Do urban areas really need a strong core?

[Revive 755]

I've heard talk about the need to maintain a strong core in an urban area to keep said area viable.  Specifically, the need to keep downtown St. Louis strong, while in some ways the core of the St. Louis area seems to want to shift westward to Clayton.  I'm looking for input on the subject from those who have more experience with three areas that do not seem to have a strong core (at least from my knowledge), or may have it shift:

1) The Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa:  Looking at population, it seems Davenport would be the core, yet this does not seem to hold true.

2) Hampton Roads area of Virginia:  Does this area really have a core anymore, or has it shifted from Norfolk to Virgina Beach?

3) The San Francisco Bay area:  Having never been there, it seems like San Francisco is still the main core for the region.  True, or has the core weakened, with a shift towards San Jose?

EDIT:  Open to discussion on other areas where a similar effect has or seems to have happened.

[J N Winkler]

The San Francisco Bay area:  Having never been there, it seems like San Francisco is still the main core for the region.  True, or has the core weakened, with a shift towards San Jose?

Just an observation about the general question:  "need" has conceptual and political dimensions.  It is helpful to start with a welfare function and to identify the measures of viability you are interested in.

In regards to the Bay Area, someone who actually lives there will be able to comment in more detail, but I would say that it has multiple centers, with San Francisco dominating the region while Oakland, San Jose, and possibly Santa Rosa function as secondary centers.

[bugo]

The "core" of Tulsa has shifted from downtown/midtown to the south Tulsa/Bixby/Jenks/Broken Arrow areas.

[Brandon]

Do they really need a strong core?  It looks like we're finding out with cities such as Detroit that seem have become donuts.

[TheStranger]

The San Francisco Bay area:  Having never been there, it seems like San Francisco is still the main core for the region.  True, or has the core weakened, with a shift towards San Jose?

Just an observation about the general question:  "need" has conceptual and political dimensions.  It is helpful to start with a welfare function and to identify the measures of viability you are interested in.

In regards to the Bay Area, someone who actually lives there will be able to comment in more detail, but I would say that it has multiple centers, with San Francisco dominating the region while Oakland, San Jose, and possibly Santa Rosa function as secondary centers.

I would say that in the last 15 yeasr or so, San Jose (which just passed 1 million residents last year) and the Silcon Valley each represents the economic engine of the region, while San Francisco remains the cultural heart (and is still important to some extent financially).

[Alps]

It seems like every city in the Northeast is built around a strong core.  Those without a core (Rochester, Syracuse) are hurting - Syracuse is looking to build a core now, and wants to tear down part of I-81 to do it.  Wilmington, DE has also struggled to pull together a core, and has very little regional identity being so close to Philadelphia.  Even smaller regional cities in the mountains from PA down through VA have vibrant downtowns to retain their local importance.  Notice that none of the examples that have been brought up come from this region.  I'm going to postulate that it's because these areas are dominated by older cities (early 19th century or earlier, for the most part) that have had time to grow and establish themselves, building a core such that even if the core fails, the city retains enough importance to rebuild it eventually and regain its status.

[corco]

The Tri-Cities of Washington are a smaller example, but very real of a metro area without a true core.

All three towns have downtowns, but except for maybe Kennewick's all are fairly irrelevant. A lot of this is due to recent growth- it seems that recent growth is away from the "core" model where you have a giant commercial downtown and residences surrounding it, and more towards the sprawly mixed-use type of thing we see in later developments. There are very few areas that are visibly more "important" then the others

Boise is another example of an area that's recently started growing rapidly, and while there's no question that downtown Boise is still a very important part of the landscape, a lot of the larger employers and facilities are located nowhere near downtown. The "core" of Boise is slowly shifting towards Meridian/Eagle

The Meining core-domain-sphere model that human geographers love to use really doesn't apply to cities that experienced rapid growth in the postwar to 1990 or so era. There seems to be a trend towards revitalizing downtown cores these days, but places like Tri-Cities just don't have on.e

[sammack]

The Tri-Cities of Washington are a smaller example, but very real of a metro area without a true core.

All three towns have downtowns, but except for maybe Kennewick's all are fairly irrelevant. A lot of this is due to recent growth- it seems that recent growth is away from the "core" model where you have a giant commercial downtown and residences surrounding it, and more towards the sprawly mixed-use type of thing we see in later developments. There are very few areas that are visibly more "important" then the others

Boise is another example of an area that's recently started growing rapidly, and while there's no question that downtown Boise is still a very important part of the landscape, a lot of the larger employers are located nowhere near downtown.

