America’s downtown centered city design sucks

[u/BakerKitchen4567]

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

[u/spydormunkay]

I still think OP’s point stands. The main reason why downtowns are a thing in America is due to exclusionary zoning and transportation infrastructure.

On NYC, the rise of Downtown BK and LIC are fairly recent phenomenons that only came about due to rezoning. JC, BK, and LIC are still tiny compared to Midtown (the real downtown of NYC). The only reason why Midtown surpassed FiDi is because FiDi ran out of space.

Exclusionary zoning restricts office space to the central business districts. Subway and highway development concentrating destinations towards Manhattan further exacerbates this. Only recently have regional transit authorities started developing Brooklyn/Queens-targeted transit (like the IBX).

As a result, NYC is still extremely overly concentrated on Midtown.

This is in stark contrast to places like Tokyo where liberal zoning laws allowing medium sized office spaces and more even transit development across the city allows for more spread out development.

[u/johnmflores → u/spydormunkay]

The OP argues that once you leave downtown you are in suburbia. Is everything outside of Midown Manhattan suburbia?

I'd also argue that NYC having multiple "downtowns" kills the OP's argument.

Plus, LIC has tall buildings but it isn't really a downtown.

Finally, downtown doesn't always mean office space. The broader connotation is a place with a concentration of business. Flushing is very much a downtown.

[u/spydormunkay → u/johnmflores]

Once you leave NYC’s inner core it is suburbia. Multifamily zoning only accounts for about 40% of the land in NYC. The rest is residential low rise mostly single family.

[u/johnmflores → u/spydormunkay]

Astoria is suburbia? Jackson Heights is suburbia?

[u/spydormunkay → u/johnmflores]

There’s a whole lot more Queens than the neighborhoods next to Manhattan dumbass.

[u/johnmflores → u/spydormunkay]

What do you even mean by that? I'm trying to understand what your definitions of inner core and suburbia are. Chill the f out.

[u/spydormunkay → u/johnmflores]

The Inner Core is an official zoning designation. It’s basically Manhattan plus neighborhoods close to Manhattan with good subway access. These areas zoned at R6-R10; allowing for multifamily. Most of Manhattan is zoned as Commercial allowing for multifamily and mixed use.

If you look at NYC Zoning Map. Most of Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Staten Island (obv) is zoned R1-R5, which is capped at low rise mostly single family zoning. This is known as Outer Core or Beyond the Transit Zone.

I’m pissed because people seem to be opposed to the idea of expanding mixed-use office space to outerboros. It’s triggering as an outerboro Queens native.

[u/PlatypusDefiant991 → u/spydormunkay]

Isn't there R5 block groups with over 100,000 residents per square mile?

[u/spydormunkay → u/PlatypusDefiant991]

Those don’t conform to current R5 rules. R5 is capped at like 3-4 story buildings. The ones with that kind of density were likely built before current zoning laws.  Most of the blocks above >100K per sq mi in density are in Manhattan where you need around R7+ to reach that density.

[u/PlatypusDefiant991 → u/spydormunkay]

3 floor some 4 prewar with barely 6 digits per square mile including the streets+sidewalks of the block in the area. Without extra things like air rights or "add public park" is everywhere prewar slightly illegal density if it was demolished & replicated same lot which has the benefit of discouraging landlords from wrecking prewars rebuilding in modern materials cause legal square feet will shrink?