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I spent free time visiting and exploring new cities in my 29s and 30s. Living in NYC metro in my 30s cured that urge. Is love of tall buildings and lots of things to do for the young or is it just me?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Our city of 65,000 has no downtown, just a couple of strip malls and a city hall/library. No big box stores, no tall buildings, and the “bustle” is just the commute traffic in and out, and people walking dogs in their neighborhoods on a nice evening. Most of us like it this way. We were named the safest city in WA state, and one of the best small cities in the U.S. by Wallet-hub.
I think Downtown Seattle (and it’s urban core in general) punches way above its size. Certainly for a metro area that is somewhat midsized, it’s urban center is radically impactful and growth both in jobs and towers is simply explosive.
Our city of 65,000 has no downtown, just a couple of strip malls and a city hall/library. No big box stores, no tall buildings, and the “bustle” is just the commute traffic in and out, and people walking dogs in their neighborhoods on a nice evening. Most of us like it this way. We were named the safest city in WA state, and one of the best small cities in the U.S. by Wallet-hub.
Austin has a bustling downtown with a skyline that changes and grows from year to year. With over 125,000 people working and over 15,000 people living downtown, the streets are packed with workers, shoppers, residents and tourists, during the day, and at night with residents, party-goers, tourists, and those looking for great food!
For a metro area of only just over 2 million, it arguably has the best and busiest downtown in TX, and competes with cities that are several times its size and traditionally have been known for a great CBD.
DC's downtown punches tier's beyond its weight class. It more then makes up for it's lack of "height" with an endless sea of 10-15 story mixed use/office/apartment buildings. Physically it's the 3rd largest urban core after Chicago & NYC and if you go to a any of roof top bars/pools/restaurants... you feel it. From a street level DC's roads are exponentially wide so it gives it a "broad shoulder" feeling as well and during daytime the population swell to well over 1 million people so which only amplifies the big city feeling. If the nightlife is your thing its right up there with the best of them, simple to many places to list.
Baltimore on the other hand feels like a ~600k city. The vast majority of Baltimores urban core sits on and spreads across the northern shore of the Harbor which is where you'll find 90% of the hustle and bustle of the city. Downtown proper now has well north of 10,000+ people living in it and it's only accelerating as mixed used high-rise after high-rise is built and offices move to either the suburbs and/or eventually Port Covington. The city is plenty large enough to give off the "big city" vibe but is not large enough where it feels overwhelming to a tourist. Night life wise they CBD settles down and any local will tell you go to either Federal Hill or Fells point as they are the two primary bar districts in the city.
Not at all. Murfreesboro, TN has the downtown central business district of a town around 10,000 people while the city is 15x that size. While there are blocks of in town neighborhoods, there is no major commercial district or new office space built since 1992. The city is way behind peers.
DC's downtown punches tier's beyond its weight class. It more then makes up for it's lack of "height" with an endless sea of 10-15 story mixed use/office/apartment buildings. Physically it's the 3rd largest urban core after Chicago & NYC and if you go to a any of roof top bars/pools/restaurants... you feel it. From a street level DC's roads are exponentially wide so it gives it a "broad shoulder" feeling as well and during daytime the population swell to well over 1 million people so which only amplifies the big city feeling. If the nightlife is your thing its right up there with the best of them, simple to many places to list.
Baltimore on the other hand feels like a ~600k city. The vast majority of Baltimores urban core sits on and spreads across the northern shore of the Harbor which is where you'll find 90% of the hustle and bustle of the city. Downtown proper now has well north of 10,000+ people living in it and it's only accelerating as mixed used high-rise after high-rise is built and offices move to either the suburbs and/or eventually Port Covington. The city is plenty large enough to give off the "big city" vibe but is not large enough where it feels overwhelming to a tourist. Night life wise they CBD settles down and any local will tell you go to either Federal Hill or Fells point as they are the two primary bar districts in the city.
