Comment 42743

By Miket (anonymous) | Posted July 05, 2010 at 02:00:44

Dense downtowns were a devlopment required by business needing to be in close proximity to one another. Prior to the telegraph and then the telephone much business needed to be conducted in person. This need led to a concentration or the Central Business District in cities prior to the depression. Busness (industrial, office and service) all needed to be near one another to ensure their access to the markets and skills they required. The need for close location led to the development of the skyscraper and the multistory factory enabling more people to be in close contact as this was required at the time. Even the main transportation network of the time rail led to this concentration due to the nature of its movement and the need to move goods was too great to rely on the inadequate road transportation of the day. The downtown retail environments (multi story department stores) were also an outgrowth of similar factors and demographic changes that were occuring in the early 20th century.

Unfortunately Hamilton let its dense core go and our planning with a bias to easy vehicle access and distributed shopping, etc. will not bring it back. The end result of our planning style can easily be seen in many of the Rust Belt cities such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, etc. We have many unique problems - some solvable some not problems that Portland does not have including; location to Toronto, our Rust Belt / Heavy Industry image, laws and the OMB, an aging demographic, etc. Pittsburgh may be a better model for revitalizing an Industrial city.

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