# Revitalizing downtowns in most US cities



## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

bayviews said:


> Yeah, takes a while for all the clusters to come together. Even NYC still has that big gap between Lower & Midtown Manhattan. As downtown LA continues to build up, the various clusters will likely slowly grow closer together.


Yes there's still a big gap between The Financial District and Midtown but the areas within this gap like Soho or Little Italy are some of the most vibrant areas in Manhattan.


----------



## durf 2 (Apr 18, 2011)

San Jose has done the best job revitalizing its downtown has down!


----------



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

durf 2, can you post anything other than the same "hey look at san jose" in five threads? Are you the new chamber intern?


----------



## ngspan (Aug 1, 2011)

bayviews said:


> Yeah, takes a while for all the clusters to come together. Even NYC still has that big gap between Lower & Midtown Manhattan. As downtown LA continues to build up, the various clusters will likely slowly grow closer together.


Those areas in NYC have charachter, which can be rare enough for USA cities.


----------



## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

hkskyline said:


> What? The *rise* of the automobile industry was a major cause of the flight form downtown. Only GM has a downtown campus. The others have heaquarters in the more affluent outlying areas.


Yes and No.

The rise of the automobile industry helped build Detroit as well.

Most of the real reasons for the decline of Detroit have been related to the race riots during the 1960's and the inept leadership under Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick which scared away business investors from investing into the city. The regions over reliance on the auto industy however did stall the revitalization efforts of Detroit, in comparison with Washington DC, NYC, Chicago, etc which were able to bounce back after similar declines.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

diablo234 said:


> The rise of the automobile industry helped build Detroit as well.
> 
> Most of the real reasons for the decline of Detroit have been related to the race riots during the 1960's and the inept leadership under Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick which scared away business investors from investing into the city. The regions over reliance on the auto industy however did stall the revitalization efforts of Detroit, in comparison with Washington DC, NYC, Chicago, etc which were able to bounce back after similar declines.


I think it is mostly pointless to compare single jurisdictions, considering that, for a variety of reasons, different US metro areas have very different jurisdictional political divisions. So we should analyze whole metropolitan areas, not cities that bear a name. The subdivision of Detroit Metro, for instance, is completely different than that of St. Louis Metro or Charleston Metro.


----------



## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

Suburbanist said:


> I think it is mostly pointless to compare single jurisdictions, considering that, for a variety of reasons, different US metro areas have very different jurisdictional political divisions. So we should analyze whole metropolitan areas, not cities that bear a name. The subdivision of Detroit Metro, for instance, is completely different than that of St. Louis Metro or Charleston Metro.


True, which is why I pointed that out earlier. However fact is until the late 90's-early 00's most cities were experiencing the same thing that Detroit has experienced including population abandonment, decay, rising crime rates, etc. However Chicago was able to bounce back in some neighborhoods because of it's diverse economy while Detroit's reliance on one single industry (along with inept leadership in the city itself) caused revitalization efforts to stall since the US auto industry esperienced a slowdown.


----------



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

I think you mean "most cities" in the Midwest etc. Many urban/coastal and/or sunbelt cities were growing their cores much earlier.


----------



## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

mhays said:


> I think you mean "most cities" in the Midwest etc. Many urban/coastal and/or sunbelt cities were growing their cores much earlier.


Not really outside of say, NYC and San Francisco. Back in the early 90's Downtown Washington DC, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, and Los Angeles were still 9-5 areas that were generally considered to be pretty sketchy. Also most sunbelt cities such as Houston, San Antonio, and Jacksonville only posted gains because they were able to annex their suburbs unlike Atlanta, Baltimore, and Chicago which are prevented from doing so because they are surrounded by dozens of smaller municipalities.


----------



## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Plus state laws makes it next to impossible for cities to annex the surrounding suburbs and satellite cities, like PA.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ I guess it has to do with the fact counties are usually huge west of the Mississippi, even outside "inhospitable" areas like the Rockies or deserts, in terms of land area. Then, you have a lot of subdivisions that expand as unincorporated county xyz, which makes is much easier for them to be annexed by the "main" city. I don't know specifics of law state, but I guess it is much more difficult, if not impossible, for a city to annex an area lying in other county (or parish for Louisiana).


