Making the case for city downtowns

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A recent report from Gensler presents a vision for downtowns:

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Downtowns are citywide reputation engines. They anchor the tax base, centralize economic growth, and can determine whether a city feels dynamic or stagnant. Our research suggests that improving downtown experience is one of the most effective levers for strengthening a city’s brand, building a thriving economy, and retaining residents. Great downtowns — whether called a Central Business District (CBD), city center, or financial district — make their cities more competitive for talent, businesses, and investments.

Revenues. Business activity. Vibrancy. Status. Defining a city.

What are downtowns in the United States today? Are they more vacant than in the past, perhaps stuck in urban doom loops? Are metropolitan regions now where more people live and conduct their daily business?

The report goes on to suggest that downtowns can thrive if they pursue a mixed-use approach:

Urban vibrancy is generated by dwell time, not solely by how many people visit downtown. Cities that understand this move from prioritizing throughput to experience, creating spaces vibrant enough to turn an errand into an afternoon stay. In this way, the CBD can evolve from a business district into a living room for the entire city. Mixed-use density, activated ground floors connected to the street, and safe, walkable pedestrian areas create the conditions for urban vibrancy. Downtown design choices are never purely local decisions; their benefits extend across the entire city. The most successful cities of the future will be those that invest in their CBDs to foster an environment that encourages residents and businesses to stay.

This would require some major changes in American cities. This is not the first expert suggesting that downtowns need to change. However, the old model has been around a long time. People and systems are used to it. What might be a reasonable timeline for a big city to significantly change their downtown from a business-first model? How does a city pursue this across the board as opposed to a development here or a development there?

Different cities pursuing different versions of this could be useful. There likely is no one size fits all solution. The biggest cities or the superstar cities might have very different options compared to other cities. Or the local context might matter quite a bit.

Another improbable suburban outdoor basketball court

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I recently saw another unique outdoor basketball hoop arrangement. Here is what the court used to look like: a blacktop surface (not quite regulation court size) with a hoop at just one end. It looks like this on Google Maps satellite view:

With this setup, basketball players can play a half-court game. There are even a full set of half-court lines. We could ask why there is not a full-court setup but a decent half-court offers possibilities for those who want to play basketball. .

So imagine the same surface then gets a second hoop. Where would it be best to place to the hoop for basketball purposes? Directly opposite the other hoop, right?

Here is where Google Streetview shows the second hoop existing today:

The second hoop is not opposite the first one. It is at a right angle to the first one. It does not enable a full-court game. It does not enable two half-court games played back to back. It permits two half-court games played at an angle to each other. And the second possible half-court does not have painted lines.

Why position the hoops this way? I first posted about this in 2011 and have occasionally posted about it since (finding a circular court in 2019 or noting the rise of backyard basketball courts in private backyards in 2019). If park districts and schools and other entities make basketball courts for people to use, why make it so difficult for basketball players to play a game?

1 day until Every Somewhere Sacred: writing and waiting, learning and doing

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Writing a book does not just involve putting words on a page, or, more accurately, typing letters into computer software. It involves thinking, discussing, doing. I find it hard to write something without first turning it through in my mind over and over as well as living out the ideas and the questions. Here are two examples from the process of creating Every Somewhere Sacred.

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First, I live in the suburbs of the United States. These are unique settings with particular histories. A majority of Americans live there, including many American Christians. (Read Sanctifying Suburbia for more on this.) What does difference, if any, should it make to be Christian and live in the suburbs?

Thinking about this is important. It is easy to live a suburban life, including doing Christian things as part of this life. Doing is also important: Christians are to use their minds and their bodies as they live out their faith.

Second, lots of American communities are home to Christian congregations and organizations. How do these Christian groups shape places and land? Are they primarily focused on their own internal activities or do they contribute to the flourishing of communities and places?

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I ask this as I live and work in a suburb partly known for its religious character. In addition to being home to a known evangelical college, it is home to 40+ churches and many evangelical organizations are in the suburb or nearby. Does this mean the character of the community is different in terms of how people interact (interpersonally and collectively) and how land and creation are treated?

I hope the years spent working with Ben on writing this book also influenced how I act. My question about living in the suburbs or Christians meeting together in certain locations could apply to any place and setting. We address both thinking and doing in Every Somewhere Sacred. We argue we need new tools, metaphors, and lenses to help us recognize what is going on in lands and places and to see what God is doing. We want to act with these lenses, listening to others, open to what we might have missed, and acting in ways that are consistent with God’s mission. If we can see land and place as a gift, sacrament, kin, or home, it can prompt us to better participate in what God is already doing in these settings.

