What sorts of things are cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Lousiville, and other cities that are past their prime and smaller doing to stay alive. I am from Cincinnati and in the same boat, and Im wondering what sorts of things through politics, economics, planning, architecture, etc different places are doing to stay alive and interesting. I realize I mentioned almost all Midwestern cities cause I dont want to categorize cities that I dont completely know the dynamics of. Feel free to discuss other cities who have been hurt bye the shift to the burbs.
Cincinnati is a great town that could be so much greater, my upcoming thesis could involve some new ideas to better the city and I wanted to know what else is going on around the country.
Gosh, you know, I think about this all the time. It's a sliding scale though, amongst all those cities. They are relatively the same size, metro area, but a Louisville and Pittsburgh are more successful, while St. Louis, Indy, and Cincinnati are still in transition. I live in Cincy too and I feel like people are so afraid of crime, but I just want to tell them, listen, you don't live in Baltimore or Detroit, so you have no idea!
I guess a lot of each city's culture has to do with the evolution of their population, the development of the interstate system in each, and "white flight". In Cincinnati, it's a very linear path and involves the German immigrants and the influx of the Appalachian population. I think also you could look at the geography of each, and how that's helped or hurt a city's development. Cincinnati sits across the river from Kentucky, with which it competes a lot for business. This is in contrast to Louisville, which sits across from a depressed area in Indiana. Also, Pittsburgh is very similar to Cincy in size and geography, but doesn't have to compete with it's neighbor because it is all Pennsylvania.
I am in Pittsburgh right now and I like it a lot (except for the Steelers). Many people think of it as "what Cincinnati aspires to".
Don't forget other regional cities as well. Boise is a very interesting place and brimming with culture, about the same size.....and what about some of the little cities in the south? Little Rock or Birmingham? What about Oklahoma City? They have a gay hotel there. Cincinnati doesn't even have a gay hotel, not that I know of, anyway!
Gosh I'm rambling. I'm sorry but I travel a lot - I mean, I've been to all of these places - so I love to compare and contrast. Actually, do you want help with your thesis, lol?
In conclusion (for now), I would agree that Cincy has an abundance of latent potential....which is what makes it frustrating to live there and not be able to do something about it! I think what they need, to start, is a cohesive long-term plan, one that is not focused on "luxury condos", which is the buzz-word in the city right now.
chaptertwo, I'll let that missing "h" slide this one time.
I love medium-sized rust-belt cities, but mostly because I grew up surrounded by them. I honestly can't say what keeps them alive. When I left Pgh there was a trend of an increasing elderly poplulation and decreasing younger population. It didn't help that they were building new neighborhoods outside the city that appeal to the older crowd, but I guess you do what works.
I don't think there will ever be anything a small-bigcity can do to revive itself. They are destined to fluctuate on many levels beyond our control.
One thing you might compare is which small-big cities are home to a large state university. Indianapolis is the state capital, which helps it, but it has no major university. The lack of a large university here is a huge flaw in this city's culture, IMO. When I lived in Philly (a big big city), they were focusing on stopping "brain drain" in a big way and UPenn had some very interesting and focused programs to make the neighborhoods around its West Philly campus attractive for homeowners and residential investment. Indy doesn't have much in the way of brains to drain away, sadly. And therefore also has no large research institutions to attract the smart folk, and therefore no strong cultural institutions to keep the smart folk entertained.
I knew something didnt look right in that sentence...
Well its interesting to say, that their just is no hope. Although i disagree, this is the first "generation" of American cities.. And theres no comparing it to Europe because there were never American cities there. Although ill be dead and gone before finding out, im curious to see how the built world will recycle itself.
America is interesting as there is no precedant for a small city with a majority of it's population well outside its urban area. Will Walmart replace the city centers? Has it already? I ask because I have family in Cranberry, and I can't say when they last saw the city. What does the city offer them. And it is obvious they don't (directly) depend on it.
lb you bring up an excellent point. Universities are extremely important to the vitality of a city. (But aren't we all a bit biased?) Seriously, lb have you been to Harrisburg? Oh man.
i couldn't get past the 'past their prime' and 'doing to stay alive' part of the initial question.
louisville (not 'lousiville') is no longer an industrial city like it once was, but neither is it still a portage and warehousing city, a tobacco city, or a beer city. louisville has been a lot of things since its founding in the 18th c and will probably have many more personalities before it kicks. the assumption in the question is that the cities listed are on the downtick and i'd argue that many of them are not at all.
louisville has strength in its vast and well-arrayed public park system, its central location and proximity to other major midwestern cities, a network of neighborhoods of strong individual identities, an active and excited arts community, an an extremely politically and culturally engaged population (relative to other cities in which i've lived).
not to say that there aren't always challenges. ours right now (not unique) are transit, affordable housing, equality in school access, and downtown after-work-hours activity. but our strengths ensure that none of the listed issues are terminal concerns, just things to be fixed.
i think the assumption that these cities are sick and need to be made well will color your opinions negatively. try to look at what's working and why. while it may not be a cool urban claim-to-fame, it's not insignificant that louisville was named 'best city in which to raise a family' this past year.
lets see downtown indy? new nba stadium, new triple a baseball field, new football stadium in 2008, new downtown residential and rehabs, remodelled hilton, iupui, a combination of two of the best state universities in the country, has 30,000 students and is doing construction all the time. indy 500, the financial equivalent of three superbowls, a decent symphony orchestra, many theatres etc... it aint so shabby.
