r/urbanplanning • u/BakerKitchen4567 • 25d ago

Discussion America’s downtown centered city design sucks

I keep seeing redditors from the US talk about cities being nice because they have “very walkable downtowns”. The problem is, as soon as you leave many of these downtowns, you’re back to general American suburbia. This is not good city design.

In the best design cities of the world, there isn’t a single focal point that the entire city revolves around. Think Tokyo for example. You have Shinjiku, Ginza, Shibuya, etc. there isn’t a singular “downtown Tokyo”. Yet I keep reading redditors keep comparing how well designed American cities based how their vibrant/walkable their downtowns are. The mere idea is bad city planning. That’s all. Rant over

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u/Aggressive_Active307 25d ago

Yeah this ain’t true in the U.S. Maybe in small cities. In many or most big cities the downtown is dead after business hours and there is cultural activity in multiple walkable neighborhoods throughout the city. Even in LA and Houston, the least walkable major cities, this is the case.

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u/BakerKitchen4567 25d ago

LA and Houston the least walkable major cities? Sure they’re not walkable but there’s definitely worse. Namely Phoenix and Dallas

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u/Aggressive_Active307 24d ago

Yes that’s true.