What really helps DC is not just downtown itself, but the neighborhoods that immediately border it (Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, Shaw, Mt. Vernon Triangle, NoMa, Capitol Hill, Navy Yard, and Southwest Waterfront). All of them, with the possible exception of Mt. Vernon Triangle and NoMa, which are still works in progress, have some of the most vibrant concentrations of retail along with housing, while being close to the CBD, which itself is quite vibrant with the hotels and bars/restaurants, even along business-oriented streets like K Street.
Baltimore on the other hand, just feels more "dead" after the sunset, and in addition, doesn't quite have the vibrancy of downtown DC, with many more parking lots and garages that rob some valuable blocks of some important development, and the northwestern quadrant of downtown Baltimore remains rather sad in terms of vacancies, abandoned buildings, and of course, shady characters. Like St. Louis, since the city had undergone several decades of decline, it's not surprising that the downtown only feels "bustling looking" because of some of the historic buildings that you'll find there. Pratt Street is comparable to Market and the Inner Harbor is comparable to the area around the Arch, and the Power Plant Live! area is a bit like the Laclede's Landing area in terms of nightlife. I'd still rate it as average overall due to the tightly knit street grid and some decent adjacent neighborhoods like Harbor East, Federal Hill, Mt. Vernon, and Little Italy.
Speaking of which, I recently visited St. Louis (downtown for four nights) and Kansas City (Union Hill for two nights). I'd say that St. Louis is slightly below average with regards to an average city's downtown. St. Louis city proper is a little smaller than KC, but it has the larger metro, and it shows with big ticket attractions like Gateway Arch as well as Busch Stadium downtown. Unfortunately, except for perhaps Washington Street and the small upriver waterfront neighborhood (Laclede's Landing) just north of the Arch, the downtown is pretty much a 9-5, Monday-Friday area. Yes, the flagship Panera Bread is found there along with your typical mix of downtown eateries and even a small movie theater, but it's certainly not the place to go shopping, and the better action tends to be focused on either its neighborhoods like Delmar Loop, Central West End, Midtown, Soulard, and suburbs like Clayton and St. Charles. It only really feels somewhat justifiable to its size due to a lot of historic architecture and also that the city itself has a lot of empty, vacant neighborhoods on its north side.
Kansas City, MO on the other hand is perhaps slightly above its weight class, likely due to a better frame of neighborhoods surrounding its core downtown like the Crossroads, River Market, Crown Center, West Bottoms, and Columbus Park. The only thing that's missing are the Royals/Chiefs, but I noticed a better concentration of things like fine restaurants, boutiques, and bars as well as more mixed-used buildings and a lot fewer vacancies compared to downtown StL, not to mention that there aren't as many dominating suburbs like you see on the other end of the state, and its "hood" doesn't feel as desolate as well in terms of vacant blocks. It certainly feels closer to a downtown Minneapolis overall.
What really helps DC is not just downtown itself, but the neighborhoods that immediately border it (Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, Shaw, Mt. Vernon Triangle, NoMa, Capitol Hill, Navy Yard, and Southwest Waterfront). All of them, with the possible exception of Mt. Vernon Triangle and NoMa, which are still works in progress, have some of the most vibrant concentrations of retail along with housing, while being close to the CBD, which itself is quite vibrant with the hotels and bars/restaurants, even along business-oriented streets like K Street.
Baltimore on the other hand, just feels more "dead" after the sunset, and in addition, doesn't quite have the vibrancy of downtown DC, with many more parking lots and garages that rob some valuable blocks of some important development, and the northwestern quadrant of downtown Baltimore remains rather sad in terms of vacancies, abandoned buildings, and of course, shady characters. Like St. Louis, since the city had undergone several decades of decline, it's not surprising that the downtown only feels "bustling looking" because of some of the historic buildings that you'll find there. Pratt Street is comparable to Market and the Inner Harbor is comparable to the area around the Arch, and the Power Plant Live! area is a bit like the Laclede's Landing area in terms of nightlife. I'd still rate it as average overall due to the tightly knit street grid and some decent adjacent neighborhoods like Harbor East, Federal Hill, Mt. Vernon, and Little Italy.