The bridges help in Pittsburgh, too. I can see that argument.
Pittsburgh has been turning itself slowly around lately, somewhat through natural market forces. Because it got so depopulated, rents dropped a ton, and people who were pulled there by the schools started staying once they graduated. Also, artists started coming to the city from places like NYC because they could get a huge studio space for pennies, and they only have to sell one piece a month to pay rent. Sous-chefs from NYC started coming and opening up their own restaurants (a risky biz) for the same reason--they only have to pay a little bit in rent, so the risk of opening a restaurant is much lessened. It's a great place for innovative chefs because of that.
Meanwhile the city invested in its infrastructure (made new river-side parks and stadiums, renovated the Carnegie library system, etc), which helped make people who already were there want to stay. I think the kicker though is that Pittsburgh already has a bunch of well-regarded museums, symphony, and other cultural institutions, so those help to form a solid underpinning for the city. Other cities that don't already have that... well I think they should invest in the arts.
Interesting topic. I'm not keen on blaming the suburban exodus of the city cores but rather think it's an issue with these cities coming to terms with a switch from a manufacturing industrial economy to something else.
Note you didn't mention Minneapolis on this list of declining cities. Originally Mpls was a major flour milling city that spawned companies like Pillsbury and General Mills. While General Mills is still around here, now there are major employer corporations like Medtronic, Target Corp., Best Buy, Ameriprise, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Xcel Energy, 3M, Cargill, Allianz, etc. So what once was an area for trade and manufacture of an agricuture economy has largely transformed itself into a financial/retail/medical economy. On the other side cities like Detroit haven't been able to shake the mo-town economy, and it's rapid decline.
Another thing to note is that large cities like NYC and Boston and Chicago are also losing their once great dominance to the new cities.
Note the growth of cities like Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas. As all the "rust belt" and NE corridor cities lose dominance the once sleepy southern cities grow into large dominant players. It doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.
My point is that it has little to do with culture, higher education and local ammenities. It's all about business and jobs. Nobody is flooding into Detroit because there are no jobs to be had. Philly has tons of culture but is undoubtedly past its prime. These older cities need to find something new to base their economy on. Plain and simple.
Also Boston is beginning an exodus because no one can afford the rent here, and it is also stifling the city's creative growth. So honestly I think rent-control has a lot to do with city vibrance.
Thanks for your point-by-point contribution vado but I'm going to take it as a challenge:
The combination of two good universities makes for one identity-confused commuter school. And the campus feels like a commuter school: there is no pedestrian-scaled historic inner campus, it's totally a car school.
All those rehabbed condo dwellers downtown still have to drive to 86th street to get to a decent selection of grocery stores.
The new stadiums contribute to the over-concentration of large built entities downtown - the Lilly campus being the biggest problem - that make the street scale lousy for pedestrians and mean parking garages are in high demand therefore economically viable options for investors. I see more parking garages and no lessening of the many sriface aprking lots in Indy's downtown future.
The art museum is way out of downtown. The cultural institutions that ARE downtown serve the far-flung suburbanites who drive in, park, and drive away.
The bus system sucks and there are no other transit alternatives.
And PS didn't the Indy 500 have some tire controversy that basically killed it last year? Or was that some other race?
albuquerque is more of a big small city, but the new dowtown sector plan prohibits surface parking in the core....suhweet!
there's talk of a new downtown arena, though I've heard they're only talking about 10,000 seats - too small to do any real good IMHO.
there is going to be a light-rail modern streetcar system (2008-9) going from the multi-modal downtown transportation center east along 66.
there is already a heavy rail commuter train (been running for a couple of months now) that connects Belen (45 minutes south) to ABQ's multi-modal center, on existing rail ROW. Santa Fe (60 minutes north) is next on a combo of existing and rail ROW.
lots of interesting points. Im surprised more people havent taken the topic the wrong way and blasted me for categorizing their perfect cities. I agree that Albuquerque's ban of surface parking is a great idea.
One European city that anyone could learn a thing or two from is Copenhagen. They implemented a step by step plan that eliminated the majority of motor traffic which included replacing public parking lots with pedestrian squares. Replacing two way streets with pedestrian streets. Jacked up tax on new cars to 100% and promoted biking with public bikes. and built a new subway system in 2002. The entire atmosphere of the city transformed and reversed their exodus to the outskirts.
It seems like a lot of these midwestern towns have the same bright ideas about stimulating interest in themselves- build a museum, build a new stadium (or two), parks on the water, enormous mixed use development, etc. These seem to all be bricks that people think will hold the city up, but no one remembers the mortar. In Cincinnati, there are two new stadiums with dirt in between and highways around.
Ive seen this in a lot of other cities too. As all of these towns that used to have an identity based on what they produced lose their culture with their work, there is an opportuity to create new culture. It is the details at eye level that are going to make people remember their visit and want to come back.
Im not sure who said it, but it is true. Jobs are the key. I think with new jobs, desire for new construction, culture, arts, and design with follow.
