Dead Cities

[Kerry]

Just want to create a new thread to keep the dead city talk off of the NBA thread.

BDP, Announcing San Fran as dead might have been a little over the top but proposing some new sky scrapers doesn't change the fact that there aren't any children in the city to replace those that move out or die. Only 35% of San fran residents are from San Fran and with the average home price over $700K it will be hard for them to keep people relocating to the city. They already have a negative growth rate and it will probably get worse. Take away the Asia influx over the last 20 years and San Fran would be a ghost town. The building you cited on the other thread is only proposed and with the downturn in the housing market I bet it never gets built.

San Fran does have 1 thing going for it that Seattle doesn't. San Fran has funding from the rest of California. That is why they can afford to rebuild the Oakland Bay bridge and Seattle can't add an extra lane to one. I really believe San Fran has seen their best days.

[Karried]

I remember hearing from someone in the Bay Area regarding this very thing. I was saying, 'I'm so bummed I sold when I did' ( price had appreciated pretty quickly right afterwards) and they said to me... 'in some ways, it's a terrible thing, my kids won't ever be able to buy a house near me when they grow up. More than likely we won't have a close family unit because they will be forced to move away to buy a home. I won't be able to buy it for them or even help them, because I can't afford to'.

That sort of put it into perspective for me.

[HOT ROD]

Kerry (and Karried), I agree.

I think BDP is confusing your/our saying SF is dead thinking we mean it from a young adult POV. From my prospective, that is not what Im saying.. SF is the biggest urban center on the west coast, outside of LA and Vancouver; and certainly SF has the biggest downtown retail on the west coast period (although I think downtown Vancouver might be bigger also).

But I think what we are trying to say is that SF is dead because it is priced out of the range for families/young people to 'grow up' there. The pending construction is for office, retail, and top condo markets - none for the average joe and his wife and kid.

sure, going downtown SF is an urban HIP paradise - especially from a shopping point of view, but you NEVER see little girls with their mom and dad unless they come from the suburbs and usually they only go to chinatown.

While this may not be dead in the sense of saying dt SF is folding shop, it shows that SF is not a live/work/play city (the first being missing for most people). DT OKC on the other hand, not as big or as an attraction as SF but it is alive because people are beginning to live in OKC's dt. OKC has the work and play, so with housing coming on and families coming in; DT OKC is becoming a live/work/play center - they are even considering new elementary and high schools for downtown OKC; same can't be said for DT SF or DT SEA for that matter.

From BDP's reference tho, I do have to agree that DT OKC needs to catch up with the top urban retail and attractions that exist in DT SF and even DT SEA. In this regard, DT OKC does seem dead by comparison - so I think we need a balance; live/work/play with top attractions!!!

[solitude]

San Francisco is the NYC of the west coast. There's nothing wrong with people having to go into the city to shop and not live there, because there's above-average mass transit. Manhattan is not "dead" but you don't see a lot of little girls under their mother's arms there either. But they do come in from Long Island, Brooklyn, etc. In SF, they come in from Mill Valley from the north, Walnut Creek from the east, Palo Alto from the south and all points in between.

[HOT ROD]

I agree that SF is the NY of the west, BUT

little girls in mommie's arms live in Manhattan. Most people in Brooklyn and LI tend to stay there except for big events/shopping. Most of those families you see in Manhattan actually live there (esp if they are walking/taking cabs). Most suburban families dont take the subway in NYC (or SF for that matter) to downtown and therefore will drive.

[Kerry]

Hot-rod you are correct in your take on "dead city". Manhatten is just one part of NYC. There are plenty of children residing within the city limits of NYC. These children will provde the next level of entry-level workers as they make their way up the employment ladder. SF doesn't have this. Sure everyone in SF loves to go to Pier 39 but when the current wave of entry level restaurant workers dries up where is the next group going to come from (illegals maybe)?

[PennyQuilts]

What makes NYC so different from other cities is that families actually live there.

