I am an urbanist with a passion for neighborhood level initiatives including community development, business district planning, affordable housing creation, historic preservation, and improvement of the urban environment. Geographically, my experience and interest is "Rust Belt" oriented with a focus in cities across the Mid-West and East-coast with historically manufactured based economies.
Downtown Boulder is built around its very vibrant pedestrian main street (Pearl Street) that cuts east to west through the heart of the Downtown area. The Pearl Street Pedestrian Street is one of America’s best. Generally good urban form surrounds Pearl Street.
Click here to view my Dwtn Boulder Album on Flickr
URBAN STRENGTHS:
* Arguably the best pedestrian street in America along Pearl Street * Tons of shops and food & beverage businesses along Pearl Street. * Generally quality urban in-fill. Boulder started building quality urban in-fil in the 80s, way ahead of most urban areas in America. * Good array of historic architecture. * Spruce Street is a decent secondary dwtn main street. * Wonderful urban park and recreational at the southern border of Downtown along Boulder Creek. Very thoughtful layout and design. * The western edge of Downtown is the attractive West End Historic District. Pearl street continues here as a nice villagy biz district. * Surface parking lots are limited.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Walnut Street has decent urban form but feels very corporate, cold, and pretty lifeless. * Limited taller buildings and skyline. Dwtn footprint is rather small. * Core of Dwtn isn’t very dense with population.
My evaluation of Downtown Buffalo includes the entire area between Elmwood and Michigan from west to east and Tupper St to the north south to the Buffalo River. In the Southwest corner of Dwtn where Elmwood Ave turns to the Buffalo Skyway as it doglegs right, I draw an imaginary straight line south to Erie St and thus catch more of the waterfront in this evaluation.
One can tell that Downtown Buffalo was once a grand City by the Historic Architecture still largely in tact. Downtown has a wonderful array of antique skyscrapers (i.e. City Hall, the Electric Tower, Guaranty Bldg, Rand Bldg, Liberty Bldg, etc.). Buffalo’s Art Deco City Hall is one of my favorite City Halls in America. But Downtown Buffalo has struggled to built momentum even since the return to the City movement of the 1990s. Apartment bldg conversions have been limited, the Main Street pedestrian mall conversion of the 70s and construction of Main Place Mall largely failed, and much of Dwtn has languished and feels pretty dead after 9-5 work hours.
Things started to improve for Downtown Buffalo since 2014 with the Canalside development opened new apartment bldgs, office space, and the a new hocky area. This is south of what I consider the core of Dwtn Buffalo. More recently, a plethora of residential conversion and new projects have been announced for the core of Downtown. Main street is being converted back to car traffic (fortunately with major streetscaping and renovation dollars fixing its mostly in-tact but often vacant building stock). Downtown Buffalo still has a long way to go to catch up to the likes of Dwtn Cleveland, Buffalo, Cincy, and Pittsburgh but it seems poised to make significant progress in the 2020s.
Click here to view my Downtown Buffalo Album on Flickr
URBAN STRENGTHS:
* ADA infrastructure is generally good but some under invested intersections at the edges of Dwtn with proper curb cuts. * Downtown Buffalo serves as a solid huge for public transit in the region. At least good public transit through the entire City of Buffalo. This extends a bit to the inner ring suburbs but quickly drops off. * Good connectively in Dwtn and a nice set of diagonal streets similar to Detroit (but not as good). Lots of wide street s though. Fortunately most of them are 2-ways many have bike lanes on them. * Dwtn has a nice array of bike lanes. Within the City there is great bike lane coverage along the lake, which extends well north of the City. An ok # of bike lanes in the City. Not great coverage in the suburbs. Great bike share system covering about 60% of the City and extending to some of the northern suburbs. * Generally good diversity dwtn reflected in its residential demographics and activities. Plenty to do for kids with the AAA ballpark, children’s museum, ships, and other museums. * Nice concentrations of schools across all grades. Mix bag with ratings. * Decent college presence dwtn with several smaller colleges adding up to an enrollment of about 5K. * Pre-pandemic Buffalo had about 50K jobs, a high number for its metro size. Total office space was pretty flat pre-pandemic and vacancy pretty height at ~25%. * Dwtn is a major gov’t jobs center helped with its large Art Deco City bldg and several court houses. It also hosts a convention center, ballpark & NHL hockey arena & a smaller hocky arena next door. Historic post office is no longer a post office. Large modern library. * Culturally many theaters (many historic), a cineplex, lots of live music venues & night clubs, plenty of restaurants, bars & cafes, several art galleries, and many museums. * Great historic architecture. One of the best for its size. * Buffalo generally holds its urban form together. Only a few streets like Main street are mostly in-tact but most areas of dwtn have over 60% of bldgs remaining. The eastern and southern edges host the most surface parking and low intensity bldgs.