I think that the more important step involves enticing new business to your town. Fortune five hundred companies like P & G, Kroger, Chiquita, and Federated (all cincinnati companies) arent going to leave their base city, the city wont let them. (as cincinnati has proved)
the key in my opinion is the pull in those new companies with a lot of potential to set up shop and develop. Whether it be through tax breaks or other incentives, they are what will bring the young professionals downtown.
well i lived in albucrackee for 12 years and except for the great regional aspects of the high desert and green chile, it cannot be compared to a city like indy. albucrackee is a small town surrounded by a large suburb. it is also considerably poorer than where i live now.
as far as groceries in indy. there is a good grocery store downtown. the wild oats and whole foods of the world really arent in downtown areas. they are all out in the burbs.
as far as iupui goes all the iu medical schools are there now. and thats big bucks. as that university continues to grow the commuter aspect of it will fade. also, by the by over dinner saturday an anthropology student who goes to iupui told me that her prof left temple to come to iupui cuz it was a better program.
the presence of the stadiums downtown contributes quite a bit to the street life of downtown indy and if you take a walk around there on a summer evening even with out a game going on there are many outdoor restaurants etc.
although the ima is not downtown there are several other museums downtown on a picturesque canal.
also dont most cultural institutions serve far flung suburbnites or tourists. when i live in chicago, most of the folks to be found were daytrippers or foreign visitors. the locals just stay in whatever neighborhood they live in and sip their old styles.
the experience that those tourists and suburbanites get is not one that would make them move downtown. The daytrip they are taking now consists of driving downtown parking nearbye going to the museum or ballpark and driving home. No one is going to change their life and move downtown so that they can go to the museum every other day. They will however for the aura of downtown living and zest. That is what city councils are forgetting to try to produce. Those flagship elements bring people downtown, but almost seems to turn visiting them into a novelty. Cincinnati recently built the Underground Railroad Museum, but is failing due to the fact that it stands completely alone thanks to the delay of the Banks developemtn on the riverfront. I guess i need to wait and see how that develpment handles the museum.
Chicago still have that zest in my opinion. I just spent the summer their and was delighted to still see bars on neighborhood corners and neighborhood ball fields full of after work softball players instead of loitering kids and graffiti.
In Philly there are two Whole Foods and one Trader Joes within a mile radius of each other, plus two regular grocery stores and three greengrocers (produce only) and about 20 little corner stores for deli, milk, cigs etc. Philly has the downtown residential population to support this, Indy doesn't, and as someone who was very comfortable prospecting (living in a slum) ten years ago in Philly I'm not comfortable doing that now. Not that Indy downtown living is slumming, there are some very nice residential pockets down there, they just offer more of an inner-suburban lifestyle than an urban one. In Philly I had season tickets to the theater and walked there as did lots of my neighbors - yes most cities use cultural institutions to serve the region but in Inyd you hardly have the opportunity to live AND play downtown.
Yes there is money downtown at IUPUI's campus but compared to the research draw of the home universities it is small change.
As chaptertwo mentioned, I don't see any "community culture" in Indy that isn't related to sports. That's not a complete diverse economy OR culture and although Lilly and some other big corporations are headquartered here I don't get a strong sense of them being active except in subtle, non-controversial ways. Maybe that is Indy's draw: we are nice, non-controversial, comfortable. As I said above, it's a nice city, the people are nice, the landscape and neighborhoods are nice, it's all very pleasant. And sadly dull.
Several decades ago Portland Oregon capped how many parking spaces would be allowed downtown: garages, surface, private, whatever - there was a cap on how many actual spaces would be allowed to exist in the downtown core. That was a bold move. Sadly it was repealed about 10 (?) years ago and I don't know how it has played out since then. I don't see any similar bold moves happening in Indy.
Sorry to thread jack chaptertwo but I am really enjoying the opportunity to share my disappoinment with Indy. I raise the Portland parking cap because I see that - combined with all their other urban actions, like relocating the waterfront freeway and building a lightrail and making transit free in the downtown blocks and providing lovely drinkingfountains on every corner and of course the Urban Growth Boundary - as an incredibly bold urban move made decades ago before anyone else was doing it. Now every mid-size city is talking about "the arts" and "downtown lofts" and it all has this me-too quality that I can't see resulting in any real change in the economics of the city as long as developers are concurrently selling off millions of quarter-acre subdivision homes in the exurbs.
C2- glad to see this topic is off and running well.
Parks and civic space are as important as the buildings to making a great city... As important to Denver as the new museum by lebeskind, the plaza in front seems to be the kernal for creating a new identity for the city.
many of the sunbelt citys that are booming today, lack having a civic center and central precinct for urban drama- when you drive everywhere (in 120 degree heat) and jump into air conditioning so quickly that you might as well be in a suburban mall, what is the point of achieving urban density?
Also note the expiring trend to see casinos as urban salvation. You need to get people out onto the streets and to linger in the parks and squares for a true civic/urban identity to thrive...
"A mixture of formal and informal elements and a mixture of order and disorder.. ..are the essential conditions of th city." -koolhaus
A mixture of the flagship museums and ballparks; and corner delis, hole-in-the-wall bars, small parks for reading, and book shops will satisfy people's taste for city life and create new identities in cities large and small.
