# Are City Central Business Districts (CBD) Doomed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 28, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721 "2013-07-28T04:01:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/21 "2013-07-30T04:55:12Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > I understand that the illumination is significantly increased, and one care be relatively carefree. Everythin’s up to date in Kansas City They’ve gone about as fer as they can go They went an’ built a skyscraper seven stories high About as high as a buildin’ orta grow. Everythin’s like a dream in Kansas City It’s better than a magic lantern show. You can turn the radiator on whenever you want some heat With every kind of comfort every house is all complete. You could walk to privies in the rain and never wet your feet! They’ve gone about as fer as they can go. They’ve gone about as fer as they can go! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/22 "2013-07-30T13:52:25Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > I hang out in city-planning circles and this is something we talk a lot about. Of course, shorter commutes have been predicted since I was in college and gas was predicted to someday top $1 per gallon. > > I think the only way polycentric development lowers vehicle use is in a 19th century paradigm: everyone is so poor and unskilled that they live in a rent house and work at their local mill. > > Once you have employers wanting to hire the brightest workers from the entire labor market, and once people have the technological means to live in the best school district and work wherever they make the best salary, a polycentric metropolis increases traffic geometrically. The trend can be abated somewhat so long as it’s possible to concentrate a huge number of jobs in a compact area served by radial transit—the Chicago and Boston model. > > There’s a sort of naïve appeal to the idea that, in a polycentric metropolis, commutes would be reduced because people could work close to where they live. But this assumes a single breadwinner who will stay forever at a single job close to home or move when he takes another job. In fact, what happens is that people choose home locations based on things like school districts or big yards and then two workers drive long distances in opposite directions to work. There have actually been a couple of serious studies of this question, both of which disprove the theory: > > “All else being equal, commute distances and times for auto drivers are longer in most polycentric regions than in monocentric urban areas.” > Schwanen, T., Dieleman, F.M. & Dijst, M. (2004). The Impact of Metropolitan Structure on Commute Behavior in the Netherlands: A Multilevel Approach, _Growth and Change,_ 35 (3) 333. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2257.2004.00251.x > > “Our analysis clearly indicates that, once travel mode and key social factors are controlled for, the shift from a monocentric to a dispersed city form is responsible, in the Québec metropolitan area, for increasing commuting time.” Vandersmissen, M.H., Villeneuve, P. & Thériault, M. (2003). Analyzing Changes in Urban Form and Commuting Time, _The Professional Geographer,_ 55 (4) 463. DOI: 10.1111/0033-0124.5504004 > > And that’s just looking at work trips. The tide of rising expectations means that people today want the region’s best restaurant, best musical performance, best library, best food store, etc.—NOT the one closest to them. That all makes perfect sense, especially the part about the polycentric region and exponential traffic growth, but what happens when one of the variables is significantly changed- i.e. fuel cost? I can’t imagine that many of my co-workers who live in places like Cedar Hill, Forney, Frisco, Prosper, Aubrey, and other outlying parts of the DFW metroplex could afford to work where we do and commute if gas prices rose to European levels. Commute costs would go from being annoying to being crushing at that point, and I suspect a great many would move in closer or find jobs farther out. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/23 "2013-07-30T22:19:18Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > One can’t make a general statement about this. It varies tremendously from city to city. Some are thriving, others aren’t. > > Cities that seem to be doing well include New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. These are all cities that have physical constraints. Cities without such constaints tend to suffer from businesses fleeing to the suburbs do to lower costs or more space. Commuting becomes problematic when neighboring cities are all trying to attract employers without a regional approach. To the OP, I agree CBDs are doomed. However, that is not stopping cities from trying to staunch this process by dumping millions of $$ into “revitalizing” downtown, by building sports arenas, train stations, etc. even though it may not be in a convenient location for most of the city’s population. The one thing CBDs do tend to have that you cannot get on-line or in a suburban strip mall is a variety of good restaurants in close proximity. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/24 "2013-07-30T23:13:56Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > To the OP, I agree CBDs are doomed. However, that is not stopping cities from trying to staunch this process by dumping millions of $$ into “revitalizing” downtown, by building sports arenas, train stations, etc. even though it may not be in a convenient location for most of the city’s population. Yet. The “revitalization” might eventually make the CBD and adjacent neighborhoods more attractive to apartment-hunters and apartment-building developers. We’ve got a **lot** more residential units in downtown Tampa, and adjacent neighborhoods, now than we had 10 years ago. High-end, too. