The number of people working in downtown Portland dropped from more than 103,000 in mid-2019 to 13,000 in mid-2020, according to a State of the Economy report recently published by the Portland Business Alliance. The report doesn’t actually show numbers, but the chart below, which I took from the report, can be used to make pretty close estimates.
This chart is taken from page 3 of Portland Business Alliance’s State of the Economy report. Click image for a larger view.
By the end of 2021, the downtown area had recovered to about 34,000 workers, still less than a third of pre-pandemic numbers. The pandemic may not be the only factor depressing downtown employment: Black Lives Matter protests that began in May 2020 resulted in “numerous instances of arson, looting, vandalism, and injuries,” many of which affected downtown businesses and will probably continue to do so well into the future.
The Portland Business Alliance also recently published a downtown business survey that reports, among other things, how people get to work. The 2018 survey found that half of downtown employees got to work on transit, either bus, light rail, or streetcar, while 38 percent drove and 12 percent walked or bicycled. In 2020, the share taking transit fell to 30 percent, and it only gained 2 percent in 2021 while shares of all other modes increased.
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In numbers, about 51,000 took transit to work in 2018, falling to 4,000 in 2020 and 11,000 in 2021. Driving (including carpooling) went from 39,000 to 5,000 in 2020 and 14,000 in 2021. Walking and cycling did best of all, going from 12,000 in 2018 to 3,000 in 2020 and 8,000 in 2021. In addition, about 800 people took Uber, Lyft, or scooters to work in 2020, increasing to 1,700 in 2021.
There are two reasons why transit declined more than other modes. First, the high-income people who work downtown are more likely to be able to work at home than the lower-income people who tend to work in other parts of the city. Second, the 70 percent drop in jobs from 2018 to the end of 2021 means a lot less congestion, so many people who once rode transit to avoid congestion are driving instead.
But the big news is simply the smaller number of downtown jobs. There are nearly 70,000 fewer people working downtown than before the pandemic, and more than 40,000 of them are no longer taking transit to work. As I noted last week, I don’t see this as a tragedy, but merely a continuation of long-term trends. Portland would have gotten there eventually anyway, and the sooner people recognize it the sooner we can stop wasting money trying to turn Portland back into a nineteenth-century city.
It’s not just “Work from Home” it’s also Work distributed. A company with 1000 employees in ONE single building with a populace divided across a geographic area of 200-500 square miles.
Where as a network of satellite offices is far cheaper. Smaller buildings, away from Downtowns and expensive square footage rents. If you can work from home you can also connect by home in “Home office” setups of 5-10 employees.
Downtown is an invention of zoning and car centric urban planning. Downtown is living in the suburbs and driving to the center for office work. This is the result of separation of uses through zoning. Urbanists want to decentralize commercial activity with mixed-use zoning. Urbanists want to end the concept of downtown. NYC does not have a downtown, Rome does not have a downtown, Paris does not have a downtown, Tokyo does not have a downtown, Berlin does not have a downtown. Only car centric North American cities like Portland have downtowns.
the term “downtown” was coined in New York City, where it was in use by the 1830s, 70 years before the first Model T Ford, 50 years before the first Streetcar suburbs and 40 years before America’s first Asphalt paved road.
European cities don’t have “Downtowns” but they have Central business districts;
– Paris’ “LA Defense”, only place with highrises.
– In Germany, the terms Innenstadt and Stadtzentrum may be used of which Berlin has 3 such zones.
To quote Redd Foremann “Dumbass”
The downtown coined in 1830 NYC is not the same downtown that you find in a typical American city like Portland today. The downtown of 1830 NYC was comparable to inner cities in Paris and Berlin. This downtown serves as a cultural and commercial heart of a city. The modern downtown goes beyond that. Unlike the old downtown, the modern downtown has the purpose to separate commercial and residential uses of a city. This modern downtown is the result of car centric urban planning and zoning. Living in the suburb and driving downtown to work is the opposite of what urbanists want. Urbanists want a downtown of mixed-use and thus short distances. And they want to dissolve this strict separation between downtown and the rest of the city by allowing mixed-uses across the entire city. Then you have a Paris, Berlin and NYC and not a Portland, Austin and Charlotte.