I WAS THINKING MORE ABOUT HOW WE MAKE THOSE WHO LIVE ON THE EDGE IN THE CITY HAVE A BETTER LIFE. JOB TRAINING, LIFE TRAINING, MEDICAL HELP, LIVABLE ENVIROMENTS. BRING THOSE UP FROM THE BOTTOM AND YOU WILL MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR EVERYONE.
CITIES WILL BECOME MORE EXCITING BECAUSE EVERYONE WILL SEE THERE IF MORE TO LIFE THAN THE NEXT MEAL OR CARDBOARD BOX TO LIVE IN. WE NEED TO PROVIDE FACILITES WHERE EVERY KID HAS
A SHOT AT A BETTER LIFE AND WHEN WE DO THIS THEN WE ARE HEADED DOWN THE RIGHT PATH. IT ISN'T BUILDINGS AND FOOTBALL STADIUMS, LARGE CIVIC BUILDING WHICH MAKE THINGS HAPPEN IT IS PEOPLE HUNGRY FOR LIFE.
I'm telling you Pixel, LOTS of cute hipster chicks... Even a *beautiful* vegetarian girl I know who likes dudes with beards! And she's single! The town is calling out to you, my man!
i was at indiana university this weekend enjoyin a 25th anniversery show of the "new wave" club we used to go to back in the day. well the two most beautiful women in the history of the world in that town.
Having just moved from Portland, Oregon (best city ever) to Detroit (has it's fine points)- I have been thinking about these issues lately.
I think that the quality of city life has a lot to do with the industies that support it- that said, given my limited knowledge of detroit history, I do not understand why the city has not done more to attract new businesses.
What has made portland great, is that it does not have a few major corporations that determine the population- portland has adidas, wieden + kennedy, some shipping (nike and intel are in the burbs) and a large medical research hospital. Point is, is that the city is made up of a lot of smaller businesses. The people who do live there tend to be young and in the creative, tech or entrepreneurial fields. Even though it has its share of yuppies, the city gov't doesn't give too much power to this population either. Although there is the high end condo market (god save us from the pearl district), light rail, and no baseball team(that's a good thing IMO), the city has resisted giving the remaining inner city light industrial zones to the developers, in the name of business.
One thing not in their favor- are the skyrocketing property values. While being the cheapest city on the west coast, it is quickly becoming unaffordable, and i'm afraid will not continue to attract the young, creative crowd.
That said, although i am enjoying my detroit experience while i am here, i can't say that i would want to stay too long. I'm going back to Portland. ASAP.
Second vote for Boston – baseball rocks, pizza rocks (Pizzeria Regina and soooo many more) sailing rocks, shopping rocks, awesome bars and restaurants and the chicks are much prettier in Boston than they are in chi-town.
boston pizza better than chicago????
boston baseball better than chicago????
boston does have more townie rednecks though...
as for good lookin chicks, they are everywhere,
but theres more in the midwest!!!
bridgetown, I totally overlooked Portland in my original assertion that a good city needs a major university in its limits! My mistake because yes PDX is truly the best city in the world, hands down.
(So sad about Coffee People finally selling out to Starbucks, thoguh...sigh.)
Weird, I was just having a conversation two days ago with another transplant to Boston who, like me, was bemoaning the utter and complete lack of any kind of decent pizza in this town. Hahahaha.
Also, the shopping, bars, and restaurants are literally 3 of the reasons I am leaving this puritanical landfill. Wow. Where else have you lived, Katze, that makes you like the shopping/food/nightlife HERE?! Crazy.
oh yes- and we don't have a universty. It is a city of transplants. and who needs coffe people when there is stumptown! (i miss is soo much.) There is no good coffee in detroit, or pizza. There is soul food and middle eastern food!
Ah, come on Vado (first argument, I love it). Have you ever lived in Boston? I was born and grew up in chi-town for the first 16 years of my life and then moved to Boston to go to college - yes, Boston rules the pizza land, Boston rules the baseball land, and Boston has more good lookin chicks! Come on – Harvard and MIT attracts the babe's dude! No the Midwest has nothing but mediocre lakes he he Just kidding.
I haven't tried Chicago pizza, baseball, or chicks yet so I can't comment. And being from California means the chick content of *any* city is forever ruined for me.
However, food and nightlife-wise, Boston sucks--unless you are very rich. In which case, you're golden, woohoo!
Small Big Cities
What sorts of things are cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Lousiville, and other cities that are past their prime and smaller doing to stay alive. I am from Cincinnati and in the same boat, and Im wondering what sorts of things through politics, economics, planning, architecture, etc different places are doing to stay alive and interesting. I realize I mentioned almost all Midwestern cities cause I dont want to categorize cities that I dont completely know the dynamics of. Feel free to discuss other cities who have been hurt bye the shift to the burbs.
Successful tactics? (Portland) Unsuccessful ideas? (Detroit?)
Cincinnati is a great town that could be so much greater, my upcoming thesis could involve some new ideas to better the city and I wanted to know what else is going on around the country.