Speaking of which, I recently visited St. Louis (downtown for four nights) and Kansas City (Union Hill for two nights). I'd say that St. Louis is slightly below average with regards to an average city's downtown. St. Louis city proper is a little smaller than KC, but it has the larger metro, and it shows with big ticket attractions like Gateway Arch as well as Busch Stadium downtown. Unfortunately, except for perhaps Washington Street and the small upriver waterfront neighborhood (Laclede's Landing) just north of the Arch, the downtown is pretty much a 9-5, Monday-Friday area. Yes, the flagship Panera Bread is found there along with your typical mix of downtown eateries and even a small movie theater, but it's certainly not the place to go shopping, and the better action tends to be focused on either its neighborhoods like Delmar Loop, Central West End, Midtown, Soulard, and suburbs like Clayton and St. Charles. It only really feels somewhat justifiable to its size due to a lot of historic architecture and also that the city itself has a lot of empty, vacant neighborhoods on its north side.
Kansas City, MO on the other hand is perhaps slightly above its weight class, likely due to a better frame of neighborhoods surrounding its core downtown like the Crossroads, River Market, Crown Center, West Bottoms, and Columbus Park. The only thing that's missing are the Royals/Chiefs, but I noticed a better concentration of things like fine restaurants, boutiques, and bars as well as more mixed-used buildings and a lot fewer vacancies compared to downtown StL, not to mention that there aren't as many dominating suburbs like you see on the other end of the state, and its "hood" doesn't feel as desolate as well in terms of vacant blocks. It certainly feels closer to a downtown Minneapolis overall.
This seems pretty accurate. Here are some things in reverse order:
KC: Country Club Plaza, and the areas near it to the north, are vibrant, attractive (both architecturally and high-end shopping-wise), dense (lots of mid and high-rise apts dotting the area) and interesting. Few cities have anything quite like it... Downtown looks nice but, my understanding is, it's kind of tired. The Truman sports complex was a bastard child of the freeway 1970s and really robs downtown/inner core KC of a lot of vibrancy. I wouldn't be surprised if the Royals relocate downtown to a retro baseball park within the next 5-10 years.
Dead on re St. Louis. I really enjoyed it my first visit last summer, but was only there a weekend and only visited downtown, Delmar Loop and CWE, the latter 2 of which really impressed... Downtown has loads of potential but seemed dead aside from the Arch area and a few interesting nodes along Washington St. Saturday night, there's apparently a concert stage in a warehouse-y area just west of Busch Stadium that was buzzing along with a few nearby bars. But that was pretty much it...
Baltimore has a slew of issues these days, but it's far from dead, in part because of its Northeast Corridor location as well as its historic, dense rowhouses and other cool old architecture which will always keep it interesting to a degree. Like a lot of big cities, most of them really, B-More has a bunch of nodes. In addition to those you listed, the old rowhouse-y Canton neighborhood, just east of Fells Point, is really hot right now.
But Harborplace is struggling for a host of reasons and the racial separation/tension is real and hurting things. Frankly, not-unlike the recent move on a similar venue in Jacksonville, I expect Haborplace to be demolished and replaced within the next few years. It had a great run but was born in an era where cutesie indoor malls were the thing. Its a touristy place that really has little reflection on all that makes Baltimore unique and interesting. Harborplace will likely be replaced by the more recent trend of what has been successfully built down the road at East Harbor and what's in its infancy in Cleveland: the Flats (esp East Bank) with mixed use venues of apts and hotels over retail along a boardwalk with some free standing restaurants and clubs mixed in. As with Cleveland's Flats, Baltimore Harbor has the water and the boats, which will always keep it unique and interesting, so if/when Harborplace meets the wrecking ball, its replacement has every reason to succeed.
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