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

mhays said:


> durf 2, can you post anything other than the same "hey look at san jose" in five threads? Are you the new chamber intern?


I can't comment on durf 2 generally, but he has a point about SJ. Twenty years ago there was almost nothing there and now it is the major center of activity south of SF: NHL hockey and concerts at HP, ethnic 'hoods, clubs, opera, symphony, live theater (5 of them), lots of medium-rise office and housing, light and heavy rail, city and county offices, etc. And hopefully ML baseball soon.

Quite an accomplishment considering what they started from and the fact that people with money mostly go to Palo Alto, Santana Row, Los Gatos, etc.


----------



## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

ssiguy2 said:


> American cities ussually have very dead downtowns. After 6pm everything closes down with a few notable exceptions.
> The car has designed the cities of the US and here is the result. Rejuvenation is great but very few will ever compete with cities of almost any other country in the world.
> 
> This, however, cannot be blamed soley on the car for there is a dynamic that no other industrial country but the States has had to deal with............................RACE.


That might be true for a few cities, but I think more telling was the desire to replace the traditional city centres with skyscrapers full of offices. Hardly anyone lives in the centre, partly because there's hardly anywhere to live. And as population numbers drops, the cafes, bars etc also shut up, making it a less desirable placeto live anyway. Housing demand drops, and those remaining houses also get bulldozed for more office space.

It's not just the USA. The traditional medieval centre of London is now a financial district, and is mainly dead outside office hours.



edit:wow! Just noticed how old this thread is.


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

Rev Stickleback said:


> That might be true for a few cities, but I think more telling was the desire to replace the traditional city centres with skyscrapers full of offices. Hardly anyone lives in the centre, partly because there's hardly anywhere to live. And as population numbers drops, the cafes, bars etc also shut up, making it a less desirable placeto live anyway. Housing demand drops, and those remaining houses also get bulldozed for more office space.
> 
> It's not just the USA. The traditional medieval centre of London is now a financial district, and is mainly dead outside office hours.
> 
> edit:wow! Just noticed how old this thread is.


Very good point. The CBD's of Europeans cities tend to be dead; but they often are not in the city center (London has lately become an exception and even there, the urban center is so large that you don't notice the loss of activity in parts of the City). And the CBD's of American cities tend to be quiet at night as well.

But the issue here really is about areas OTHER than the CBD, areas that are often adjacent or near the CBD and were also dead. These are the ones that most typically are being revitalized.


----------



## zaphod (Dec 8, 2005)

Yeah

When visiting Denver I noticed how it can totally change depending on the street, and the areas with the tall 1980s era skyscrapers were the deadest. The 16th street pedestrian mall, the red brick historic district called LoDo, were lively. If you just walked one block over to 17th street however, it was all office building lobbies and zero action outside of rush hour.


----------



## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

pesto said:


> Very good point. The CBD's of Europeans cities tend to be dead; but they often are not in the city center (London has lately become an exception and even there, the urban center is so large that you don't notice the loss of activity in parts of the City). And the CBD's of American cities tend to be quiet at night as well.


London is rather unusual in that the main nightlife/shopping area (the West End) has been distinct from the original city centre for hundreds of years. The area round the Bank of England has been a financial district for a very long time, although I'd imagine there were more residential properties a few decades back. I'd presume many were cleared after WWII bomb damage, and the place has just become even more commercial since then.



> But the issue here really is about areas OTHER than the CBD, areas that are often adjacent or near the CBD and were also dead. These are the ones that most typically are being revitalized.


I guess. There aren't that many direct equivalents in European cities because most maintained the inner core.

I remember reading on a different forum, an American tourist saying that he was surprised how "undeveloped" Rome was for a big city, because it had no tall office blocks in the centre. The idea of not wanting to bulldoze the old buildings to make way for skyscrapers just seemed an alien concept.


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

Yeah, the English definitely separated business from pleasure. 

Of course, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, etc., should be protected in the centers for historic and esthetic reasons. I actually feel the same about the City of London, but I admit much of it is not as attractive or historic as much of Paris and Rome. 