Gosh, you know, I think about this all the time. It's a sliding scale though, amongst all those cities. They are relatively the same size, metro area, but a Louisville and Pittsburgh are more successful, while St. Louis, Indy, and Cincinnati are still in transition. I live in Cincy too and I feel like people are so afraid of crime, but I just want to tell them, listen, you don't live in Baltimore or Detroit, so you have no idea!
I guess a lot of each city's culture has to do with the evolution of their population, the development of the interstate system in each, and "white flight". In Cincinnati, it's a very linear path and involves the German immigrants and the influx of the Appalachian population. I think also you could look at the geography of each, and how that's helped or hurt a city's development. Cincinnati sits across the river from Kentucky, with which it competes a lot for business. This is in contrast to Louisville, which sits across from a depressed area in Indiana. Also, Pittsburgh is very similar to Cincy in size and geography, but doesn't have to compete with it's neighbor because it is all Pennsylvania.
I am in Pittsburgh right now and I like it a lot (except for the Steelers). Many people think of it as "what Cincinnati aspires to".
Don't forget other regional cities as well. Boise is a very interesting place and brimming with culture, about the same size.....and what about some of the little cities in the south? Little Rock or Birmingham? What about Oklahoma City? They have a gay hotel there. Cincinnati doesn't even have a gay hotel, not that I know of, anyway!
Gosh I'm rambling. I'm sorry but I travel a lot - I mean, I've been to all of these places - so I love to compare and contrast. Actually, do you want help with your thesis, lol?
In conclusion (for now), I would agree that Cincy has an abundance of latent potential....which is what makes it frustrating to live there and not be able to do something about it! I think what they need, to start, is a cohesive long-term plan, one that is not focused on "luxury condos", which is the buzz-word in the city right now.
your preaching to the choir. ill have to bring up gay hotels the next time i visit a city council session.
chaptertwo, I'll let that missing "h" slide this one time.
I love medium-sized rust-belt cities, but mostly because I grew up surrounded by them. I honestly can't say what keeps them alive. When I left Pgh there was a trend of an increasing elderly poplulation and decreasing younger population. It didn't help that they were building new neighborhoods outside the city that appeal to the older crowd, but I guess you do what works.
I don't think there will ever be anything a small-bigcity can do to revive itself. They are destined to fluctuate on many levels beyond our control.
And... attack.
do a search for Shrinking Cities
One thing you might compare is which small-big cities are home to a large state university. Indianapolis is the state capital, which helps it, but it has no major university. The lack of a large university here is a huge flaw in this city's culture, IMO. When I lived in Philly (a big big city), they were focusing on stopping "brain drain" in a big way and UPenn had some very interesting and focused programs to make the neighborhoods around its West Philly campus attractive for homeowners and residential investment. Indy doesn't have much in the way of brains to drain away, sadly. And therefore also has no large research institutions to attract the smart folk, and therefore no strong cultural institutions to keep the smart folk entertained.
(Me-n-vado being noted exceptions, of course.)
axo-licious.
New archinector?
I knew something didnt look right in that sentence...
Well its interesting to say, that their just is no hope. Although i disagree, this is the first "generation" of American cities.. And theres no comparing it to Europe because there were never American cities there. Although ill be dead and gone before finding out, im curious to see how the built world will recycle itself.
America is interesting as there is no precedant for a small city with a majority of it's population well outside its urban area. Will Walmart replace the city centers? Has it already? I ask because I have family in Cranberry, and I can't say when they last saw the city. What does the city offer them. And it is obvious they don't (directly) depend on it.
lb you bring up an excellent point. Universities are extremely important to the vitality of a city. (But aren't we all a bit biased?) Seriously, lb have you been to Harrisburg? Oh man.
I can't think of one exception to the rule.
Or role.
i couldn't get past the 'past their prime' and 'doing to stay alive' part of the initial question.
louisville (not 'lousiville') is no longer an industrial city like it once was, but neither is it still a portage and warehousing city, a tobacco city, or a beer city. louisville has been a lot of things since its founding in the 18th c and will probably have many more personalities before it kicks. the assumption in the question is that the cities listed are on the downtick and i'd argue that many of them are not at all.
louisville has strength in its vast and well-arrayed public park system, its central location and proximity to other major midwestern cities, a network of neighborhoods of strong individual identities, an active and excited arts community, an an extremely politically and culturally engaged population (relative to other cities in which i've lived).
not to say that there aren't always challenges. ours right now (not unique) are transit, affordable housing, equality in school access, and downtown after-work-hours activity. but our strengths ensure that none of the listed issues are terminal concerns, just things to be fixed.
i think the assumption that these cities are sick and need to be made well will color your opinions negatively. try to look at what's working and why. while it may not be a cool urban claim-to-fame, it's not insignificant that louisville was named 'best city in which to raise a family' this past year.
Louisville totally rocks, no matter how you spell it.
In addition to all Steven mentioned, it has amazing bridges, which I think help instill a sense of civic pride. Seriously.
lets see downtown indy? new nba stadium, new triple a baseball field, new football stadium in 2008, new downtown residential and rehabs, remodelled hilton, iupui, a combination of two of the best state universities in the country, has 30,000 students and is doing construction all the time. indy 500, the financial equivalent of three superbowls, a decent symphony orchestra, many theatres etc... it aint so shabby.
The bridges help in Pittsburgh, too. I can see that argument.
