Houston ranks #7 for downtown living, Austin #2, Dallas #1

[editor]

https://www.bdcnetwork.com/top-10-cities-downtown-living-2023

Reasons cited:

• Rent-to-income ratio
• Apartment space per person
• Apartments with access to fitness centers

Having visited the downtowns of every city on the list, and lived in four of the ten, I think the list is a little squirrely.  Plus, New York isn't on the list.  That makes it instantly suspect.

 

 

[004n063]

18 hours ago, editor said:

https://www.bdcnetwork.com/top-10-cities-downtown-living-2023

Reasons cited:

• Rent-to-income ratio
• Apartment space per person
• Apartments with access to fitness centers

Is that...all of the criteria??

18 hours ago, editor said:

Plus, New York isn't on the list.  That makes it instantly suspect.

To be fair, Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn are probably the least interesting parts of their respective boroughs.

[Houston19514]

20 hours ago, editor said:

https://www.bdcnetwork.com/top-10-cities-downtown-living-2023

Reasons cited:

• Rent-to-income ratio
• Apartment space per person
• Apartments with access to fitness centers

Having visited the downtowns of every city on the list, and lived in four of the ten, I think the list is a little squirrely.  Plus, New York isn't on the list.  That makes it instantly suspect.

 

 

“a little squirrely” is a very generous description.  I would tend more towards something like “worthless joke” to describe this “study”.

[hbg.50]

Yeah, this ranking was a joke.  I saw the article in the DMN…’nuff said!

[downtownian]

6 hours ago, 004n063 said:

Is that...all of the criteria??

To be fair, Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn are probably the least interesting parts of their respective boroughs.

I lived in downtown Manhattan for three years and it was extremely interesting. Close to Chinatown, Tribeca, Lower East Side (some definitions of downtown Manhattan even include these neighborhoods). Tons of history in downtown proper with great architecture, dense urban form and walkability. The monied but no taste areas of Manhattan are the least interesting to me personally (Hudson Yards)

[004n063]

13 minutes ago, downtownian said:

I lived in downtown Manhattan for three years and it was extremely interesting. Close to Chinatown, Tribeca, Lower East Side (some definitions of downtown Manhattan even include these neighborhoods). Tons of history in downtown proper with great architecture, dense urban form and walkability. The monied but no taste areas of Manhattan are the least interesting to me personally (Hudson Yards)

Okay "least" was the wrong term. Midtown (Manhattan) in general is absolutely worse. And while the old money areas uptown are often beautiful and generally great examples of urban form, there is something sort of grotesque about all that inherited wealth.

And I can see how living downtown would be nice on account of how easy it is to get everywhere else, and, being Manhattan, it goes without saying that the walkability is good. But I dunno. My sister lived at the intersections of Wall and Nassau for a while and the area definitely felt boring to me (compared to many other parts of the city, anyway).

But hey, just one relatively underinformed opinion. I haven't been to the city in years, and when I used to go frequently, I spent very little time downtown, so my impressions aren't based on all that much.

But yeah, it's certainly not like the downtowns of Dallas and Austin are anywhere near better.