Some Downtowns Need Extra Love These Days. Here’s How to Bring Them Back.

Some Downtowns Need Extra Love These Days. Here’s How to Bring Them Back.

We love downtowns. At their best they can be electrifying in wonderful ways.

But in the last 30 years, Brookings notes, downtowns have undergone several twists and turns.

That leaves city builders with a tremendous opportunity to reinvent city cores in a way that helps them thrive and creates space for all residents.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to saving downtowns, but incorporating diversity of use and user is one theme suggested by a spectrum of experts.

“A lot of where the solution’s going to lie is in increasing housing choice, increasing different kinds of uses of commercial buildings, increasing densities that provide a bunch of alternatives, and that's going to affect where people reside, how they shop, and where they work,” explains Mary Rowe, President and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, in a recent episode of the CityAge podcast.

That can look like creative placemaking that is meaningful for residents and offers them a place to play together.

Or, attracting anchor institutions that continuously bring people to these areas, especially anchors that are committed to hiring locally and supporting the local economy.

Green infrastructure also has a role to play. Kansas City, Mo.’s plan to build a park on top of Highway 670 does quadruple duty. The park will reduce air pollution and noise, and create a gathering space. It’ll also reconnect a part of the city that has been cut off from opportunities for years because of the highway system.

And high-quality public transit is a must. “You have to know your history so that when you are recreating the future, the downtown specifically, you are making conscious choices around better transit, more livable spaces, certainly a variety of different kinds of jobs in the downtown, providing the classic 15-minute, 18-hour cities. People need to feel that they can accommodate most of their needs without necessarily getting into a car,” says Kofi Bonner, CEO of Bedrock Detroit, in last month’s Season 3 debut episode of the CityAge podcast.

This is just a taste of what’s possible, but the potential for reimagining downtowns is really exciting. We can’t wait to see where you take it.

Want to learn more about building great downtowns? Check out our CityAge Vancouver: Urban Zero event on February 6, where one of the themes is achieving urban density and affordability in fast-growing urban regions while also lowering carbon emissions.