UTISOC is generally correct about European cities. While there a few cases where central office districts in larger cities such as Frankfurt au Main resemble U.S. CBDs, this is definitely not the case in smaller European cities.
A few examples from European trip last September and August. Where I first landed in Barcelona, it is clear the central area covers several square miles, with something like 30%-40% of regional jobs and a large percentage of area residents. The smaller French city of Perpignan about 120 miles north (<200,000 urban population), is centered on a large medieval core area 2+ km from the main station, along with extensive office, retail and residential areas around the main station and on the route to the city core. Also a large university integrated into central Perpignan.
Similarly, it is 2+ km from the main Dresden train station to the Dresdener Dom (cathedral) area along the Elbe River. Virtually the entire area between the Hbf (main station) and the Dom is 100% postwar, thanks to the “urban renewal” (sic) resulting from the partnership of Brit “Bomber Harris” and his U.S. collaborators in the U.S. 8th Air Force.
In Heidelberg, Germany, (<300,000 in an urban region of 2 million+) the central business, retail and residential core runs 3+ km from the Hbf to City Hall in the old town, overlooked by Heidelberg Castle. Od Town is also the main tourist area.
Most U.S. CBDs in our larger cities have their roots in tha late 19th Century after introduction of streetcars and subways in a few places. It is incorrect to claim European central areas developed in the same manner, since European cities developed over centuries, compared to U. S. cities which developed mainly since the late 19th Century.
Right here is an example. Central Minneapolis has a population of just 56 thousand. The entire metropolitan area has a population of 3.7 million. This means less than 2% of the metropolitan population lives downtown. The metropolitan area of Berlin has a population of 4.7 million and Berlin and 1.1 million people are living within the Berlin loop. This are 24% of the population. There is a drastic difference between “downtowns” in Europe and downtowns in North America. Downtowns in NA are places where white collar jobs are concentrated, while “downtowns” in Europe serve as urban core that is heavily populated. The concept of an urban core primarily for commercial and cultural activity like in NA is alien to Europeans.
Not sure what the chart shows.
The teal lines are Seatltle? Brown Portland?
What is the solid line vs dashs?
Thanks.
While American downtowns are a uniqueish, no one should be so simplistic as to ( incorrectly ) claim that there is no downtown Paris.
This is downtown Paris.
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/downtown-paris
Here’s downtown Frankfurt
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/frankfurt-am-main-iron-steg-and-skyline-germany-gm1130726380-299142798
And the photos are supposed to prove what? Skyscrapers = downtown? I don’t think so. The concept of a downtown in modern America is a place where all the office spaces are concentrated. Such a place does not exist in Europe.
There is much, much more to central Paris than La Defense, and to central Frankfurt besides its high-rise district. You can tell a lot more about a place if you actually visited it.
Not sure what the chart shows.
The teal lines are Seatltle? Brown Portland?
What is the solid line vs dashs?
Thanks.
“The pandemic may not be the only factor depressing downtown employment: Black Lives Matter protests that began in May 2020 resulted in ‘numerous instances of arson, looting, vandalism, and injuries,’ many of which affected downtown businesses and will probably continue to do so well into the future.”
No shit, Sherlock. Why would any self-respecting, tax-paying business remain in a third-world dystopian nightmare called Portlandia after the city government surrendered to the mob? It is amazing that and commercial activity remains at all.
Huh? New York City absolutely has a downtown. It’s called Midtown Manhattan. As for Tokyo, it has a downtown too.
Contrary to your belief, downtowns in US cities are not the product of zoning. In fact, most of them emerged prior to cities exercising zoning powers. Their emergence was also not a function of auto-based transportation — again, most downtown areas predated widespread auto ownership. Large employment centers emerged mostly around rail networks, which converged on downtowns, since they were the most accessible location on the network at the time.
If anything, the adoption of widespread auto ownership undermined the historical position of downtowns, by allowing for employment to spread out to suburban subcenters and some more dispersed locations, where land was cheaper.
Urbanists are thoroughly confused on this issue, mostly because they are environmental determinists — they believe that function follows form, and cannot conceive of things being any other way, including a causal relationship running in the opposite direction.