The Meining core-domain-sphere model that human geographers love to use really doesn't apply to cities that experienced rapid growth in the postwar to 1990 or so era. There seems to be a trend towards revitalizing downtown cores these days, but places like Tri-Cities just don't have on.e

It also has to do with cheap land and ease of transportation.  Gone are the days when everyone went downtown to shop.  That was where all the big department stores were in cities like Rochester, Syracuse, Cleveland, Detroit.  Now unfortunately they are gone to the malls in the suburbs, obviously where land is cheap
and no one has to wait for the trolley or bus.

The exceptions are Chicago, Philadephia, and smaller cities like Washington, DC, and amazingly Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is the exception that disproves the rule.

[mapman]

In regards to the Bay Area, someone who actually lives there will be able to comment in more detail, but I would say that it has multiple centers, with San Francisco dominating the region while Oakland, San Jose, and possibly Santa Rosa function as secondary centers.

You're mostly correct, J N.  San Francisco remains the cultural center, but the economic engines are now located in the South Bay (San Jose/Santa Clara) and the business parks of the larger suburban cities/regions (mid-Peninsula, Fremont, Pleasanton, Santa Rosa, and Fairfield).  High-tech is the primary employment for most of those regions.  The blue-collar jobs are mostly in the East Bay, primarily in Oakland, where the Port of Oakland is a major gateway for many goods shipped from Asia to the USA.

In many ways, the S.F. Bay Area is a lot like the Los Angeles-Orange County area (blasphemy! ), in that a number of smaller regions have coalesced into a large metropolitan area.  However, the unique topography (multiple parallel valleys and mountain ranges) have kept it from becoming wall-to-wall people.   

[Scott5114]

What with the MAPS projects of the mid-1990s, and continuing successor projects since then, Oklahoma City's downtown has really been strengthened over the past 20 years or so. In Bricktown, you can eat at dozens of restaurants, go to a baseball game, or head over to the Ford Center in the main part of downtown for basketball or a concert. The downtown/Bricktown core will benefit more from MAPS III, which will create a downtown park, and the I-40 realignment, which will allow it to begin subsuming the blighted areas to the south of current downtown.

Economically, the downtown area is less important than it is culturally. Many of the tourism dollars the city sees come in through Bricktown, and a few corporations are headquartered there (Sonic Drive-In's HQ is located right on the canal, and Devon Energy is in the process of building the tallest skyscraper in Oklahoma to contain, among other offices, their HQ). However, looking at the big picture, the Downtown area is only marginally more important economically than the rest of the city. Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City and the University of Oklahoma in Norman provide economic counterweights to Downtown.

[SSOWorld]

The cores of almost every city has shifted to Walmarts.

[Stephane Dumas]

the city of Levis, just on the other side of the St.Lawrence river in front of Quebec city, since the amalgation with the surrounding municipalities in 2002, plan to move its city hall more closer to the bridges who link Levis and Quebec city.

[bugo]

and Devon Energy is in the process of building the tallest skyscraper in Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: Trying to outdo Tulsa since 1889.

[Truvelo]

I have to agree about the cores of cities moving to suburban malls and Walmarts. Over here a lot of towns and cities have closed shops on their main streets whereas the out of town malls are bustling due to their abundance of (often free) parking.

What I notice in the US, particularly with smaller towns, is there's often strip malls on the major routes on the edge of town and then the road becomes residential before turning back into commercial buildings in the centre of town. What sort of damage are these strip malls inflicting on the older cores?

[deathtopumpkins]

2) Hampton Roads area of Virginia:  Does this area really have a core anymore, or has it shifted from Norfolk to Virgina Beach?

The central core is still Downtown Norfolk, but Virginia Beach has increased it's prominence recently with new developments such as Town Center, which I believe includes the region's tallest building. In Virginia Beach, development is almost entirely suburbia thrown together randomly, with rather small urban centers at Town Center and the Oceanfront, while Norfolk's downtown is obviously downtown, and development gets smaller in density as you head out in a radial direction. This same pattern applies to Portsmouth, but Chesapeake, Newport News, and, to a lesser extent, Hampton all fit the same developmental pattern as Va Beach.