However, the solutions that these cities reached (La Defense, the new Roman cities, Canary Wharf) are failures in my mind from a human perspective: sterile, monolithic, hardly 24/7. Amsterdam did much the same, but with many smaller office clusters around the edges of the city that become ghost towns at night. The Germans have done a better job at blending highrises with a city that remains walkable, pleasant and with excellent transit (Berlin and Frankfurt, specifically).


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

There is no axiomatic reason by which a good business area is one that also have activity at night. That might, or might not, be the case, but the idea that all non-residential areas should all work 24/7 is just baseless. Some areas might work well 23/7, but others, not. It doesn't make them "bad". The absence of an embedded value for night time use of premises help to keep real estate costs lower, which favors large buildings compounds.


----------



## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

Suburbanist said:


> There is no axiomatic reason by which a good business area is one that also have activity at night. That might, or might not, be the case, but the idea that all non-residential areas should all work 24/7 is just baseless. .


The criticism of such areas isn't so much that business areas aren't alive outside office hours per se, more that devoting whole districts to business kills the life of previous vibrant areas.

Nobody in Amsterdam cares, for example, that the office districts out by the ring road are completely dead in the evening, but would hate to see the city centre knocked down and replaced with office blocks, killing that area too.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Rev Stickleback said:


> The criticism of such areas isn't so much that business areas aren't alive outside office hours per se, more that devoting whole districts to business kills the life of previous vibrant areas.


Sure, but you can't please all crowds and camps. If you build new business districts in the outskirts of the city, some will claim that "the job base is being moved elsewhere" and that "they are robbing a city of its historical centrality", the historical area being "turned in a place only catering for tourists and impoverishing" and other b.s.



> Nobody in Amsterdam cares, for example, that the office districts out by the ring road are completely dead in the evening, but would hate to see the city centre knocked down and replaced with office blocks, killing that area too.


The Zuidas, conversely is not entirely dead. It has a bunch of relatively upscale restaurants and two lounges (more coming) that attract a crowd that know where they are going.

In case of Amsterdam "city center" is a rather ambiguous definition. The central area within the canal belt is not even suitable for high-rise construction due to its peat soil compacted with ancient technologies not fit for foundations needed for a 200m-high building.


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

Suburbanist said:


> Sure, but you can't please all crowds and camps. If you build new business districts in the outskirts of the city, some will claim that "the job base is being moved elsewhere" and that "they are robbing a city of its historical centrality", the historical area being "turned in a place only catering for tourists and impoverishing" and other b.s.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No comment on Zuidas; if that's what you like, then fine. 

Are there 200m buildings anywhere in Holland? I can't picture any around Amsterdam. What I am talking about is dozens of clumps with 6-20 story buildings and surface parking surrounding them.

Agree that it is not NECESSARY for every 'hood to be 24/7 but why not if people really are looking for urban rather than suburban? Many of the Amsterdam office blocks could easily have been integrated with housing if people had wanted to. But instead they became small groups of low and medium-rises with large surface parking lots and with housing in blocks at some distance. The typical result is that you have to drive to lunch or shopping during the day. Integration was entirely possible but did not happen for whatever reason.

For better or worse, Berlin and Frankfurt seem to me to have integrated their high, medium and low rise commerical and housing better. The result is more "medium density", rather than high density in pockets with other areas that are quite empty for long periods of time (night and weekend).


----------



## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

Suburbanist said:


> Sure, but you can't please all crowds and camps. If you build new business districts in the outskirts of the city, some will claim that "the job base is being moved elsewhere" and that "they are robbing a city of its historical centrality", the historical area being "turned in a place only catering for tourists and impoverishing" and other b.s.


Nobody is talking about forcing existing businesses to move out.

And no, I don't think anyone would complain about "job bases being moved elsewhere", particularly when those office jobs weren't in the centre in the first place. They certainly wouldn't complain about offices being 3 miles from the centre of the city.

I also have no idea why you think not having the city centre full of office blocks equals "impoverishing". 