URBAN WEAKNEESES:
* Density is pretty low here. Not a ton of hsg in Dwtn Buffalo. * For sale housing is pretty limited in Dwtn. Not even any studio options. Some 1-beds (esp. near the waterfront), these sell btwn 200K-350; 2-beds sell btwn 300K-800K, 3-beds are concentrated along the waterfront and sell btwn 500K-1.2M. * Rentals are very limited for a dwtn area but at least are moderately priced. 1-beds lease in the low 1Ks, 2&3 beds 1.5K-3K. * Parks are pretty underwhelming Dwtn. There are a handful of nice smaller parks (i.e. Lafayette, Fireman’s, Niagara Sq, Fountain Plaza & Roosevelt) but nothing is outstanding. Decent park at Canalside a waterfront trail for about 1/4 of a mile. * Fountain Plaza is Buffalo Civic heart but is pretty mediocre in my opinion. The fountain takes up more than half of the space. Some seating and another fountain. * Pedestrian activity dwtn is so . * Buzz is slowing growing for Dwtn Buffalo but its coming from a pretty low point. Locals have loathed their Dwtn for a long time. * Retail amenities are a bit limited dwtn. The best amenity is a local supermarket. Dwtn has a drug store, a handful of boutiques & clothing stores, several banks & dessert joints, plenty of gyms & churches, and decent access to Buffalo General a mile away. Retail amenities dwtn went downhill when the Main Place Mall closed. * Modern in-fill Dwtn is so . Handful of mid century towers, a couple 80s/90 office bldgs, and some better modern in-fill at Canalside. The Convention Center and the Main Place Mall are examples of unattractive 1960s-1970s in fill.
Allentown is named after Lewis F. Allen who came to Buffalo in April 1827 to serve as Corporate Secretary and financial manager of an insurance company. Allentown is the first neighborhood north of the Downtown Buffalo core. Its also the first Buffalo neighborhood to experience major revitalization and is known for its community of artists, bohemian and hipster culture, and for a strong commitment to preserving its historic building stock. Allentown is also Buffalo’s premier area for nightlife, music, dining, and antique shopping.
Not surprisingly this is also one of Buffalo best urban districts. As one of the few Buffalo neighborhoods from the 1860s-1900s that is still in tact, Allentown has a great mixed-use and compact feel. As it is only about a mile from Dwtn, I consider this Buffalo’s most walkable neighborhood. All things considered Allentown is pretty moderately priced considering these amenities.
To truly become a great neighborhood Allentown needs more in-fill housing to increase its density (currently sitting at just short of 9K residents per sq mile), redevelop the parking lots sitting at its border with Downtown, add more parking amenities, improve its ADA curbs at about 25% of its intersections, and be a more conducive district to families.
* Allentown is located just north of Dwtn. The median distance is about 1 mile allowing one to walk there. Also very convenient transit and bike access. Decent public transit access to the University of Buffalo. * Great public transit access. * Solid bike infrastructure including a couple north-south bike lanes and good bike share coverage. * Great racial diversity and solid economic. * Generally a good array of walkable schools within or near Allentown with pretty good ratings. * Good array of rental options generally at moderate prices. studios & 1-beds lease btwn 900-1.6K, 2&3-beds 1.2K-2.5K. Good amount of affordable housing here as well. * Nice mix of for-sale housing options. 1-bed condos that sell around 200K, 2-beds range anywhere btwn 200K-500K, 3 & 4 beds btwn 300K-800K. * Great array of historic architecture ranging from the Post Bellum period to the early 20th century. * Wonderful cultural amenities including many restaurants, bars, cafes, a couple breweries, many live music venues & night clubs, great access to Dwtn’s theater district located a block away, several historic sites, and several art galleries. * Good retail amenities as well including a supermarket, a couple drug stores, several boutiques & consignment stores, banks, plenty of unique stores & antique shops, a hardware store, good array of gyms & dessert shops, a local post office, several churches and Buffalo General Hospital. This is certainly Buffalo’s most mixed use neighborhood. * Overall very good urban massing and streetscaping. Southern edge, however, has a lot of parking lots and underutilized spaces next to Dwtn.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* So density. Less than other North and West Buffalo neighborhoods. * Generational diversity is pretty limited. Pretty few households with Children here. Most residents are young adults. * Tree canopy is good but not as good as other North Buffalo neighborhoods. * A couple nice smaller parks but no larger parks here. * Generally good ADA infrastructure but about 1/4 of all intersections are missing ADA curbs.
For this evaluation I consider Elmwood Village to be between Elmwood Ave to the West and Main St to east. From North to South the district is between Delaware Park and Utica St.
Elmwood has become one of the premiere urban districts in Buffalo. It features over 300 small local shops, coffeehouses, restaurants, bars, and art galleries. In 2007, Elmwood Village was named one of the ‘Top 10 Great Places in America’ by the American Planning Association. It also contains the best preserved segment of Frederick Olmstead and Calvert Vaux’s original parkway system. Historically, an address along the boulevard was home to some of Buffalo’s most prestigious residents. Delaware Avenue is Buffalo’s most regal corridor hosting many historic luxury apartments mansions and other major institutions.
