Report Labels Lower Manhattan Model for American Downtowns

The model for downtown renewal across America? Lower Manhattan, according to the author of a Brookings study released this November, “Who Lives Downtown.”“It’s New York. Absolutely. It has been happening in New York since 1960, and it’s so far ahead of the crowd,” Eugenie Birch told The New York Sun.Ms. Birch, a University of Pennsylvania professor of city and regional planning, traveled to each of the 44 downtown areas cited in her report, from Chicago and Los Angeles to Des Moines, Iowa; Shreveport, La., and Mesa, Ariz.Studying census data and analyzing demographic trends, the report said that downtown living is generally on the rise across the country, with a rise in homeownership, racial and ethnic diversity, and level of education in those areas.Ms. Birch said that development in Lower Manhattan benefited from smart public policy decisions and a unique partnership between the public and private sectors. She cited tax abatements that began in the 1990s as leading to the conversion of office space to residential housing. Ms. Birch said that this policy had the dual effect of lowering the commercial vacancy rate and raising residential consumption, particularly among younger, working couples.“It takes a long time to convert from one use to another. The downtown story is one of a place that has successfully done that. It has taken three or four decades for that to happen, but it is a lesson for other cities to learn from,” Ms. Birch said.She also said that investments in infrastructure – building schools, and improving security and sanitation – helped revitalization.“It doesn’t happen naturally. It happens through a conscious effort,” Ms. Birch said. “Once it gets started, once developers have seen a market, they get involved.”Ms. Birch said that the lack of development at ground zero was relatively isolated from the rest of Lower Manhattan. The professor said that the residential consumption rate since September 11, 2001, has been “nothing short of miraculous.”Still, she said, relative to other downtown areas, the center of Lower Manhattan lacked open space, with dark, narrow streets, and suffered from being farther away from the city’s major cultural attractions.Lower Manhattan and Midtown were counted separately in the report. Ms. Birch said that while most of the new housing in Lower Manhattan is converted office space – the kind of conditions many American downtowns will likely face – most of the new housing in Midtown came from new construction. Because Lower Manhattan includes Chinatown and Battery Park City, where she said many families live, its composition was more diverse than other downtown areas, including Midtown.“Midtown is more like the rest of the nation. The young single person, childless couples, empty-nesters, and all highly educated. It’s more diverse than suburbs, less diverse than the city,” she said.The report’s national findings included:* During the 1990s, downtown populations grew by 10%, a rebound following 20 years of overall decline.* Downtown homeownership rates more than doubled from 1970 to 2000.* Downtowns are more racially and ethnically diverse than 20 years ago.* In general, downtowns boast a higher percentage of both young adults and college-educated residents than the nation’s cities and suburbs.* The composition of downtown households has changed to include a greater percentage of single people, unrelated couples living together, and childless married couples.

Report Labels Lower Manhattan Model for American Downtowns

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