Pittsburgh has been turning itself slowly around lately, somewhat through natural market forces. Because it got so depopulated, rents dropped a ton, and people who were pulled there by the schools started staying once they graduated. Also, artists started coming to the city from places like NYC because they could get a huge studio space for pennies, and they only have to sell one piece a month to pay rent. Sous-chefs from NYC started coming and opening up their own restaurants (a risky biz) for the same reason--they only have to pay a little bit in rent, so the risk of opening a restaurant is much lessened. It's a great place for innovative chefs because of that.
Meanwhile the city invested in its infrastructure (made new river-side parks and stadiums, renovated the Carnegie library system, etc), which helped make people who already were there want to stay. I think the kicker though is that Pittsburgh already has a bunch of well-regarded museums, symphony, and other cultural institutions, so those help to form a solid underpinning for the city. Other cities that don't already have that... well I think they should invest in the arts.
Interesting topic. I'm not keen on blaming the suburban exodus of the city cores but rather think it's an issue with these cities coming to terms with a switch from a manufacturing industrial economy to something else.
Note you didn't mention Minneapolis on this list of declining cities. Originally Mpls was a major flour milling city that spawned companies like Pillsbury and General Mills. While General Mills is still around here, now there are major employer corporations like Medtronic, Target Corp., Best Buy, Ameriprise, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Xcel Energy, 3M, Cargill, Allianz, etc. So what once was an area for trade and manufacture of an agricuture economy has largely transformed itself into a financial/retail/medical economy. On the other side cities like Detroit haven't been able to shake the mo-town economy, and it's rapid decline.
Another thing to note is that large cities like NYC and Boston and Chicago are also losing their once great dominance to the new cities.
Note the growth of cities like Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas. As all the "rust belt" and NE corridor cities lose dominance the once sleepy southern cities grow into large dominant players. It doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.
My point is that it has little to do with culture, higher education and local ammenities. It's all about business and jobs. Nobody is flooding into Detroit because there are no jobs to be had. Philly has tons of culture but is undoubtedly past its prime. These older cities need to find something new to base their economy on. Plain and simple.
Also Boston is beginning an exodus because no one can afford the rent here, and it is also stifling the city's creative growth. So honestly I think rent-control has a lot to do with city vibrance.
Thanks for your point-by-point contribution vado but I'm going to take it as a challenge:
The combination of two good universities makes for one identity-confused commuter school. And the campus feels like a commuter school: there is no pedestrian-scaled historic inner campus, it's totally a car school.
All those rehabbed condo dwellers downtown still have to drive to 86th street to get to a decent selection of grocery stores.
The new stadiums contribute to the over-concentration of large built entities downtown - the Lilly campus being the biggest problem - that make the street scale lousy for pedestrians and mean parking garages are in high demand therefore economically viable options for investors. I see more parking garages and no lessening of the many sriface aprking lots in Indy's downtown future.
The art museum is way out of downtown. The cultural institutions that ARE downtown serve the far-flung suburbanites who drive in, park, and drive away.
The bus system sucks and there are no other transit alternatives.
And PS didn't the Indy 500 have some tire controversy that basically killed it last year? Or was that some other race?
Sorry, make that "surface parking lots" - there are tons of them in downtown Indy and I don't see that changing.
Also the big research functions of both IU and PU are at their main campuses, not in Indy, so they aren't attracting the big research dollars here.
Indy is a very nice city. I just don't see it becoming much more than that.
albuquerque is more of a big small city, but the new dowtown sector plan prohibits surface parking in the core....suhweet!
there's talk of a new downtown arena, though I've heard they're only talking about 10,000 seats - too small to do any real good IMHO.
there is going to be a light-rail modern streetcar system (2008-9) going from the multi-modal downtown transportation center east along 66.
there is already a heavy rail commuter train (been running for a couple of months now) that connects Belen (45 minutes south) to ABQ's multi-modal center, on existing rail ROW. Santa Fe (60 minutes north) is next on a combo of existing and rail ROW.
(and of course, the university is here)
make that 'existing and new rail ROW'
lots of interesting points. Im surprised more people havent taken the topic the wrong way and blasted me for categorizing their perfect cities. I agree that Albuquerque's ban of surface parking is a great idea.
One European city that anyone could learn a thing or two from is Copenhagen. They implemented a step by step plan that eliminated the majority of motor traffic which included replacing public parking lots with pedestrian squares. Replacing two way streets with pedestrian streets. Jacked up tax on new cars to 100% and promoted biking with public bikes. and built a new subway system in 2002. The entire atmosphere of the city transformed and reversed their exodus to the outskirts.
It seems like a lot of these midwestern towns have the same bright ideas about stimulating interest in themselves- build a museum, build a new stadium (or two), parks on the water, enormous mixed use development, etc. These seem to all be bricks that people think will hold the city up, but no one remembers the mortar. In Cincinnati, there are two new stadiums with dirt in between and highways around.
Ive seen this in a lot of other cities too. As all of these towns that used to have an identity based on what they produced lose their culture with their work, there is an opportuity to create new culture. It is the details at eye level that are going to make people remember their visit and want to come back.
Im not sure who said it, but it is true. Jobs are the key. I think with new jobs, desire for new construction, culture, arts, and design with follow.