[Scott5114]

and Devon Energy is in the process of building the tallest skyscraper in Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: Trying to outdo Tulsa since 1889.

And usually succeeding

[SSOWorld]

Most large cities in Virginia - if it weren't for what I believe is a constitutional item - should actually be counties.  This seems true for Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Newport News and Hampton.

[Chris]

Shopping malls are actually an unknown phenomenon in the Netherlands. I have to go to a city center of subcenter to get groceries or do some shopping. Most of these are not very good accessible by car, and a lot of areas charge between $ 2 and $ 5 per hour to park. For example, parking in the center of my city (pop. 120,000) costs $ 2.50 per hour. Most department stores are in the city core as well.

What is on accessible locations, are mostly stores of the same branch grouped together, such as furniture shops, hardware stores, kitchen/bathroom stores, outlet stores etc.

I in fact miss a large supermarket like they have in France, Poland, etc on a good accessible location where I can get anything under one roof. I don't like shopping, and I'd like to spend as little time as possible on it, so a mall would be a good idea for me. But they are worried it attracts too much traffic and the historic city center may lose too many customers, which are good arguments of course.

It is kind of weird they're always complaining about the traffic volumes around the historic city center, yet they prohibit malls outside the city center. You can't have it both ways.

[rawmustard]

Most large cities in Virginia - if it weren't for what I believe is a constitutional item - should actually be counties.  This seems true for Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Newport News and Hampton.

In Virginia, any municipality incorporated as a city is independent from any county. Methinks the cities you mention annexed a lot of land.

[bugo]

I have to agree about the cores of cities moving to suburban malls and Walmarts. Over here a lot of towns and cities have closed shops on their main streets whereas the out of town malls are bustling due to their abundance of (often free) parking.

What I notice in the US, particularly with smaller towns, is there's often strip malls on the major routes on the edge of town and then the road becomes residential before turning back into commercial buildings in the centre of town. What sort of damage are these strip malls inflicting on the older cores?

Walmart has done considerable damage to the downtown areas of small towns in the US.  It has downright destroyed some small towns.

[bugo]

Oklahoma City: Trying to outdo Tulsa since 1889.
And usually succeeding

Tulsa's still much prettier!

[mightyace]

Walmart has done considerable damage to the downtown areas of small towns in the US.  It has downright destroyed some small towns.

While there is truth in that statement, let's not put all the blame on them.

Downtown Bloomsburg, PA became irrelevant for everyday shopping long before Wal-Mart arrived in town.  In that area credit goes to KMart, Ames, Weis Markets, Giant, Sears, Penneys, Bon Ton, etc.

Or, the trend of businesses moving out of downtown areas has been happening for a long time, even before Wal-Mart was founded.  In some areas, Wal-Mart has lead the trend, in others, like my hometown, it was a latecomer.  In any case, it probably would have happened even without Wal-Mart and those of you who hate the company would be bashing someone else instead.

[Chris]

Apparently, a wal-mart on the edge of town is more attractive to customers than downtown shopping streets. The question is if you want to force people to use downtown shopping streets, or let the free market do it's work and build shopping malls and wal-marts at the expense of downtown areas.

[bugo]

Or, the trend of businesses moving out of downtown areas has been happening for a long time, even before Wal-Mart was founded.  In some areas, Wal-Mart has lead the trend, in others, like my hometown, it was a latecomer.  In any case, it probably would have happened even without Wal-Mart and those of you who hate the company would be bashing someone else instead.

Who said anything about hating Walmart?  I simply stated a fact.  And it's an undeniable fact.  There have been many studies done on the effects of Walmart on small towns.  When a Walmart moves in, the downtown area dies off.  Another effect of Walmart is on independent grocery stores.  There used to be 4 independent grocers in my hometown and now only one is left.

[bugo]

Apparently, a wal-mart on the edge of town is more attractive to customers than downtown shopping streets. The question is if you want to force people to use downtown shopping streets, or let the free market do it's work and build shopping malls and wal-marts at the expense of downtown areas.

There are Walmarts in urban areas in the midwest and south.  There's a Supercenter 3 miles from me, and a Neighborhood Market about a mile and a half away.  The Supercenter is horrible because the lines at the checkout are always long, but the Neighborhood Market is very handy and has self-checkouts so you can get in and out much quicker.  And you don't have to make small talk with the cashier.