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Is it possible that the "urban renewal" just didn't hit already-popular and not-in-need-of-renewal cities like Manhattan? My city was almost completely dead as

Is it possible that the "urban renewal" just didn't hit already-popular and not-in-need-of-renewal cities like Manhattan? My city was almost completely dead as recently as the 90s. Very high crime, lots of abandoned buildings, no businesses in the city center, only poor people lived downtown. Today there is a brewery on every corner, food trucks parked outside every day, live music almost every night of the week, and tons of people who don't own cars making it because downtown is an amazing place to be. And you talk about Detroit: Detroit was one of the biggest benefactors of the urban renewal. Sure it's not back to its pre-1968 glory days, but downtown is a safe and entertaining place to be, plenty of young people hang out, Woodward Ave in particular is hopping pretty much every night of the week. It went from being the place you warned your kids about to being the place you take your kids for a weekend while you watch a baseball game. It's easy to look at Manhattan and say "so much for urban renewal", but look at smaller cities in the Rust Belt. Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St Louis. All cities that just 20 years ago were a death trap if you were there after dark, and certainly not a place you want to live. Now it's hard to tell their downtown cores were ever abandoned in the first place.

dboreham 9y ago
Heck, add San Jose to that list.
- ghaff 9y ago
  I was at an event at the San Jose Convention Center for the first time in ages fairly recently. San Jose has gained its share of trendy restaurants, etc. But I was surprised the degree to which much of the downtown core is still relatively squalid.
  - nradov 9y ago
    Some parts of downtown SJ are fairly nice now but once you get past the light rail tracks around 1st St it gets pretty sketchy, especially after business hours.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    You should have see it in 1989.
ghaff 9y ago
A lot of the urban renewal I see is very concentrated. I recently was talking about this in a different context. A lot of Northeast port and manufacturing towns have indeed reinvigorated an area with nice condos, restaurants, chichi shops, cafes, etc. But, in many cases, it's an area you can walk across in 5 to 10 minutes and most of the area beyond is still rundown.
- freehunter 9y ago
  It's a work in progress, unlike what the article says. In my city, we revitalized downtown, then the east side of town, now they're working on the northwest side of town. As the city becomes more popular, more businesses and people want to move in but now property values are higher and vacant buildings are less common, so you have to move further from the city center. It starts at the center and works its way outward. Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day.
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
>> Detroit was one of the biggest benefactors of the urban renewal... according to the stats- population wise they went from ~1 mil in 2009 to under 700k in 2016. there are a couple of decent 1x1 mile enclaves there - midtown, greektown and nearby sports arenas other than that it sucks. >> Cleveland much nicer than it used to be overall but plenty of areas where you have to watch your back. also, while not as drastic as Detroit, population figures are declining as well. Milwaukee is marginally better than it used to be but barely a poster child for "urban renewal".
- freehunter 9y ago
  Why do so many people hear "urban renewal" and think it has to impact 100% of every city equally at the same time? That's like judging a town of 500,000 people saying "yeah but NYC is so much more massive, so your town is useless because the population isn't as big". Can we not just agree that Detroit (et al) are better off than they were 20 years ago and that this is a good thing overall? You can nitpick "yeah but it's still not the greatest city in the world" all you want, but you might find that no one else gives a fuck about your definition. Progress is progress no matter how you want to redefine it. >much nicer than it used to be That's quite literally all I'm saying. That's the very definition of "urban renewal". Better than it used to be.
  - ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
    >> Progress is progress no matter how you want to redefine it. but them numbers don't lie either :) if some city has it's population go down by 30% I don't think this qualifies as "renewal" even if a couple of areas has gotten better within that same timeframe. gentrification - as in very targeted/high density (in some cases literally a few blocks type deal) move of young-ish professionals into formerly dilapidated areas - it does exist no doubt and in some (very few) cases - like LES in Manhattan - can be a pre-cursor to a more global "renewal". But these types of cases are few and far in between. I guess my point is there hasn't been a significant urban renewal to speak of lately, the kind that can be "over" because it has to kick in first before that can happen.

dboreham 9y ago

Heck, add San Jose to that list.

ghaff 9y ago
I was at an event at the San Jose Convention Center for the first time in ages fairly recently. San Jose has gained its share of trendy restaurants, etc. But I was surprised the degree to which much of the downtown core is still relatively squalid.
- nradov 9y ago
  Some parts of downtown SJ are fairly nice now but once you get past the light rail tracks around 1st St it gets pretty sketchy, especially after business hours.
- dboreham 9y ago
  You should have see it in 1989.

ghaff 9y ago

A lot of the urban renewal I see is very concentrated. I recently was talking about this in a different context. A lot of Northeast port and manufacturing towns have indeed reinvigorated an area with nice condos, restaurants, chichi shops, cafes, etc. But, in many cases, it's an area you can walk across in 5 to 10 minutes and most of the area beyond is still rundown.

freehunter 9y ago
It's a work in progress, unlike what the article says. In my city, we revitalized downtown, then the east side of town, now they're working on the northwest side of town. As the city becomes more popular, more businesses and people want to move in but now property values are higher and vacant buildings are less common, so you have to move further from the city center. It starts at the center and works its way outward. Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day.

ChemicalWarfare 9y ago

>> Detroit was one of the biggest benefactors of the urban renewal... according to the stats- population wise they went from ~1 mil in 2009 to under 700k in 2016. there are a couple of decent 1x1 mile enclaves there - midtown, greektown and nearby sports arenas other than that it sucks. >> Cleveland much nicer than it used to be overall but plenty of areas where you have to watch your back. also, while not as drastic as Detroit, population figures are declining as well. Milwaukee is marginally better than it used to be but barely a poster child for "urban renewal".

freehunter 9y ago
Why do so many people hear "urban renewal" and think it has to impact 100% of every city equally at the same time? That's like judging a town of 500,000 people saying "yeah but NYC is so much more massive, so your town is useless because the population isn't as big". Can we not just agree that Detroit (et al) are better off than they were 20 years ago and that this is a good thing overall? You can nitpick "yeah but it's still not the greatest city in the world" all you want, but you might find that no one else gives a fuck about your definition. Progress is progress no matter how you want to redefine it. >much nicer than it used to be That's quite literally all I'm saying. That's the very definition of "urban renewal". Better than it used to be.
- ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
  >> Progress is progress no matter how you want to redefine it. but them numbers don't lie either :) if some city has it's population go down by 30% I don't think this qualifies as "renewal" even if a couple of areas has gotten better within that same timeframe. gentrification - as in very targeted/high density (in some cases literally a few blocks type deal) move of young-ish professionals into formerly dilapidated areas - it does exist no doubt and in some (very few) cases - like LES in Manhattan - can be a pre-cursor to a more global "renewal". But these types of cases are few and far in between. I guess my point is there hasn't been a significant urban renewal to speak of lately, the kind that can be "over" because it has to kick in first before that can happen.