I think that the more important step involves enticing new business to your town. Fortune five hundred companies like P & G, Kroger, Chiquita, and Federated (all cincinnati companies) arent going to leave their base city, the city wont let them. (as cincinnati has proved)
the key in my opinion is the pull in those new companies with a lot of potential to set up shop and develop. Whether it be through tax breaks or other incentives, they are what will bring the young professionals downtown.
well i lived in albucrackee for 12 years and except for the great regional aspects of the high desert and green chile, it cannot be compared to a city like indy. albucrackee is a small town surrounded by a large suburb. it is also considerably poorer than where i live now.
as far as groceries in indy. there is a good grocery store downtown. the wild oats and whole foods of the world really arent in downtown areas. they are all out in the burbs.
as far as iupui goes all the iu medical schools are there now. and thats big bucks. as that university continues to grow the commuter aspect of it will fade. also, by the by over dinner saturday an anthropology student who goes to iupui told me that her prof left temple to come to iupui cuz it was a better program.
the presence of the stadiums downtown contributes quite a bit to the street life of downtown indy and if you take a walk around there on a summer evening even with out a game going on there are many outdoor restaurants etc.
although the ima is not downtown there are several other museums downtown on a picturesque canal.
this all being said i wish i was in new mexico.
also dont most cultural institutions serve far flung suburbnites or tourists. when i live in chicago, most of the folks to be found were daytrippers or foreign visitors. the locals just stay in whatever neighborhood they live in and sip their old styles.
the experience that those tourists and suburbanites get is not one that would make them move downtown. The daytrip they are taking now consists of driving downtown parking nearbye going to the museum or ballpark and driving home. No one is going to change their life and move downtown so that they can go to the museum every other day. They will however for the aura of downtown living and zest. That is what city councils are forgetting to try to produce. Those flagship elements bring people downtown, but almost seems to turn visiting them into a novelty. Cincinnati recently built the Underground Railroad Museum, but is failing due to the fact that it stands completely alone thanks to the delay of the Banks developemtn on the riverfront. I guess i need to wait and see how that develpment handles the museum.
Chicago still have that zest in my opinion. I just spent the summer their and was delighted to still see bars on neighborhood corners and neighborhood ball fields full of after work softball players instead of loitering kids and graffiti.
In Philly there are two Whole Foods and one Trader Joes within a mile radius of each other, plus two regular grocery stores and three greengrocers (produce only) and about 20 little corner stores for deli, milk, cigs etc. Philly has the downtown residential population to support this, Indy doesn't, and as someone who was very comfortable prospecting (living in a slum) ten years ago in Philly I'm not comfortable doing that now. Not that Indy downtown living is slumming, there are some very nice residential pockets down there, they just offer more of an inner-suburban lifestyle than an urban one. In Philly I had season tickets to the theater and walked there as did lots of my neighbors - yes most cities use cultural institutions to serve the region but in Inyd you hardly have the opportunity to live AND play downtown.
Yes there is money downtown at IUPUI's campus but compared to the research draw of the home universities it is small change.
As chaptertwo mentioned, I don't see any "community culture" in Indy that isn't related to sports. That's not a complete diverse economy OR culture and although Lilly and some other big corporations are headquartered here I don't get a strong sense of them being active except in subtle, non-controversial ways. Maybe that is Indy's draw: we are nice, non-controversial, comfortable. As I said above, it's a nice city, the people are nice, the landscape and neighborhoods are nice, it's all very pleasant. And sadly dull.
Several decades ago Portland Oregon capped how many parking spaces would be allowed downtown: garages, surface, private, whatever - there was a cap on how many actual spaces would be allowed to exist in the downtown core. That was a bold move. Sadly it was repealed about 10 (?) years ago and I don't know how it has played out since then. I don't see any similar bold moves happening in Indy.
Sorry to thread jack chaptertwo but I am really enjoying the opportunity to share my disappoinment with Indy. I raise the Portland parking cap because I see that - combined with all their other urban actions, like relocating the waterfront freeway and building a lightrail and making transit free in the downtown blocks and providing lovely drinkingfountains on every corner and of course the Urban Growth Boundary - as an incredibly bold urban move made decades ago before anyone else was doing it. Now every mid-size city is talking about "the arts" and "downtown lofts" and it all has this me-too quality that I can't see resulting in any real change in the economics of the city as long as developers are concurrently selling off millions of quarter-acre subdivision homes in the exurbs.
C2- glad to see this topic is off and running well.
Parks and civic space are as important as the buildings to making a great city... As important to Denver as the new museum by lebeskind, the plaza in front seems to be the kernal for creating a new identity for the city.
many of the sunbelt citys that are booming today, lack having a civic center and central precinct for urban drama- when you drive everywhere (in 120 degree heat) and jump into air conditioning so quickly that you might as well be in a suburban mall, what is the point of achieving urban density?
Also note the expiring trend to see casinos as urban salvation. You need to get people out onto the streets and to linger in the parks and squares for a true civic/urban identity to thrive...
"A mixture of formal and informal elements and a mixture of order and disorder.. ..are the essential conditions of th city." -koolhaus
A mixture of the flagship museums and ballparks; and corner delis, hole-in-the-wall bars, small parks for reading, and book shops will satisfy people's taste for city life and create new identities in cities large and small.