> The Zuidas, conversely is not entirely dead. It has a bunch of relatively upscale restaurants and two lounges (more coming) that attract a crowd that know where they are going.


It doesn't really compare with the city centre though, does it?



> In case of Amsterdam "city center" is a rather ambiguous definition. The central area within the canal belt is not even suitable for high-rise construction due to its peat soil compacted with ancient technologies not fit for foundations needed for a 200m-high building.


[/quote]
Amsterdam was just an example. You could replace it with any city with a historic centre and the point would stand. Unless you hold the view that city centres should be for offices, and people should live in suburbs instead, and strip malls off major roads should suffice for all bars/restaurants/shopping, it's hard to see any advantage to replacing any cities historic centre with an office district.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

pesto said:


> Many of the Amsterdam office blocks could easily have been integrated with housing if people had wanted to. But instead they became small groups of low and medium-rises with large surface parking lots and with housing in blocks at some distance. The typical result is that you have to drive to lunch or shopping during the day. Integration was entirely possible but did not happen for whatever reason.


Simple answer: geology. The soil in Frankfurt or Berlin is MUCH more easier to excavate (hence fit there the underground parking lots) than the soil around much of Amsterdam. That doesn't mean it is not possible to fit massive underground parking, like they did in Rotterdam (a city with a nice balance of in-town and out-of-town business districts), but AFAIK a whole swath that begins in Leiden and go all the way in an arch to Amersfort is among the worst even in an area, like the Randstad, where soil excavation is already a challenge. 

Again: it is possible, but they probably didn't make it out of costs. 

Other alternative is like the commercial areas of the Bijlmer: a two-level based design in which cars, parking and streets go on level 0, semi-entrenched and pedestrians and main hall of buildings are integrated on a level 1, interlinking blocks and so.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Rev Stickleback said:


> I also have no idea why you think not having the city centre full of office blocks equals "impoverishing".


It is not me holding this view. Some critics says that if you take "high-paying" office jobs from the inner city and move then to business districts elsewhere, you are impoverishing the city by taking part of its tax base and the "associated business" they normally entails.

That, of course, depends on the administrative divisions of a metropolitan area. Not a problem in Denver or Houston (for instance), surely a problem for Detroit or Washington, DC.



> Amsterdam was just an example. You could replace it with any city with a historic centre and the point would stand. Unless you hold the view that city centres should be for offices, and people should live in suburbs instead, and strip malls off major roads should suffice for all bars/restaurants/shopping, it's hard to see any advantage to replacing any cities historic centre with an office district.


I'm *not* advocating that substitution. There are people, with whom I disagree, that wants strict planning laws so that, instead of new shinny offices in new areas or redeveloped ones, business would have to settle in old buildings and "provide paying traffic" for nearby "ground level" stores. It is THIS vision that I oppose.

I have *no* problems with an area becoming tourist-only, or entertainment only. That is fine. It is the new urbanist movement that see this model as flawed, but as they saw the idea of large scale redevelopment wrong as well, they want to "corner and tame" other business to fit their unrealistic expectations of "vibrancy" around. Which ultimately leads to much resistance against their plans.


----------



## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

Suburbanist said:


> It is not me holding this view. Some critics says that if you take "high-paying" office jobs from the inner city and move then to business districts elsewhere, you are impoverishing the city by taking part of its tax base and the "associated business" they normally entails.
> 
> That, of course, depends on the administrative divisions of a metropolitan area. Not a problem in Denver or Houston (for instance), surely a problem for Detroit or Washington, DC.


there's a rather big difference between preventing centres being taken over by offices, and forcing them into other cities entirely.

The ship has sailed for many US cities on that score. The question - and the point of this thead, I guess - is how those areas can be made more liveable?




> I'm *not* advocating that substitution. There are people, with whom I disagree, that wants strict planning laws so that, instead of new shinny offices in new areas or redeveloped ones, business would have to settle in old buildings and "provide paying traffic" for nearby "ground level" stores. It is THIS vision that I oppose.


Where is that happening? Businesses may be forced to set up in old city centre buildings rather than building new office blocks in the centre, but is anywhere really stopping them building new offices in business parks etc?