5 days until Every Somewhere Sacred: caring for and learning from a suburban yard

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The yard for my suburban house is 0.26 acres. On all four sides, the house is surrounded by grass, bushes and trees, and wildlife. This is part of the American Dream: a suburban single-family home for a family framed by green grass and attractive landscaping. All that nature in the yard allows space for kids to play in a private setting free from threats. Or perhaps it is about keeping the lawn extra green and finely trimmed and completely free of weeds and leaves so that the nature around the home leads to a higher return on investment.

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What could it look like for Christians to expand their imagination about the nature around them rather than defaulting to American land stories and half-truths? In Every Somewhere Sacred, Ben Norquist and I consider better ways to engage with God’s plans for land and places.

What might that mean for my yard? It is certainly not “wild” land. Humans have been in this area for a long time, including Indigenous people and white settlers starting in the 1830s. This particular plot of land was farmed for decades before a developer started putting up houses in the early 1970s. As they put up houses, they shaped other features of the land, putting in a pond that some of the homes back up to, leaving numerous older trees along the main road through the neighborhood, and situating other homes to back up to a public park.

The land is not there just to serve my financial interests or the specific needs of my household. My yard is connected to other yards and it part of a broader ecosystem. Some animals and plants thrive in suburban settings. Others do not. I regularly see rabbits and have occasionally spotted foxes. Chickadees, robins, cardinals, red-tailed hawks, cormorants, and Canadian geese can be seen and heard. Insects are around. We have a small, simple garden that requires weeding and watering. I do not fertilize my yard or use weed killer. We occasionally trim the bushes and trees.

I want the nature around me to flourish. I am created, nature is created. My yard presents a small opportunity for me to learn from and with Creation about God and the world. We can tend, cultivate, plant, tear up when needed. We can work with nature rather than just extracting value from it.

In our book, we describe four different lenses different Christians have developed to help us better understand the physical world around us: land as gift, sacrament, kin, and home. If I took time with each of these and applied them to my own yard, what could I see differently? As I retrieve a basketball from the rose bushes next to the driveway planted by previous occupants of our home or when I drag the hose to the backyard to water our garden or when I put down mulch in the flower beds or when I hear a woodpecker in a nearby tall tree, how might I better see God and the world?

6 days until Every Somewhere Sacred: walking to know places

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Last night, I drove home from church over a stretch of road I have traveled hundreds of times in my life. The road passes by suburban low-rise office buildings and businesses, houses, and open fields. On this warm and humid night, I drove with the windows open, smelling the different contexts as air flowed through the car.

This common driving experience may be how Americans regularly experience places. At speeds from 25 mph to 75 mph, we use a network of roads and highways to get where we want to go. We see driving as offering independence and we advertise it as an enjoyable experience.

In Every Somewhere Sacred (out June 16), Ben Norquist and I discuss how Christians can exercise our imaginations to tell better stories about land and places. And I’m not sure driving does much to further our imaginations of how God has acted, is acting, and will act in and through places.

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That is why I would recommend walking as a great means to get to know a place. Using the bipedal locomotion humans have used throughout history, we can better see, hear, touch, and smell places. Walking limits our speed. It pushes us to consider our own physical bodies as we interact with other physical creations. it gives us space and a rhythm to consider what is happening around us. It gives us the same opportunities that many before us have had, including Adam and Eve walking through the Garden of Eden or the freed people of God walking out of Egypt or Jesus walking the shores of the Sea of Galilee or in Nazareth. Before people wanted to get in 10,000 steps a day or stuck in their ear buds while walking, they used their feet to move in and near their homes and communities.

I did not always like walking. As a kid, I would have preferred to be inside reading or watching sports compared to being outside. But not only is walking necessary at times (even in our car-dependent society), it can be enjoyable. For example, I walked to and from my high school numerous times. Often I had headphones on, listening to new music I discovered or to a Cubs game. The walk took about 20 minutes. As I walked the same route over and over, first around 7 in the morning and later around 3:30 in the afternoon, I started noticing things. How one big field next to the railroad tracks changed over the course of the year. I observed people and houses as I passed. I could see differences between neighborhoods built in different decades.

I try to walk regularly now. I have some set paths near my house as well as around my work. I enjoy walking in big cities, suburbs, and more rural or wild areas. I have walked alone, with people, in crowds, and with dogs. The simple, repeated action of walking has helped expand my imagination for what God is already doing in and through land and places.

The American city with nearly 40% vacant office space

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Denver has a lot of vacant downtown space:

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According to CBRE data cited by the Journal, nearly 40 percent of office space in Denver’s central business district now stands vacant, creating concerns that the city could become trapped in the same urban ‘death spiral’ facing other struggling downtowns…

Denver’s economy historically benefited from growth in technology, telecommunications, finance, energy and professional services. Those sectors, Odell said, have also proven among the most receptive to hybrid and remote work arrangements.

