By Edward Lawrence

downtownresearch.com

The downtowns of our cities comprise a relatively small portion of the city geographic area, but they are immensely important in determining the image and the economic well-being of the city and the metropolitan region. Downtowns are very unique and special places with a character not found in outlying parts of the city, and certainly not found in the suburbs. This character is very special, and it is something that government officials and city residents should make an effort to preserve and enhance. Once the special qualities that make our downtowns special are destroyed, it is unlikely they can ever be replaced.

I want to suggest nine characteristics of a successful downtown that set it apart from other parts of the region and that make downtown a very unique and special place. These factors are important both for large cities and for smaller towns.

1. Economic Significance
The first factor that makes downtowns special is the Economic Significance. With only one or two percent of the city land area, a typical downtown may account for 20 percent of the assessed value, and 30 percent of the city employment. In many metropolitan areas downtown is the major growth area for office space and employment. While some cities have lost their retailing significance, downtowns in cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, and Boston are thriving as retail centers. Even cities without a retail base often continue to thrive as a financial, government, cultural, and entertainment center. It is  because of this economic success of downtowns that some of the other qualities that make downtown so special are being threatened.

2. Historic Context
The second factor that makes downtown special is what I call Historic Context. Downtown is generally the oldest part of a city and as such holds a very special place in the history of the city. The historic buildings provide a link between past and present and give a glimpse of what the city was like in years past. Historic buildings permit a variety in scale and a diversity in the types of uses that can be accommodated. Many stores and offices cannot afford the higher rent of new construction, and survive only if older buildings survive. Also important to the character of downtown are the historic residential  neighborhoods surrounding downtown.

3. Centrality and Accessibility
Being the focus of a regional transportation and communications network helps generate a high degree of activity and vitality by making it possible for a large number of shoppers, workers, and visitors to easily reach downtown. It is no coincidence that downtowns most accessible by public transit (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco) are the most successful economically and aesthetically. This centrality makes downtown a retail center, employment center, cultural center, government center, business center, and entertainment center for the entire region. Good transit access also reduces the reliance on automobiles, reducing congestion and pollution and reducing the cost of living for the family that can get by without a car or with one rather than two cars.

4. Density
A higher density is perhaps the most obvious physical characteristic that differentiates downtown from other parts of an urban area. This density can consist of high land coverage by low-rise buildings set closely together, or by a concentration of high-rise towers. In smaller city Main Streets the two story buildings constructed side by side out to the sidewalk line maintain the density that creates the vitality and character of downtown. In larger cities the skyscrapers on the skyline often form the most striking visual image of the city. Even the canyon effect of a Wall Street or LaSalle Street can form an exciting and special ambiance. However, density can become too oppressive as it has in parts of Midtown Manhattan. The new office towers can become monotonous, however, which leads to the fifth quality that makes downtown special.

5. Diversity
Because our downtowns evolved over many years there is a tremendous diversity in age, size, and style of buildings. This makes downtown more interesting from an architectural history point of view, but it also permits a variety in the types of uses that can be accommodated downtown, and thus in the people who use downtown. Old warehouse and industrial buildings provide incubator space for new businesses to be established. This diversity makes downtown more active, more exciting, more interesting, and more useful to more people. Downtown is for everybody; in a sense it is everybody's "second neighborhood".

6. Continuity
A suburban shopping strip is often interrupted by parking lots and vacant spaces. A healthy downtown retail core, on the other hand, has a continuous frontage of active uses at street level. This continuity of active uses encourages pedestrian movement and adds to the activity and security of downtown. Even a parking garage can have retail uses at sidewalk level to maintain the continuity of active pedestrian-oriented uses. Among the types of dead spaces that can disrupt this continuity are: surface parking lots, massive garage entrances, empty plazas, blank walls, buildings with empty lobbies at ground level, and poorly designed store windows that go to ground level.

7. Vitality
Perhaps the most important characteristic that makes downtown special is vitality. Vitality is a unique excitement and activity found in a successful big city downtown that cannot be described, it can only be experienced. Mobile and Pensacola have lost their sense of vitality, but you can still experience it in New Orleans. Vitality is created by the combination of historic context, centrality, density, diversity, and continuity, that you can only find downtown. It is not possible to recreate in a suburban-type shopping mall, even if that mall is built where downtown was once located.

Older cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago with transit systems and quality housing near downtown tend to have great downtown vitality. Newer cities that had their major growth since the automobile took over, such as Phoenix and Houston, tend not to have much downtown vitality. Even older cities are in danger of losing their vitality as old buildings containing retail uses at sidewalk level are replaced by glass and steel boxes without ground level retail, or worse yet by parking lots. Things that add to downtown vitality include retail storefronts, outdoor cafes, benches, restaurants, theaters, and housing near but not necessarily in the downtown core.

8. Serendipity
Serendipity is the sudden pleasure of an unexpected surprise -- and walking through a vibrant downtown can provide many positive surprises of many different forms. It might be an old-fashioned hardware store tucked in an old building on the fringe of downtown; it might be the push-cart in the Square where a hot dog can be purchased for a summer day's lunch; or it might be the art deco ornamentation of a downtown office building; or a 70 year old peanut roasting machine in the window of a nut shop. It is the diversity of downtown buildings, uses and activities that permits this serendipity to occur. The concentration of activity bringing a large mixture of people downtown also permits spontaneous encounters, another form of downtown serendipity.

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