View Full Version : Downtown Residential Ranking



Just the facts
11-11-2013, 08:06 AM
This data was posted on Metro Jacksonville | Covering Downtown Jacksonville FL, Northeast Florida, Jacksonville Transit, History, Neighborhoods, Photos (http://www.metrojacksonville.com) today so I thought I would pass it along. It ranks the top 100 cities by downtown and downtown adjacent populations.

America's Downtowns Ranked by Number of Residents | Metro Jacksonville (http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-nov-americas-downtowns-ranked-by-number-of-residents/page/3)

OKC is #73. Just between Amarillo and Savannah.

Teo9969
11-11-2013, 08:25 AM
Wouldn't be surprised if we jumped 5 to 10 spots in the next 3 years.

bchris02
11-11-2013, 09:05 AM
It surprises me that Amarillo has more people living in its downtown than OKC. I've been through there a few times and it didn't seem like there was much to it. That said its impressive that they even have a skyline being such a small city.

Just the facts
11-11-2013, 09:14 AM
Wouldn't be surprised if we jumped 5 to 10 spots in the next 3 years.

The rest of the country isn't sitting still. Reurbanzation of downtowns is a nation activity. There is a good chance OKC could fall a few spots despite the activity around downtown OKC now.

Just the facts
11-11-2013, 09:18 AM
Just found this website which maps the data.

Defining Downtown » Maps (http://definingdowntown.org/maps/)

Pete
11-11-2013, 09:24 AM
Dubious criteria:

1. Midtown Manhattan - 586,652
2. Downtown LA - 174,975
3. Downtown DC - 173,672
4. Downtown Manhattan - 173,179
5. Center City Philadelphia - 170,467
6. Downtown Chicago - 144,051
7. Downtown Miami - 140,889
8. Downtown San Francisco - 134,312
9. Downtown Minneapolis - 132,403
10. Downtown Seattle - 119,590
11. Downtown Oakland - 111,587
12. Downtown Baltimore - 108,725
13. Downtown Portland - 101,416
14. Downtown Hartford - 94,968
15. Downtown San Jose - 94,838
16. Downtown Honolulu - 85,323
17. Downtown Denver - 80,369
18. Downtown Salt Lake City - 80,015
19. Downtown Milwaukee - 74,619
20. Downtown Sacramento - 73,225
21. Downtown New Orleans - 70,525
22. Downtown Providence - 70,508
23. Downtown Pittsburgh - 69,534
24. Downtown Austin - 64,843
25. Downtown Rochester - 63,722
26. Downtown Atlanta - 63,560
27. Downtown Louisville - 59,789
28. Downtown Houston - 58,459
29. Downtown San Diego - 58,287
30. Downtown Norfolk - 57,120
31. Downtown Fort Lauderdale - 56,906
32. Downtown Akron - 54,271
33. Downtown Las Vegas - 53,236
34. Downtown Columbus - 53,110
35. Downtown Indianapolis - 50,349
36. Downtown Richmond - 49,702
37. Downtown Bakersfield - 48,927
38. Downtown Lubbock, TX - 48,175
39. Downtown Lexington, KY - 45,508
40. Downtown Columbia, SC - 44,536
41. Downtown Grand Rapids - 43,347
42. Downtown St. Paul, MN - 42,910
43. Downtown Cleveland - 41,236
44. Downtown Boise - 40,820
45. Downtown Buffalo - 40,332
46. Downtown Stockton, CA - 39,830
47. Downtown San Antonio - 39,826
48. Downtown Wichita - 39,274
49. Downtown Madison - Madison - 38,451
50. Downtown Toledo - 37,840
51 Downtown Greensboro - 37,604
52 Downtown Lincoln, NE - 37,219
53 Downtown Dallas - 36,884
54 Downtown Des Moines - 36,518
55 Downtown Colorado Springs - 34,628
56 Downtown Raleigh - 34,359
57 Downtown Omaha - 33,619
58 Downtown Phoenix - 33,554
59 Downtown Memphis - 33,418
60 Downtown Spokane, WA - 33,411
61 Downtown Fort Wayne, IN - 33,270
62 Downtown Orlando - 33,228
63 Downtown Charlotte - 33,140
64 Downtown Tampa - 32,477
65 Downtown Albany - 32,227
66 Downtown Baton Rouge - 31,803
67 Downtown Sioux Falls, SD - 30,242
68 Downtown Syracuse - 29,346
69 Downtown Tallahassee - 28,954
70 Downtown St. Louis - 28,534
71 Downtown Shreveport - 28,097
72 Downtown Amarillo, TX - 27,980
73 Downtown Oklahoma City - 27,868
74 Downtown Savannah, GA - 27,834
75 Downtown Cincinnati - 27,488
76 Downtown Tacoma - 26,318
77 Downtown Tulsa - 26,073
78 Downtown Cedar Rapids, IA - 26,066
79 Downtown Nashville - 25,922
80 Downtown El Paso - 25,663
81 Downtown Tucson - 25,316
82 Downtown Jacksonville - 24,743
83 Downtown Charleston - 23,070
84 Downtown Augusta, GA - 22,466
85 Downtown Huntsville - 22,442
86 Downtown Kansas City - 22,122
87 Downtown Albuquerque - 21,458
88 Downtown Jackson, MS - 20,869
89 Downtown Birmingham - 20,786
90 Downtown Rochester, MN - 19,918
91 Downtown Greenville, SC - 19,687
92 Downtown Winston Salem - 19,557
93 Downtown Little Rock - 18,392
94 Downtown Detroit - 17,438
95 Downtown Chattanooga - 16,300
96 Downtown Mobile - 16,237
97 Downtown Montgomery, AL - 15,680
98 Downtown Knoxville, TN - 15,509
99 Downtown Corpus Cristi - 14,722
100 Downtown Anchorage - 14,013
101 Downtown Fort Worth - 13,550

