Traditional downtowns are dead or dying in many U.S. cities − what’s next for these zones? https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/101323_downtown_growth_op/traditional-downtowns-are-dead-or-dying-many-us-cities-8722-whats-next-these-zones/
Many cities are confronting the prospect of an urban doom loop, with a massive oversupply of office and retail space, fewer commuters and a looming urban fiscal crisis, and the growth of commercial office complexes that has long been promoted has probably come to an end.
#Tucson #Arizona
@glightly @TucsonSentinel Heck, this happened with the typical small-town Main Street in the 80s/90s before it came to big city centers. I’ve seen pictures from the 1950s and 60s of the small town that I grew up in, and it was astonishing, like freaking Mayberry. Practically a 50s sitcom cliché. So if WFH accelerated the death of expensive downtown office space, I’m not about to shed a tear for them!
@TucsonSentinel can we "convert" such areas to high-ish-density mixed-use/residential space, and de-sprawl to reduce carbon?
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/OptimisticNearFutureVision
When you factor in all the energy savings from people commuting less, this seem like a good thing overall. Change always brings disruption, but not all change is bad.
From above piece:
"In the Communist Manifesto, …Marx &…Engels famously wrote that under the pressures of dynamic capitalism, “all that is solid melts into air.” They could have been describing the ever-changing built form of the US, with people & money flowing to Main Street stores through the 1960s, then to suburban malls in the 1970s & 80s, then abandoning malls for revived downtowns & online shopping. Now, traditional downtowns may be in similar terminal decline."
From 2010: "10 American Cities That Are Dead Forever"
"A city does not die when its last resident moves away. Death happens when municipalities lose the industries and vital populations that made them important cities."
https://www.businessinsider.com/10-american-cities-that-are-dead-forever-2010-9?op=1
@TucsonSentinel My prediction is that downtown offices will slowly convert more and more into luxury condos and apartments, with city centers gradually becoming fortified, isolated compounds for the rich (but not über-rich) while the rest of the world slowly crumbles. Hell, we may even start seeing modern equivalents of “city walls” to keep the unwashed rabble like us out.
@TucsonSentinel
The opposite of what's happening in most Canadian cities, where downtowns continue to thrive. Spent a few days in downtown Toronto earlier this month and it's alive, full of people, and active everywhere.
@TucsonSentinel Folks should mention how much monopolies like Amazon contributed to this. Downtowns used to not just have offices & places to have lunch. People lived downtown and there were groceries, bookstores, hardware stores, etc in thriving downtowns. Amazon has wiped out entire sectors of brick 'n' mortar businesses while skating on taxes and abusing taxpayer-provided infrastructure.