - the market, Target, Kress, dry cleaners, all downtown stores
    
      - all the bus lines stop on 3rd, 4th or 5th
    
      - the light rail station is 2 blocks away
    
      - numerous bars and restaurants in a 3 blocks radius
    
      - Belltown is 5 min away
    
      - Capitol Hill is 15 min away
    
      - Pioneer Square is 10 min away
    
      - the waterfront is 2 min away
    

I have a room, with view on the Puget Sound, with my own bathroom in a 2
bedrooms apartment (1200+ sqft) with a parking spot. The building has a
doorman and all utilities, even internet are included. I pay $1,250 / month.

It is a bargain compared to other neighborhoods.

~~~
switch007
That's the price of a nice _bedroom_ in a shared house (including bills) in
zones 1-3 in London.

------
pkaler
In Vancouver, we call this Vancouverism:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism)

It is a long-term commitment to mixed used development, walkable streets, view
corridors for everyone, public parks within walking distance, and mass public
transit into and out of the core.

~~~
pekk
These things are by definition not for everyone who is driven out by high
property prices

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hueving
There is bias here though. They mention that cities with good downtowns have
stories histories that people come up with about the planning that went into
it. That will happen with every single successful thing. Conversely, nobody
wants to take credit for a failure so people are happy to say that a downtown
got crappy because of a lack of planning.

Downtowns die because money flows out of the city due to the economy or
because the culture transitions to one based on suburbs. There are many people
that have no interest in living in an expensive downtown apartment. If you
start to lose the small percentage of the population that desires and can
afford the downtown lifestyle, it will either on the vine regardless of the
amount of planning that goes into them.

~~~
BrainInAJar
Culture doesn't just "change", forces shape it. Culture moves towards a
suburban, car oriented culture when the local governments pay (at great
taxpayer expense) for an overbuilt highway system to quickly get people in and
out of it.

~~~
hueving
Consider what you just said. People clearly aren't that interested in being
downtown if all it takes is a better Highway system to let them move out.

What you are describing is a culture that already dislikes being downtown but
is only there because the transit sucks. That's not a sign of a healthy
downtown.

~~~
philwelch
Highways occupy startling amounts of space. For instance, the entire city of
Florence takes up the same amount of space as a single cloverleaf interchange
in Atlanta: [http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-
sid...](http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-side-
expressway.html)

The very presence of freeways drives people away because they are noisy
eyesores and impediments to local travel. In Seattle, I-5 cuts across the
street grid and separates downtown from Capital Hill and First Hill, while the
Alaskan Way Viaduct cuts downtown off from the waterfront. If both of these
were removed (I-5 could take a bypass route around the Seattle city center
using what is now I-405), downtown Seattle would be much more livable and
would have better traffic on account of being able to reconnect the street
grid.

~~~
hueving
You don't put a cloverleaf interchange downtown so that comparison is dumb. An
international airport takes up way more space and cities still seem to have
them. See why that's stupid?

The presence of freeways does not drive away people. If that were true there
would be no freeways in any populated location.

If you remove all freeways it would impede people's ability to visit and make
the downtown less crowded. Perhaps that's your intention.

~~~
philwelch
You're being extremely reductive here, frankly to a dishonest degree. For
regional and national transportation networks, freeways are necessary.
Freeways are unnecessary in the city center and do not belong there, just like
international airports don't belong in the city center. New York City and San
Francisco are completely bypassed by the major interstate freeways, and they
are more livable and desirable for that very reason. By way of contrast,
Seattle suffers from the presence of I-5 throughout the city center, or the
I-5/I-90 interchange in the city center.

------
wdr1
I'm surprised he didn't mention Santa Monica's downtown. In the 80s it was
generally considered seedy & filled with blight. The now-famous Santa Monica
Pier was in disrepair. 3rd Street wasn't really a thing, nor was Santa Monica
Place, Casa del Mar and so on.

Today the area is hot enough that it commands rents comparable to SF &
Manhattan. The median rent for the area is $3,200 and one bedrooms in newer
construction (w/o an ocean view!) can go for $5k.

~~~
beachstartup
i've lived in sm for 6 years now. it's changed dramatically even in that short
period of time.

i like to think of santa monica as an improved version of san francisco, with
the rest of los angeles attached as a bonus. if you live and work (i.e. no
commute) in santa monica, it's easily the highest quality of life in urban
california, and i've lived in pacific heights, downtown san diego, and central
LA proper.

~~~
Cloudy
San Fransisco has a more more diverse set of options for nightlife and culture
compared to downtown Santa Monica.

If you bicycle around Santa Monica/Venice there's not much going on compared
to SF. Sure you could hop in your car and drive to Hollywood, DTLA, or other
parts of the city but that's not really the same as the work/live urban core
ideal.

------
jseliger
Notice:

 _It took a long time, but for nearly fifty years this effort has carried on,
successfully I think, but hardly anyone recalls that the origins of the effort
were very deliberate and came about when the nighttime downtown was the
precise opposite of what it is today, and few people probably think of it as
involving a conscious goal then or now. They just think "that's the way
Seattle is." But Seattle wasn't._

This should remind us of yesterday's post
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400259))
about the importance of long-term planning. The good things about today came
about because people decades ago consciously made efforts to make them happen.
The good things that are to come—light rail, bike lanes, reasonable rents that
stem from increasing housing supply—are only going to come if people
consciously make efforts to make them happen.

See also _Zero to One_ ([http://jakeseliger.com/2014/09/24/zero-to-one-peter-
thiel-an...](http://jakeseliger.com/2014/09/24/zero-to-one-peter-thiel-and-
blake-masters/)).

~~~
fennecfoxen
Those efforts also need humility. In San Jose, Rod Diridon and the VTA thought
the city would radically reshape itself around the light rail, which didn't
really happen: [http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic-
old/ci_22264605/25-years-...](http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic-
old/ci_22264605/25-years-later-vta-light-rail-among-nations)

For those not familiar with the VTA, I'll just say that it's the kind of light
rail system that _passes_ by the airport, but the closest stop to the terminal
is more than a mile's walk away.

~~~
WalterBright
Not serving the airport is amazing.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
It runs so damn close along North First, its a crime it wasn't connected in
the first place.

------
forkandwait
The only thing that killed happy dense urbanism in the USA is 50 years of
weird mortgage and highway subsidies that encouraged suburban growth even when
it makes almost no sense whatsoever, combined with a lingering Anglo anti-
urbanist set of cultural assumptions. However, worldwide, the USA is the weird
place, and mostly the core parts of cities are better than the rest.

------
fapjacks
I'm sorry, but where are the people who think that nice downtowns _aren 't_
the result of long-term planning and hard work by city officials? I'm
genuinely curious, as this is not something I am accustomed to hearing.
Whenever the conversation of a nice downtown comes up, it's almost always
accompanied by conversation about the planning and execution that must have
happened to make it that way.