These aren’t downtowns in the American sense. American downtowns are mostly for white collar jobs. In Europe downtowns are just normal places with mixed use like everywhere else that just have a slightly higher concentration of commercial and cultural activity. The American downtown as a white collar workplace is a thing that came into existence with suburbanization, car centric urban planning and zoning especially in the post war era. These downtowns suffer way more from remote work than their European and Japanese counterparts and cities like NYC, which have much more mixed-uses.
Here these employment density maps show what I am talking about.
NYC: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3916844/nyc.png
NYC has a much more evenly distributed employment density. Unlike other American cities like Chicago: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3916848/chicago.png
In Tokyo, which “downtown” do you refer to? The area around Shinjuku station, around Tokyo Central Station, or where? Central Tokyo has several distinct high-rise office districts, most matching or exceeding the Loop.
I can only assume you don’t consider London, or indeed anywhere in the UK, part of Europe.
London does not have a downtown in the American sense either.
If this isn’t a downtown, then nothing is
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-london-skyline-over-the-years-2017-1
Ya, downtown London
Skyscrapers do not define downtowns (in the American sense). The American downtown is defined by a high concentration of blue collar jobs. This isn’t the case in London. Blue collar jobs are all over the city in London. According to the American definition of a modern downtown almost all of London would be a downtown, which makes it a superfluous definition.
Portland went from 80% of the jobs in the central business district or down town in Portland in the 50 & 60’s, to less than 20% of the jobs in pre covid in 2019.
Autos freed people to live where they prefer and to work where they choose.
Except that white collar jobs are more concentrated in downtowns than ever before. The car and zoning has turned the center of cities into mere office spaces. It’s transit dominated cities like NYC, which have a much more evenly distributed employment and much more mixed use developments, which enables people to live nearby the places they want to go to.
How do you know how all people prefer to live and where all people prefer to work?
I said the places people want to go to.
If you look at someplace like downtown Tulsa or down Wichita, they are basically vertical office parks which die off after 5:00 pm, with little residential or retail compared to European cities of the same population. This has changed in a lot of places, but still is tiny compared to “across the pond.”
”
Contrary to your belief, downtowns in US cities are not the product of zoning. In fact, most of them emerged prior to cities exercising zoning powers. Their emergence was also not a function of auto-based transportation — again, most downtown areas predated widespread auto ownership.
” ~MJ
One of the big drivers is the US has far more wealth and they have far larger, modern white collar jobs that require office space.
For example, teh US has 3 times as many financial jobs than in the US. A big chunk of those jobs need to interact with each other – or least some think – and get squeezed into downtown locations. The US just has more of these sort of jobs + more wealth to sink into these buildings.
Wrong, most white collar jobs are the result of bureaucracy, not wealth. The real wealth is created in Asia and Europe with manufacturing.
”
Skyscrapers do not define downtowns (in the American sense). The American downtown is defined by a high concentration of blue collar jobs. This isn’t the case in London
” ~utisoc
a) The response is to your obviously false claims of “london doesn’t have a downtown”. It does. Everyone with a few brain cells can see it.
b) the concentration of jobs? Spare us the bs. You just make stuff up. Pure narcissitic trash.
Why so blunt/ Cuz the pics you see of downtown london, the city london, have 10% of the jobs in greater London. Just like downtown Minneapolis has @200K jobs and the greater Minneapolis area ( aka Twin Cities ) has about 2 million jobs.
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/supporting-businesses/economic-research/statistics-about-the-city
he most recent Business Register and Employment Survey (2020), shows that 542,000 people are employed in the City of London, representing 10% of Greater London’s employment.
(1) Skyscrapers =/= downtown
(2) The City of London makes a much bigger portion of Greater London than Minneapolis downtown. Insofar is your comparison useless.
Utisoc, just stop making stuff up. Sadly senseless.
Everyeone can see your nothing more than a decarator, decorating the world with your vapid bullshit. It’s worthless. Do the world a favor and stop.
Manufacturing, value added (% of GDP)
East Asia & Pacific: 23
Euro Area: 14
South Asia: 13
North America: 11
The US is poor in terms of manufacturing: https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/mva.per.cap?country=USA&indicator=3798&countries=JPN,DEU&viz=line_chart&years=1990,2018