As workers stopped commuting into the city center five days a week, demand for traditional downtown office space evaporated…

The question now is whether Denver can transform itself quickly enough to avoid becoming a permanent symbol of urban decline.

Big city downtowns are important for a number of reasons with the foremost in the last century or so being the center of office-based activity. Could they still be influential with less office activity (such as the housing-based mixed-use activity suggested in this article)?

Maybe. Upon rereading Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities again this semester, I was reminded of her suggestion that cities are networks of neighborhoods. She speaks of Downtown and Midtown Manhattan but is more interested in somewhat dense neighborhoods connected to other similar places.

Or many places in the United States are already used to sprawling places where there are not centers but nodes of activity scattered across the landscape. Not one major center, many smaller centers that suburbanites travel to for work, entertainment, school, and more.

I cannot imagine downtowns as we know them from recent decades disappearing soon. The buildings still have some value to someone. But it is also hard to picture a different kind of center to regions with millions of residents.

The Chicago Bears, like numerous pro sports teams, on their way to being a suburban team

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As the Chicago Bears plan for a new stadium, it appears one fact is clear: they will end up playing in the suburbs of the city of Chicago. While the current battle for the stadium may appear to be between Illinois and Indiana, the team ends up in the suburbs of the Chicago region either way. And they would not be alone in inhabiting a suburban stadium: twelve NFL teams already play in the suburbs. (For comparison, several MLB teams play in the suburbs, three NHL teams play in the suburbs, and only one NBA team plays in the suburbs.)

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But you could argue that the Chicago Bears were already a suburban team even though they played in the city at Wrigley Field and then Soldier Field. The team has had its headquarters in suburban Lake Forest for decades. The McCaskey family lives in the Chicago suburbs, with Virginia McCaskey passing away in 2025 after residing in Des Plaines for decades.

And many of the team’s fans are suburbanites. The city of Chicago peaked in population in the 1950 census with over 3.6 million residents. As the city’s population declined, the metropolitan region continued to grow. In the 2020 census, the metropolitan statistical area had over 9.6 million residents, meaning that over two-thirds of the region’s population was in the suburbs. Who is tuning in to the games? Who is buying tickets and merchandise? Who is weighing in with their opinions about where the Bears should play? (And this is true across American metropolitan regions: stadiums may be in big cities but the majority of residents and fans are in the suburbs.)

The Chicago Bears will likely be playing in the suburbs soon enough. This will echo what has already happened numerous times over in the region: residents and businesses moved out of the city to the suburbs, setting up life or operations where the majority of residents live.

Suburbanites today go online early to protest development they do not like. How different is this from 50 years ago?

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I recently read news about a developer wanting to build duplexes in a nearby suburb. I soon saw reactions on social media platforms to the proposal. One response suggested the land should be protected green space while another response said what the community really needed was affordable housing.

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These are not unusual reactions from suburbanites opposed to housing proposals in their community. What is different compared to reactions in the past is the form the reactions now take: quick responses online that can then reach other community members (and broader audiences). How different is this opposition compared to 50 years ago?

My own research on suburban development suggests suburbanites have opposed new housing and other kinds of development near them for decades. This occurred even as their community was growing rapidly and some of them had been part of that growth in recent years. Residents made arguments about the character of the community, traffic, water management, green or open space, local services, threats to property values, and who might move in.

But without online platforms to share their opinions, how did these residents go about voicing their concerns? One regular forum not used much today involved writing letters to the editor. In local newspapers, residents shared their argument in relatively few words. These discussions could go then back and forth multiple times as supporters and opponents of particular plans wrote in.

Presumably suburbanites talked to neighbors and others in the community. Social scientists have argued the social fabric of the United States looked different decades ago as more Americans were involved in local organizations. Americans may have had more close friends. These relationships would provide space to discuss local issues.

Local petitions could demonstrate the opinions of residents. People would collect signatures and present them to local officials. Decades ago, this would have involved going door to door or being in public spaces to get names on paper. The process looks a little different today through change.org or similar venues.

At the same time, the process by which these proposals move forward looks similar to fifty years ago. Developers talk with municipal leaders and staff. The plans of developers are vetted by zoning boards or plan commissions who then make a recommendation to a city council or village board. Residents and others have a chance to share their opinion in public in public hearings along the way or in some meetings when leaders and developers are discussing plans. There are often months, sometimes years, for conversation and deliberations to take place.

Do the loud voices online either for or against a proposal attract more attention than efforts of residents in the past? Either way, the majority of residents in a community do not publicly voice an opinion. They might vote a certain way based on such decisions or maybe even move to a different community based on what they think is happening. And these actions can be consequential; decisions about development helps shape a community for decades.