[metro]

I thought this thread was about the Dead Cities clothing line which is based out of OKC by one of my friends. The line used to be known as Pollution Clothing.

Dead Cities Clothing

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

I thought this thread was about the Dead Cities clothing line which is based out of OKC by one of my friends. The line used to be known as Pollution Clothing.

Dead Cities Clothing

That's okay, don't feel bad. I thought it was about the impending zombie apocalypse.

[CCOKC]

When I think of dead cities I think of Detroit. I brought someone from Detroit to downtown in July and he was just amazed that we would go to dinner in downtown. And we were at Trattoria, not exactly the hopping part of downtown.
Numerous people I have talked to from Detroit have confirmed this. Also, Detroit was named the country's most dangerous city yesterday. I have never been to Detroit but I don't want to go. On the other hand, I visited SF in June and had a great time. I would not call this a dead town.

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

I saw my very first "dead man on the sidewalk" in Detroit. I was 14. I've not been back.

[mburlison]

Agreed about Detroit. As for Manhatten, I love going to visit there... but if I was "living" in New York and was out on Long Island, it'd be rare if I "drove" to Manhattan w/ the LIRR so handy. Not saying it's not done, just when I'm out at Garden City or Hicksville, seems like most of the people use the train. LOL, first time I went through Jamaica Queens station, wow, that's "interesting".

[dismayed]

You really can't call SF or LA dead cities on any level. Real estate is pricey in those areas for a reason, the demand supports it. Migration patterns show that enough people are still moving that way to create demand... since people are moving that way I don't see how they could be called dead in any sense.

The no little girls in San Fran thing... I noticed that too when I was last there. I also noticed downtown SF had a humongous gay population. Perhaps there is some relation there.

[metro]

dismayed are you saying gay San Franciscoans can't consumate a baby?

on a more serious note, I was there about 2 months ago and by all means it is not a dead city, I wish downtown OKC was a third of what downtown SF is.

[PennyQuilts]

I'd like a definition of "dead." Is that to say it is slow paced, lacks children, lacks growth?

I would say a lack of children might constitute a "dying" city except that places like San Francisco don't really need children to be alive. That's because so many of its inhabitants transfer in and will continue to do so in the future. In other places when you don't have a lot of people transferring in, the lack of children suggests it is dying or at least in ill health.

[CuatrodeMayo]

No...I'm sure San Franciscoans can eat a baby just fine

...as long as it is baby cows.

[brianinok]

I think a lot of the old "Rust Belt" cities are either dead or at risk of being dead. Detroit is an example. So is Buffalo. Some others at risk (though some are doing somewhat okay) are Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron, and Dayton. I am sure there are others. Their economy is heavily based on manufacturing while the US is increasingly a service-oriented economy. If they don't work very hard at changing they will die.

[Kerry]

The term "dead city" took a detour from what I originally meant. In looking at Seattle, they can no longer fund basic transportation and infrastructure to keep the city growing. They have dedicated so much of their resources to social projects there simply is not any money left to fund new roads or bridges.

The Highway 520 bridge is going to coast over $4 billion to rebuild. There is no way Washington State or Seattle is going to raise that kind of money. There was another transit plan they just voted down that would have spent somewhere around $4 billion on other transportation projects. I see Seattle being like a clogged artery. If enough traffic can't get through then the downtown area of Seattle will slowly die.

[BDP]

Here's a picture of a tower that is being completed in SF. It's in the area that a lot of new construction, mainly live/work/play buildings, has been taking place and is close to the development I mentioned in the thread that spawned this one. You can see some of the new buildings (last 10 years or so) in this pic as well. I hope we don't have to wait for OKC to die to get this kind of development, too.



Interesting article on the elevators of this building if you're interested:

Elevators with brains / Computerized control system figures out people's patterns, decides where to put cars

The article mentions that this company is working on a dozen elevator projects in the city and that this is the first of two towers being built.