Hello Everyone:
It is a very lovely late summer afternoon and Blogger is here for you. The Candidate Forum checked in with an eye rolling report of Mr. Trump's latest interview with Fox News presenter Laura Ingraham. In said interview, the president rambled about dark shadows--not the vintage 60s-era soap opera--in control of the streets and VPOTUS Joe Biden. He also used a golf metaphor when talking about the heinous shooting of Jacob Blake. You know your campaign is very deep trouble when you lose Fox News. Wait there's more. The president insisted on paying a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin to survey the damage despite being told not to come by Governor Tony Evers and the Mayor of Kenosha. The president is never one to pass up a chance to pour more gasoline on an already white hot situation. He also defended Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who crossed state lines, armed with a loaded weapon who killed two protesters. The president said that Mr. Rittenhouse was defending himself. Of course, that makes perfect sense. A minor wielding a gun (a felony), crossed state lines to counter protest, fell, was attacked by protesters, and killed two people in self defense. The only part of that sentence was Mr. Rittenhouse being a minor in possession of a firearm and crossing state lines, the rest is the product of the president's overly fertile imagination. As Blogger said, a completely eye rolling, logic defying report. Onward
Did the COVID-19 pandemic kill downtown? Once thriving centers with bustling streets, thriving businesses, trendy restaurants and boutiques are now largely empty. The pandemic forced businesses to close, in some cases for good. People got sick and those who could, worked from home. The question now is will downtown ever come back? Before we consider this question, a brief history.
By the mid-twentieth century, downtown were the place you went to work, shop, gather, and be entertained. Toward the end of the fifties, their luster began to dull and there were signs of impending decay. Downtown department store were losing ground in nearly every American city; and within a short time most would be gone. By the 1980s, downtown was largely empty, just the place where you did your business and went home. They became depressing urbanscapes but then something totally unexpected happened (governing.com; May 26, 2020; date accessed Sept. 1, 2020). Downtown made a comeback fueled by businesses catering to the creatives who found inexpensive live-work spaces. Why did downtown come back to life and will another revival happen in the wake of the pandemic?
There is no one particular reason why downtown came back. Alan Ehrenhalt writes, "The decline of violent crime ranks near the top of the list. In the 1990s it was widely predicted that a rising generation of super-predator criminal would terrorize central cites as never before" (Ibid). None of that of happened. Crime rates dropped, with the exception some danger zones in Chicago, Baltimore, and a few other cities, it remains low. "There were 2,245 murders in New York City in 1990. In 2018 there were 389" (Ibid). This quickly attracted the attention of would-be urbanites who began returning to downtown, opening businesses and buying condominiums. One example, "Between 1980 and 2018, the residential population of central-city Chicago grew from 18,000 people to 110,000. Even downtown St. Louis increased its population by 71 percent" (Ibid)
During the eighties, empty storefronts were magnets for artists, immigrants, and other urban pioneers, creating a boom in bars and restaurants, eventually drawing a more conventional crowd. In a certain respect, the resurrection of downtown can be labeled a restaurant revival (Ibid).
Those are a physical things. Perhaps the most fascinating element of downtown's resurrection is a more nebulous one: "the desire of millennials for a lively urban experience that had eluded them in their suburban childhoods" (Ibid). Part of this lively urban experience includes entertainment options, but much of the revival was the product of physical proximity and walkable streets. "It can be argued that the numbers here weren't really very large, compared to the number of young people who remained in the suburbs" (Ibid). It turns out what people wanted to was walk to work, shop, or be entertained.
There are myriad of reasons why downtown were thriving once again, but let us focus on declining crime rates, entertainment options, walkability. How likely are they to survive the COVID-19 pandemic? Let us start with crime rates.
This is an easy one. Violent crime statistics have markedly declined since mid-March in virtually every major city. Between mid-March and mid-April "they were down 33 percent in San Francisco, 25 percent in New York and nearly 25 percent in Los Angeles" (Ibid). The reason why is obvious.
There was no one for would-be criminals to prey on. Even the criminals are worried about getting sick. Mr. Ehrenhalt ponders "Will there be a spike in street crime after the virus subsides?" Answering his own question, "Maybe a small one. Crime was ticking upward and a few other places before the pandemic hit" (Ibid). However, there is little reason to believe that it will return to 1990s-level that had urban dwellers fleeing to the suburbs.
Figuring out whether entertainment will return is a little more complicated. The pandemic forced restaurants and bars to shuttered their establishments. Some were able to pivot to selling groceries, delivery and curb-side pick up only to recoup some of their losses. Others were not so lucky and closed for good. This is a genuine loss to urban life that should not be minimized. Over the past decade, outdoor dining booming, even in part of the United States that you would not necessarily expect it. Nearly six months into the pandemic (yes), outdoor dining is experiencing a resurgence. "Driven by safety concerns, dining can leap from sidewalks and patios can leap from sidewalks and patios to entire downtown streets" (Ibid). This is being tested in European cities; the City of Berkeley, California has already converted most of its downtown streets to open-air dining areas. Mr. Ehrenhalts adds, "I hesitate to treat Berkeley as a typical American town, but going big outdoors may be the future of fine dining in quite a few American downtowns" (Ibid).
The empty storefronts are an important, albeit, trickier matter that will continue to haunt downtown could end up being a silver lining on their own. Derek Thompson recently
pointed out in The Atlantic, "commercial rents are likely to decline substantially" (
governing.com; May 26, 2020). Bars and restaurants will be in better positions to afford them; skyrocketing rents and burdensome leases were the main reason why they began fled downtown before the pandemic. At some point, small family owned restaurants will experience a revival, attracting customers with delicious and affordable menus. It will take some time but it could happen.
This leaves vexing issue of the three factors: physical proximity. One of the first assumption made, when the pandemic broke was density was making people sick. New York City, one of densest cities in the world was the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States. Really, the complete numbers do not support this idea: "Virus cases have been more prevalent in the New York suburbs than in the city itself: 47 percent more in nearby Westchester County, for example..." (Ibid).
Perhaps the most troubling element in the long-run is whether people will return to downtown offices; preferring to work from home instead of making the daily commute. True confession time: You like working from. If given the choice, you would prefer to continue working from where ever you live than make that morning and evening commute. The Digital Industrial Revolution has made it possible but Blogger cautions you to take this with a grain salt. "Pundits have been predict an Internet-fueled explosion of at-home workers and a decline of downtown offices ever since Frances Cairncross's book, The Death of Distance forecast it in 1997" (Ibid). The book was best seller and news of distance's death was premature.
In the final years of the previous decade, the number of people working from home had not reached 5 percent of the overall American workforce (Ibid). Will that number increase in the pandemic's aftermath? There is a certain comfort to working from home without feeling isolated. True confession: Your new idea of the daily commute is bedroom-kitchen-home office. Does it mean that people will avoid their downtown offices all together? Not entirely, instead preferring to come in on a part time basis for meetings and conferences rather than day-to-day work. However, offices still need to be there.
Office workers coming on a part time basis creates a good opportunity for businesses to practice social distancing by spreading out individual work space every six feet. The things that draw people to a particular workplace environment are not going anywhere, anytime, any more or less than they did when the Digital Industrial Revolution made working from home a reality.
A recent Brookings study of downtowns concluded that
...while diseases will come and go, we can always retrofit our cities to makes feel safe while still delivering the proximity we carve (
governing.com; May 26, 2020).
Will downtown remain a ghost town? As long as there is a need for physical proximity, a desire for community, there will be a downtown. Downtown is the beating heart of a city. Cities can be made safe and will once again thrive.
No comments:
Post a Comment