adaniel
11-11-2013, 10:14 AM
This list is crap.

There are not 174K people living in downtown LA. Not even close.

And there are definitely not more people living in downtown Lubbock than Dallas.

Given the fact that this question seems to come up a lot, with wild swings in numbers depending upon the source, I really wish Downtown OKC or someone would do a special census to count just how many people there are living DT.

Just the facts
11-11-2013, 10:19 AM
I don't think they dubious as much as it is shows how relatively dense those cities are. The group that did this mapped office space to determine the where the Core business district was. They then drew 2 lines around that area, one at 0.5 miles and the second at 1.0 mile. In the cities bolded above their residential areas abut right up next to their downtowns, so all of those residents get counted as living in a downtown adjacent neighborhood. The problem in OKC is that we went scorched earth on everything within a 2 mile radius around downtown except for a few areas. We essentially created a kill zone around downtown where nothing lived.

soonerguru
11-11-2013, 10:21 AM
It surprises me that Amarillo has more people living in its downtown than OKC. I've been through there a few times and it didn't seem like there was much to it. That said its impressive that they even have a skyline being such a small city.

This must be flawed data. Amarillo doesn't really even have a "downtown." Not to mention, our hard numbers have been hard to pin down, as even those of us who are urbanists have struggled to put the numbers together.

bchris02
11-11-2013, 10:48 AM
I wouldn't say this list is flawed. They should have left out the smaller metro areas though. Places like Amarillo and Lubbock, because they are so small, probably count places as "downtown" that are extremely suburban in nature. Regardless it doesn't surprise me to see peer cities like Richmond and Louisville come in so high considering how far ahead they are in the gentrification process. While I doubt OKC would have even made this list 10 years ago, it does show we are still playing catch up and the work is not done.

Just the facts
11-11-2013, 11:01 AM
I wouldn't say this list is flawed. They should have left out the smaller metro areas though. Places like Amarillo and Lubbock, because they are so small, probably count places as "downtown" that are extremely suburban in nature. Regardless it doesn't surprise me to see peer cities like Richmond and Louisville come in so high considering how far ahead they are in the gentrification process. While I doubt OKC would have even made this list 10 years ago, it does show we are still playing catch up and the work is not done.