> I have *no* problems with an area becoming tourist-only, or entertainment only. That is fine. It is the new urbanist movement that see this model as flawed, but as they saw the idea of large scale redevelopment wrong as well, they want to "corner and tame" other business to fit their unrealistic expectations of "vibrancy" around. Which ultimately leads to much resistance against their plans.


Who is advocating anywhere becomes tourist or entertainment only?

Other than building developers, who is resisting calls to avoid knocking down city centres?


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

The idea of reclaiming CBD's that are vacant night and weekends is an interesting one. In places with dense skyscrapers to the street (Wall St.) it may not be worth it. But areas with open areas (midtown NY; Bunker Hill and Century City in LA) have the potential to develop a comforable mix of high-rise and people-oriented in-fill. A number of southern and western cities have this potential as well.

Coming from the other direction, Hollywood was not high-rise but was urban in the sense of being built to the street and with many 5-10 story buildings. It was also quite decayed. It is now attracting proposals for 10-40 story buildings, mostly in former parking lots. With some cooperation between developers and the city, it should be possible to make a habitable walkable area mixing the existing density with "high-rise in-fill". The corridor around Vine has several of these proposals, completed and proposed.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2011/...ers_want_to_give_it_hotel_condo_neighbors.php


----------



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

Office tenants frequently want to be in the middle of other uses. 

When a company moves, they often say why, either publicly or in the RFPs they send to potential contractors like me. Sometimes it's about being close to hotels and lunch places. Proximity to transit is big. For many firms, the ability to live nearby is big, particularly if the bosses live nearby. Of course a large percentage of firms want to be adjacent to other firms in their industries or related industries. Places that hire creative professionals and/or 20-somethings often phrase it more qualitatively...they want to be where the action is. 

The ability to recruit is a big deal, both at the rank and file level and in the pursuit of "stars." With the better downtowns, locating there can be a major boost. 

Being in a pure office district can be ok, but the other things need to be nearby. Dance clubs across the street aren't very relevant, but restaurants and happy hours are. And the whole package (for attracting 20-somethings especially) is helped by having nightlife somewhere nearby. 

Personally I think nightlife is best when it's in a few core districts, and other places don't have the issues it creates.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

mhays said:


> Personally I think nightlife is best when it's in a few core districts, and other places don't have the issues it creates.


In the case of "strictu sensu" nightlife, meaning bars/pubs with live music, entertainment venues that produces significant exterior noise (not the case of an orchestra or movie theater) should be confined to their own district.


----------



## Illithid Dude (May 17, 2011)

It's strange. In Los Angeles, the CBD is lively even at night. I would never think that in such urban heavens such as Europe, the CBD would be dead after work hours. 

Anyways, on the general topic of downtown revitalization, I agree completely. I can't think of a single downtown that hasn't gotten nicer over the past ten years. In Los Angeles, every single urban area has gotten significantly nicer, while the most suburban areas farthest away from the historic centers are the places that have declined over the past years. It's a trend I love, and hope continues.


----------



## jabroni (Mar 24, 2011)

> But areas with open areas (*midtown NY*; Bunker Hill and Century City in LA) have the potential to develop a comforable mix of high-rise and people-oriented in-fill.


 :lol:


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Illithid Dude said:


> Anyways, on the general topic of downtown revitalization, I agree completely. I can't think of a single downtown that hasn't gotten nicer over the past ten years. In Los Angeles, every single urban area has gotten significantly nicer, while the most suburban areas farthest away from the historic centers are the places that have declined over the past years. It's a trend I love, and hope continues.


Market forces will impede that disaster, alone.


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

jabroni said:


> :lol:


I know what you mean. But one of the trends of the last 30 years has been for the large plazas around buildings in Rockefeller Center, along Park and many other places to get filled-in with kiosks, cafes, additional greenery, statues, installations and food trucks, and for new buildings to add groundfloor retail rather than just lobbys. All part of an effort to add mulitple uses to the area.


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ Food trucks do not belong in heavily urbanized areas.