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/25 "2013-07-30T23:27:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yet. The “revitalization” might eventually make the CBD and adjacent neighborhoods more attractive to apartment-hunters and apartment-building developers. We’ve got a **lot** more residential units in downtown Tampa, and adjacent neighborhoods, now than we had 10 years ago. High-end, too. True that. If they can get people to live down there, rather than building only office towers, arenas, and other lightly-used baubles, then that could mean a different track. One of the reasons places like Manhattan, SF, Seattle, etc. are vibrant is that people actually live, and want to live, in those city centers. My closest city is Sacramento. They have been trying for years to get people to go there, but after hours and on weekends it is cleared out because few live in the downtown area. It is pretty much a business downtown without a lot of residents in the core area. To the east is a more vibrant and desireable area - where people live. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/26 "2013-07-31T01:03:02Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That all makes perfect sense, especially the part about the polycentric region and exponential traffic growth, but what happens when one of the variables is significantly changed- i.e. fuel cost? > > I can’t imagine that many of my co-workers who live in places like Cedar Hill, Forney, Frisco, Prosper, Aubrey, and other outlying parts of the DFW metroplex could afford to work where we do and commute if gas prices rose to European levels. Commute costs would go from being annoying to being crushing at that point, and I suspect a great many would move in closer or find jobs farther out. The problem is two-income households and a homeowner culture. Moving is expensive, especially when people own their homes. Gas prices would have to get extremely high for it to be worth it to sell your house and relocated 30 miles. This is especially true when people expect to change jobs every 5-10 years (or jobs change locations) and when you are juggling spouses both having careers: moving to follow one job would get you further from the other. I mean, I am in Richardson. I just took a job in Oak Cliff. The commute is going to SUCK. But I’ve never even considered selling my house to move closer to it–that would cost me thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and I could be at the new job for two years or twenty. It just wouldn’t make sense–even if gas prices doubled. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/27 "2013-07-31T02:17:11Z")
I live in a small city (50,000) with no population growth over the past 40 years, in New Zealand. It is an excellent place to raise a family with good schools and public facilities, low crime and not much social disorder. Today our Council released a downtown (CBD) upgrade plan costing over $6.6 million in the hope that families will be drawn back to the inner city which is dying. It is easy to be a critic so I am trying to be positive instead. The above comments are valued (esp Mr Downtown) and really useful to stimulate my thoughts as I intend to make submissions on the plan. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/28 "2013-07-31T02:40:13Z")
snowthx writes: \> To the OP, I agree CBDs are doomed. Well, no. It’s clear that people are, on average, moving back into the center of many cities and are once again shopping there. It’s also true that for the past three years there have been, around the whole U.S., more people moving from the suburbs to the cities than from the cities to the suburbs. Look up the statistics yourself. They are quite clear. There are some cities where this definitely isn’t the case, but those cities are in the minority. Furthermore, it’s quite probable that the cost of gas will continue to go up relative to population, so this trend will probably continue into the future. ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/29 "2013-07-31T02:41:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yet. The “revitalization” might eventually make the CBD and adjacent neighborhoods more attractive to apartment-hunters and apartment-building developers. We’ve got a **lot** more residential units in downtown Tampa, and adjacent neighborhoods, now than we had 10 years ago. High-end, too. To what extent do you think this is sustainable in a city with as ingrained a car culture as Tampa? Good, useful, reliable, frequent, and comprehensive public transit always seemed to be, to me, a key component to that kind of vibrant mixed use, because owning a car and living downtown is, at best, a troublesome combination. HART (and, across the bay, PSTA) are, to put it delicately, a bit lacking, through underinvestment and underuse, and Hillsborough voters demonstrated by rejecting light rail that they’re just fine with that status quo. Do you see that changing any time soon? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/30 "2013-07-31T02:44:16Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > To what extent do you think this is sustainable in a city with as ingrained a car culture as Tampa? Good, useful, reliable, frequent, and comprehensive public transit always seemed to be, to me, a key component to that kind of vibrant mixed use, because owning a car and living downtown is, at best, a troublesome combination. HART (and, across the bay, PSTA) are, to put it delicately, a bit lacking, through underinvestment and underuse, and Hillsborough voters demonstrated by rejecting light rail that they’re just fine with that status quo. Do you see that changing any time soon? No, but I do see all those downtown condos filling up. Central Tampa is a lot more vibrant after 5pm than it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/31 "2013-07-31T04:31:55Z")
> [@bump](#): > > what happens when one of the variables is significantly changed- i.e. fuel cost? A few people might make changes to home or job locations, but the journey-to-work is not as determinative as you might think. In 1973-75 the cost of gas roughly quadrupled. Did the march of new subdivisions through Richardson, Plano, Farmers Branch, and Irving even pause? Did anyone from the Prestonwood or Renner area even go to look at the beautiful houses going begging (at that time) in Oak Cliff or Lakewood? People who are set on an quasirural “we can keep horses” lifestyle or a “kids in the best schools and traveling soccer” lifestyle don’t find the cost of gas insurmountable. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/32 "2013-07-31T11:33:29Z")