I think the lesson we can learn from this is that despite all the progress OKC has made, other cities in America are re-urbanizing their cores even faster.

bchris02
11-11-2013, 11:05 AM
I think the lesson we can learn from this is that despite all the progress OKC has made, other cities in America are re-urbanizing their cores even faster.

Most other cities also didn't obliterate their downtown the way OKC did either, so they were already farther ahead to start with.

PhiAlpha
11-11-2013, 11:13 AM
This must be flawed data. Amarillo doesn't really even have a "downtown." Not to mention, our hard numbers have been hard to pin down, as even those of us who are urbanists have struggled to put the numbers together.

Amarillo definitely does have a downtown with a few tall buildings some bars and a nice hotel, but it definitely, and I repeat, definitely does not have near the downtown residents or residential options that we do. It is really somewhat desolate. It depends on what they are considering the downtown area because I'm not even sure there is any residential in the immediate CBD. There are several neighboorhoods around downtown similar to Heritage Hills, Mesta Park, Lincoln Terrace, etc but it's just a much smaller city in general so those neighborhoods are closer to the business district because the whole city is. Amarillo is not reurbanizing their core faster than we are...no one really ever left. I also don't see anyway we don't jump them on this list when two or three of the planned/under construction apartment complexes come online, there is literally no new construction going on near their downtown area.

At any rate, I'm not going to take any list that ranks Amarillo ahead of us that seriously.

bchris02
11-11-2013, 11:23 AM
Amarillo definitely does have a downtown with a few tall buildings some bars and a nice hotel, but it definitely, and I repeat, definitely does not have near the downtown residents or residential options that we do. It is really somewhat desolate. It depends on what they are considering the downtown area because I'm not even sure there is any residential in the immediate CBD. There are several neighboorhoods around downtown similar to Heritage Hills, Mesta Park, Lincoln Terrace, etc but it's just a much smaller city in general so those neighborhoods are closer to the business district because the whole city is. Amarillo is not reurbanizing their core faster than we are...no one really ever left. I also don't see anyway we don't jump them on this list when two or three of the planned/under construction apartment complexes come online, there is literally no new construction going on near their downtown area.

At any rate, I'm not going to take any list that ranks Amarillo ahead of us that seriously.

I agree with this. My guess is they are taking into account neighborhoods that are close to downtown simply because the city is so small so everything is going to be closer to the CBD. That is why I think metro areas with less than 500k population shouldn't have been included in the list. You really can't apply the same standard to them.

lasomeday
11-11-2013, 11:43 AM
If this is true, Enid should be on there around 35,000. Its pretty dense.

Spartan
11-18-2013, 07:28 PM
I busted out laughing when it stated Downtown Akron has 55,000 people (a third if the entire city??) I used to work as a marketing manager for the largest residential development they've had in a while. There might be 3,000 residents in Downtown Akron. Which isn't bad.

This list claims Akron has a lot more downtown residents than Cleveland, which is laughable. Downtown Cleveland has 16,000 residents. Still not 45,000 though maybe someday lol...

That website is absolutely discredited garbage. The comparative and intellectual value is void.

Just the facts
11-18-2013, 07:57 PM
I think you first need to understand what they consider downtown and how they calculate the population. They determined 'downtown' by mapping contiguous office/retail/commercial/institutional space. Then they drew a 1 mile boundary around that area. From there they found every census track that was either inside or touching that line. That gave them the 'downtown' population.

Akron has a population density of 3,210 ppl/sq mi. If the central commercial district of Akron has a 1/2 mile radius (and with its downtown University it probably does) plus another mile past that, that is a circle with a radius of 1.5 miles. A=3.14 * R^2 which equals 7 sq miles. At average density that is 22,679 people. Just eyeballing the residential area around downtown Akron it appears to be much denser than the suburban areas - and could easily be 2X as dense. That would be just over 45,000 people.

And lest we forget, the University of Akron has 27,000 students with most of them probably living in or near downtown.

Dubya61
11-19-2013, 07:04 AM
There you go, AGAIN, with the facts, Just the facts ... nevermind.