CNN.com wrote:While the core of downtown Dallas has always been a thriving business district, it only recently began to attract visitors after 5 p.m. Like most cities, Dallas felt the effects of suburban sprawl in the early '90s. In fact, as recently as 1996, only 200 people called the central business district home, according to Crawford.
Now he estimates that in the next 18 months, there will be more than 7,000 residents just in the core of downtown. Crawford and his colleagues believe people are migrating downtown partly because of revitalization efforts and partly because of environmental concerns related to long commutes.
For as much larger as Dallas is than Omaha, those downtown residential numbers shock me. Â I wonder where those people shop for groceries and park their H2s?
"The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is actually the right to destroy the city."
Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City, 1963
I was in Texas for a couple weeks in 2003 and the big story in the Dallas paper was about some building that was being converted to residential which was the biggest Downtown. It actually wasn't that big. To me it seemed like that Paxton or something. I was very surprised that Dallas had such weak residential Downtown.
Omaha is actually very lucky with Downtown residents. We have around 8,000.
Off the top of my head here's DT pops of a few cities I know.
KC: 16,000 (but they have a very broad definition of their Downtown area.
Tulsa: 2,000
OKC: 4,000
Cincinnati: 3,000
No, no.. that's wrong. For years when OKC's downtown population was so low, Tulsans were always bragging about having just over 5,000 downtown like it makes some huge difference. I remember it was a monumental day in the OKC-Tulsa rivalry when OKC's downtown population surpassed Tulsa's.
Two summers ago when I was in Dallas, there was an Unbelievable amount of construction in Downtown Dallas. Â If I had to live there and I worked downtown I would try to live in downtown because Dallas traffic sucks!
sincitybaby wrote:I think those numbers are correct, because all three times I went to Tulsa, it was dead every time after 5 pm. It reminded me of "I am Legend"
OKC does have a little more activity, but it didn't seem as vibrant as Omaha.
Well, I know that they're wrong. The area just south of DT Tulsa is heavily residential, with 5 or 6 residential towers, full of condos, etc.. almost all of which has been there for over 20 years (though there is some newer activity). And I'm not talking about Midtown, I'm talking about just 5 blocks south from the heart of the CBD. You're right though that Omaha's downtown has more activity. It's less rough around the edges and already has been functioning as an urban community for a while now.
OKC's official downtown population was 4,000 in 2005, and now is estimated at 7,600. That's almost doubling in population in
the last 3 years, and 700 more units are back in the construction phase at this moment. We just so a whole bunch completed
(the first wave) and a whole bunch of even more ambitious stuff to break ground soon.
BTW Downtown Dallas actually has nearly 25,000 people living downtown. Just thought I'd mention that.
Sounds like there are probably a lot of different boundaries being used in these various calculations. Â You may all be right, just not talking about the same things. Â
I was shocked by the numbers shown for Dallas in the late 90s cause it looked to me like the West End was a good place for residential. Â Could be that I was wrong, could also be that they dont count that area as 'downtown' but its downtown to me.
A lot of these definitions of downtown areas shouldn't include the Old Market with Downtown Omaha. If they don't include the West End as Downtown Dallas, or Bricktown as Downtown OKC.
Golden Eagle wrote:A lot of these definitions of downtown areas shouldn't include the Old Market with Downtown Omaha. If they don't include the West End as Downtown Dallas, or Bricktown as Downtown OKC.
