Had no idea it was so low
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POPULATION WITHIN ONE MILE: 16,971 per the 2018 State of Downtown Raleigh report…
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I’ m guessing this is based on the very strict and small definition of downtown which wouldn’t include many neighborhoods that are for all intents and purposes downtown.
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Well then, I take my previous statements back.
Staying with Nashville, it looks like the “downtown area” would be within the I-40 “curve”, the river, and Jefferson Street.
https://www.nashvilledowntown.com/business/development-map
I miss MapFrappe but when I distance the grid with google maps it’s about 2 miles x 1 mile. (not including the stadium or anything across the river)
So that’s 11,874 residents in 2 sq miles versus our:
- 8700 within ~1.5 sq mi (real rough estimate)
- 16,971 within 3.14 sq mi
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I think that it’s published somewhere how large the actual DT boundary is, and I thought that it was barely one square mile. I’ll see if I can find that info. Maybe it’s time to expand the boundary to be inclusive of its edges to better reflect what’s happening?
Okay, so I found the square miles of DT proper and it’s 1.18 square miles or ~754 acres according to the DT section in the city’s comprehensive plan. If we have 8700 within that 1.18 square miles, it’s a darn good start!
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16,971/1 mile radius for DTR
Vs
11,874/there 2 mile radius
???
If you look at the two cities side by side on google maps, and at the same scale, it’s very obvious that Raleigh has historic SFH neighborhoods much, much closer to the very center of the city. While this hems in our downtown footprint, it’s something that we should leverage as an experience differentiator. How many fast growing cities can offer walkable commutes from historic neighborhoods to its citizens? Even for those who cannot walk to every part of the core, they can at least walk to an RLine stop.
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With all of the residential coming online in the next few years, it won’t take long to get 11k+ residents downtown which will mean about a 10k/sqmile downtown core. Seeing as Uptown Charlotte is like 2 sq miles with 20k+ it’s actually surprising how densely populated our core is for how little it looks in comparison to other cities. Hitting that 10k per sqmile mark really makes a downtown feel alive. A “16hr” city vs an 8 or 12 hour one if you will.
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This is true. Even in the last year there’s been more delivered and occupied. Does the 8700 number even include The Dillon and Metropolitan? In the next year or so, we’ll have the 400+ Apartments at Peace online with Smoky Hollow close on its heals. The pipeline seems set up for delivery of hundreds of units per year over the next several years. All those units could easily push the metric to 12,000/M2 in the next 5 years.
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Yep. Not too mention FNB as well. Virtually everything that has been announced and includes renderings has a significant residential bump. IMO this is the most important and exciting part about how downtown is growing. Yes some more height would be nice. But more people living downtown will dominoe effect a lot of other amenities and create an environment attractive to potentially more big companies to relocate downtown.
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The 2018 State of Downtown Raleigh has these additions to the DTR resident population. Posting here for reference in case we want to compare to other cities.
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What do they consider “the center of downtown?”
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Thanks. It’s interesting how arbitrary the borders of downtown are since we’re lacking the “natural” boundaries that other cities have, such as Pittsburgh with the rivers and Nashville with its freeway. I guess SFH neighborhoods(and Western/MLK to the South) act as the dividing line between downtown and not downtown for the most part. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next several years.
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I didn’t realize people living downtown were so much taller.
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It’s all the expensive, high quality food options. 
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Well I have lived downtown for 3 years and I’m still 5’7”. I guess I need to spend more on food.
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If we are going to compare ourselves to other cities, we should better understand how these other cities are defining their downtowns. If we find that we are constricting our definition vis-a-vis the others, we should look to redefine/expand its boundary.
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Same except I’ve been growing mostly out and not up.
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I threw a few emojis your way! 
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