There’s a short article in the most recent New Yorker about Detroit. Even there, there is a small amount of the center of the city around an art museum that’s being turned into the typical inner-city hipster hang-out, with warehouses converted to lofts, renovated houses, a Whole Foods supermarket, and coffee shops. So it’s possible to have gentrification everywhere. It may be too late coming to Detroit, but it has come. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/33 "2013-07-31T12:18:17Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > These are all cities that have physical constraints. Cities without such constaints tend to suffer from businesses fleeing to the suburbs do to lower costs or more space. Commuting becomes problematic when neighboring cities are all trying to attract employers without a regional approach. > > To the OP, I agree CBDs are doomed. However, that is not stopping cities from trying to staunch this process by dumping millions of $$ into “revitalizing” downtown, by building sports arenas, train stations, etc. even though it may not be in a convenient location for most of the city’s population. > > The one thing CBDs do tend to have that you cannot get on-line or in a suburban strip mall is a variety of good restaurants in close proximity. I’ve got an earlier post in which I explain how Downtown Houston is doing. We never had many people living in high rises (or tenements); the old “suburbs” close to downtown were seedy for a few decade but are now on the upswing. Light rail is finally growing–thanks to Tom Delay for many years of funding denial! His own “home” in Sugar Land is one of the farflung 'burbs. Many of them are not separate towns, due to my city’s annexation policies–but there are blobs of employment/shopping/culture popping up in odd places on this vast coastal prairie. Even some of them have a few knots of interesting restaurants. But Downton is not “doomed.” I’m talking about Houston, Texas–the country’s fourth largest city. Where do you live? ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/34 "2013-07-31T13:05:14Z")
I’ve never worked in downtown Minneapolis, I think I’ve been there three times in the past two years, once just bicycling through on the riverfront and twice when my company made me attend a meeting. I just go to Walmart or Home Depot to shop, the last time I bought anything, food or otherwise in downtown Minneapolis was when I was jury duty in 1997. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/35 "2013-07-31T13:43:48Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > snowthx writes: > > \> To the OP, I agree CBDs are doomed. > > Well, no. It’s clear that people are, on average, moving back into the center of many cities and are once again shopping there. It’s also true that for the past three years there have been, around the whole U.S., more people moving from the suburbs to the cities than from the cities to the suburbs. Look up the statistics yourself. They are quite clear. There are some cities where this definitely isn’t the case, but those cities are in the minority. Furthermore, it’s quite probable that the cost of gas will continue to go up relative to population, so this trend will probably continue into the future. I would also say that we’d have to consider the distinction between a CBD that is just that, a high-density Office Park/Mall, as opposed to a diversified “city center”. Of course, any city cannot be 100% solid “vibrant downtown”, even Manhattan has lots of blocks that DO ever sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/36 "2013-08-01T00:18:37Z")
O.K., I’m an idiot. I wrote: \> . . . the cost of gas will continue to go up relative to population . . . I meant: \> . . . the cost of gas will continue to go up even adjusting for inflation . . . ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/37 "2013-08-03T13:20:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I recall reading a speculation in _Whole Earth Review_ many years ago that the populations of the city and suburbs might even change places, the poor being driven out of the city by gentrification, and finding their homes in the falling-property-values suburban neoslums. Leaving them even worse off than they are now, because, while they’ll have more and greener living space in the 'burbs, they cannot afford an automobile-dependent lifestyle. _Aside to BrainGlutton_ We are very much seeing this in Toronto now, and for the social-justice/poverty activist crowd, it’s a real problem. The high order transit serves and increasingly wealthy group of people, and the working poor either need (expensive) automobiles or to suffer long commutes. The Three Cities study (I’ll dig up a link if you’re interested) talks about this. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/38 "2013-08-03T13:30:41Z")
Downtown (with Main Street running right through it) is thriving in Bozeman, MT, and it doesn’t seem to fit any of the categories in this thread. It’s a small town of about 30k, not 250+k. It is a college town, but the college isn’t located downtown: Campus and downtown seem to both function as centers. There’s plenty of room to expand in every direction. Obviously they’re doing something right, but what? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/39 "2013-08-05T03:30:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Downtown (with Main Street running right through it) is thriving in Bozeman, MT, and it doesn’t seem to fit any of the categories in this thread. It’s a small town of about 30k, not 250+k. It is a college town, but the college isn’t located downtown: Campus and downtown seem to both function as centers. There’s plenty of room to expand in every direction. Obviously they’re doing something right, but what? Not building suburbs? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721/40 "2013-08-05T11:35:29Z")
Aside from transportation, the next biggest problem with the suburbs is the ability to deliver social services to the poor who are moving to the suburbs. With a declining tax base as the rich move into cities, who is going to pay for the services that a government is obligated to provide to those in need? Maybe this is the libertarian ideal: get poor people in a place where government can’t help them, and suddenly the poor will realize that they’d rather be rich, and BOOM! goes the capitalism. On the other hand, maybe the future is less “Escape from New York” where cities are post-modern hellholes, and more like “The Hunger Games” where outlying areas are treated like feudal states. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-city-central-business-districts-cbd-doomed/664721.md?page=3)