I WAS THINKING MORE ABOUT HOW WE MAKE THOSE WHO LIVE ON THE EDGE IN THE CITY HAVE A BETTER LIFE. JOB TRAINING, LIFE TRAINING, MEDICAL HELP, LIVABLE ENVIROMENTS. BRING THOSE UP FROM THE BOTTOM AND YOU WILL MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR EVERYONE.
CITIES WILL BECOME MORE EXCITING BECAUSE EVERYONE WILL SEE THERE IF MORE TO LIFE THAN THE NEXT MEAL OR CARDBOARD BOX TO LIVE IN. WE NEED TO PROVIDE FACILITES WHERE EVERY KID HAS
A SHOT AT A BETTER LIFE AND WHEN WE DO THIS THEN WE ARE HEADED DOWN THE RIGHT PATH. IT ISN'T BUILDINGS AND FOOTBALL STADIUMS, LARGE CIVIC BUILDING WHICH MAKE THINGS HAPPEN IT IS PEOPLE HUNGRY FOR LIFE.
snooker- shhhhhhhh please, people are trying to read.
Liberty, join the crowd--move to Chicago! :D
myriam: stop trying to drag everyone to Chicago with you!
I'm telling you Pixel, LOTS of cute hipster chicks... Even a *beautiful* vegetarian girl I know who likes dudes with beards! And she's single! The town is calling out to you, my man!
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Thats like kryptonite! Can't you just ship her here or something?
she's also into hardcore and has the most beautiful tattoo. I don't think she bikes, though, but you could convert her.
Pixel- boston's baseball, hockey, pizza, and sailing are wayyyyy better then in chi-town.
But those cute vegan girls, maybe you should move...
i was at indiana university this weekend enjoyin a 25th anniversery show of the "new wave" club we used to go to back in the day. well the two most beautiful women in the history of the world in that town.
Having just moved from Portland, Oregon (best city ever) to Detroit (has it's fine points)- I have been thinking about these issues lately.
I think that the quality of city life has a lot to do with the industies that support it- that said, given my limited knowledge of detroit history, I do not understand why the city has not done more to attract new businesses.
What has made portland great, is that it does not have a few major corporations that determine the population- portland has adidas, wieden + kennedy, some shipping (nike and intel are in the burbs) and a large medical research hospital. Point is, is that the city is made up of a lot of smaller businesses. The people who do live there tend to be young and in the creative, tech or entrepreneurial fields. Even though it has its share of yuppies, the city gov't doesn't give too much power to this population either. Although there is the high end condo market (god save us from the pearl district), light rail, and no baseball team(that's a good thing IMO), the city has resisted giving the remaining inner city light industrial zones to the developers, in the name of business.
One thing not in their favor- are the skyrocketing property values. While being the cheapest city on the west coast, it is quickly becoming unaffordable, and i'm afraid will not continue to attract the young, creative crowd.
That said, although i am enjoying my detroit experience while i am here, i can't say that i would want to stay too long. I'm going back to Portland. ASAP.
Second vote for Boston – baseball rocks, pizza rocks (Pizzeria Regina and soooo many more) sailing rocks, shopping rocks, awesome bars and restaurants and the chicks are much prettier in Boston than they are in chi-town.
boston pizza better than chicago????
boston baseball better than chicago????
boston does have more townie rednecks though...
as for good lookin chicks, they are everywhere,
but theres more in the midwest!!!
matt damon can kick ditka's arse!
bridgetown, I totally overlooked Portland in my original assertion that a good city needs a major university in its limits! My mistake because yes PDX is truly the best city in the world, hands down.
(So sad about Coffee People finally selling out to Starbucks, thoguh...sigh.)
Weird, I was just having a conversation two days ago with another transplant to Boston who, like me, was bemoaning the utter and complete lack of any kind of decent pizza in this town. Hahahaha.
Also, the shopping, bars, and restaurants are literally 3 of the reasons I am leaving this puritanical landfill. Wow. Where else have you lived, Katze, that makes you like the shopping/food/nightlife HERE?! Crazy.
oh yes- and we don't have a universty. It is a city of transplants. and who needs coffe people when there is stumptown! (i miss is soo much.) There is no good coffee in detroit, or pizza. There is soul food and middle eastern food!
Ah, come on Vado (first argument, I love it). Have you ever lived in Boston? I was born and grew up in chi-town for the first 16 years of my life and then moved to Boston to go to college - yes, Boston rules the pizza land, Boston rules the baseball land, and Boston has more good lookin chicks! Come on – Harvard and MIT attracts the babe's dude! No the Midwest has nothing but mediocre lakes he he Just kidding.
think she went to school in cambridge...
or maybe that was in a movie...
I haven't tried Chicago pizza, baseball, or chicks yet so I can't comment. And being from California means the chick content of *any* city is forever ruined for me.
However, food and nightlife-wise, Boston sucks--unless you are very rich. In which case, you're golden, woohoo!
of course i lived in boston. i lived in brighton on abbey road right off of western up the street from wgbh. and it sucked.
brighton sucks, don't let that forever spoil your impressions of the Hub... come on, how many cities have that many nicknames?
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