As for lobbies, I'd rather have them as lobbies, because all the grandiose of a 10m, 15m high lobby in a nice building, creating that "awe" sensation when you enters it, disappears when there is only a small entrance surrounded by retail.


----------



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

Sorry if tenant desires and developer economics don't agree with you. 

Retail is often required as a percentage of street frontage. But it's also most developers' desire to maximize leasable space and minimize public space. Grand lobbies can enhance the $/sf for the rest of the building, but so can easy lunch options.

In fact, buildings originally built with grand lobbies and plazas are sometimes retrofitted with retail. One reason is economics. Another is sometimes to reduce wind (in the case of plazas). Another is that a lot of people don't like big empty spaces, and tenants don't value them in lease negotiations.


----------



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Suburbanist said:


> Market forces will impede that disaster, alone.


I know you don't like that trend but it is to a considerable extend caused by market forces, not impeded. There has simply been a severe shortage of offers of really urban neighborhoods in most parts of the US. This shortage is now being addressed.

Seems you don't agree with the market forces. What are you gonna do?


----------



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Slartibartfas said:


> I know you don't like that trend but it is to a considerable extend caused by market forces, not impeded. There has simply been a severe shortage of offers of really urban neighborhoods in most parts of the US. This shortage is now being addressed.
> 
> Seems you don't agree with the market forces. What are you gonna do?


Non-centralized areas have the advantage of being much more easy to set up than "cohesive" downtown. Thus, they will survive, though it might be the case some will become more of poor and crime ridden. But even so, it is a bit easier to impose draconian zero-tolerance polices in lower density areas than in more dense ones. Take the case of recent development in London: had those youth thugs had to walk 10 miles to vandalize x number of store fronts instead of 2 miles, they'd get tired, and it is also easier for police to disperse crowds, evict drug dealers, restrict the ability of gangs to have territorial control on lower density areas etc. (much more easier to "control" a housing project than a whole neighborhood).


----------



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

...Add crime prevention to the list of things you don't understand. 

A mix of uses and higher densities is typically helpful for crime prevension, primarily because law-abiding people are generally around, and can see what you're doing. 

Single-use districts, particularly if they're housing-only or school-only, allow teenagers to run rampant, often controlled only by security people and the few other adults present.


----------



## pesto (Jun 29, 2009)

Suburbanist said:


> Non-centralized areas have the advantage of being much more easy to set up than "cohesive" downtown. Thus, they will survive, though it might be the case some will become more of poor and crime ridden. But even so, it is a bit easier to impose draconian zero-tolerance polices in lower density areas than in more dense ones. Take the case of recent development in London: had those youth thugs had to walk 10 miles to vandalize x number of store fronts instead of 2 miles, they'd get tired, and it is also easier for police to disperse crowds, evict drug dealers, restrict the ability of gangs to have territorial control on lower density areas etc. (much more easier to "control" a housing project than a whole neighborhood).


Interesting strategic points, but a bit paranoid. Sounds a bit like Haussmann and other planners of the 19th century ("make the streets broad and straight so we can fire the cannons at the demonstrators"). 

In any event, I agree that large lobbies and open space can be made to be quite impressive. There has been lobby in-fill on Lex, Madison and others that took fairly nice lobbies and turned them into phone stores and coffee places. But I haven't seen any of the great lobbies destroyed. I suspect they are protected in NYC.

But all too often modernist plazas and lobbies are just bland and empty. I would hope that the places that are filling in will keep the good and improve the bad with places to sit and socialize during breaks from work, shopping or whatever, color, installations of art, etc.


----------



## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

City, by William H. Whyte, has good analysis about why some plazas work and others don't. The big empty ones tend not to be used much. From my own experience, they're also not fun to walk through twice a day, particularly when the weather isn't ideal.


----------



## Rev Stickleback (Jun 23, 2009)

mhays said:


> City, by William H. Whyte, has good analysis about why some plazas work and others don't. The big empty ones tend not to be used much. From my own experience, they're also not fun to walk through twice a day, particularly when the weather isn't ideal.


I think a plaza needs a reason to linger. Cafes and bars, for example, create a place people wany to stay in. Without them, it just becomes an expanse between where you are and where you want to be.


----------