Sadly the neighborhood’s eastern border along Main Street has fallen into disrepair and underinvestment. Main street forms an almost impervious border between North Buffalo’s well maintained districts and the very poor African American neighborhoods of East Buffalo. One can tell that Main street used to be a wonderful urban business district with the buildings that remain. Its also where Buffalo’s solo subway line runs connecting Downtown to the University of Buffalo in Amherst to the northeast. Revitalizing the Main street corridor is the missing piece needed to make the Elmwood Village a truly great urban district. It would also have the benefit and bringing back a thriving commercial district to the disinvested neighborhoods of Cold Spring and Masten Park that border Elmwood Village to the east.
* Overall great ADA and sidewalk infrastructure throughout. Only a handful of intersection without proper ADA curb cuts. * Great public transit access bolstered by the Main St Subway line. Because of this Elmwood Village is very convenient to Dwtn and has decent transit access to the UB. * Great coverage in Elmwood Village by the Buffalo bike share. Decent dedicated bike lane coverage. * Great economic and decent racial diversity. * Decent # of walkable schools. The private schools are rated well and the public are rated poorly. * Crime is pretty low here. Blight and crime pick up near Main Street, the district’s east border. * Great tree canopy. * Great access to parks in the northern half of the neighborhood (Delaware Park, Lincoln & Chapin Pkwy), but pretty limited in the southern half. * Excellent historic architecture. * Good # of rentals at moderate and higher end prices. 1-beds lease btwn 1K-1.8K, 2 & 3 beds 1.5K-2.8K. * Good number of quality modern apartments mixed throughout Elmwood Village. * Vibrant commercial nodes, pedestrians a bit sparse on residential streets. * Great local buzz here. * Great cultural amenities including many restaurants, bars & cafes, several art galleries, museums, and live music venues. * Great retail amenities as well with a co-op store, a Topps, a couple drug stores, tons of boutiques & gift stores, a couple bookstores, several dessert joints & gyms, tons of churches. * Good urban form and streetscaping along Elmwood. Main street is pretty rough.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Generational diversity isn’t great as households with kids is limited and most of the population are young adults. * For sale housing are def more on the high side but decent # of more affordable condos. 1-bed condos sell btwn 100Ks-400K, 2-beds anywhere btwn the low 200Ks and 500K. 3 & 4 beds homes sell anywhere btwn 250K-800K. Larger are selling in the low Millions. * The district’s eastern edge along Main street is severly underinvested.
Forest is neighborhood is the northern segment of the larger Upper West District, which also includes the Grant Ferry neighborhood to the South. Forest was developed around the turn of the 19th century and was known as a traditional landing zoning for immigrants thanks to its convenient location near the Lake and many jobs. Grant Ferry initially welcomed many Sicilian immigrants. In the 50s-70s it became home to many Puerto Rican and SE Asian enclaves. Most recently large Somali, Bhutanese, Sudanese, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Hispanic immigrants.
Like many American neighborhoods disinvestment came to the Forest neighborhood in the 70s. Historically Grant Street was the blight line dividing more blight and “immigrant” areas to the west and more stable and “White” areas to the east. This is not as hard and fast of a line as it is for the Grant Ferry neighborhood to the south. But unlike East Buffalo, Forest was mostly left standing thanks to a large influx of immigrants.
Gentrification is making the traditional Grant St blight line more and more fuzzy as North Buffalo’s revitalization pushes westward. More and more homes around and west of Grant St are being fully renovated and selling in the 200Ks and low 300Ks. The revitalization of Grant St is also coming along. Niagara St along the lake recently received a streetscaping overhaul, although still has many missing teeth. Overall Grant Ferry has great public transit, bike infrastructure, diverse housing, great racial & economic diversity, solid cultural & retail amenities, and generally good urban form. Main areas for improvement include: revitalization of Grant Street, need for more parks, better schools, and more diverse for-sale options and more apartments.
* Quality public transit access. * Only 3 miles from Dwtn. Only a 15 minute drive and 28 min bus ride. University of Buffalo is pretty easy to drive to, but challenging transit trip. * Good bike infrastructure with plenty a nice north-south bike lane on Niagara and diagonal one on Bidwell Parkway. * Good diverse across all categories. * Decent amount of rental housing that’s pretty affordable. 1-beds range btwn $850-1.4K, & 3 beds generally btwn 1K-2k. * Good mix of affordable, moderately priced, and high end housing. 2-beds sell btwn low 125K to low 200ks, 3 & 4 beds sell btwn the low 100Ks-700K. * Great historic architecture in both residential and commercial areas. * Very good sidewalk infrastructure and generally consistant ADA curbs but sometimes its missing. * Good cultural amenities including many restaurants, bars, cafes, several art galleries, a couple live music venues, and several museums either within or near the Forest neighborhood. * Good retail amenities as well including a Co-op grocery store, a farmer’s market store front, a couple grocerias, a couple boutiques & consignment stores, several book stores, a post office, only a couple churches, and great access to the psychiatric hospital. * Not a ton of modern in-fill but some good mixed use and commercial bldgs along Grant and Elmwood St. * Urban massing and streetscape are great along Elmwood. Massing is decent along Grant. Niagara is a mixed bag. Lots of warehouses and autocentric industrial businesses mixed together but new streetscaping here.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Several schools on the edges of the neighborhood but not the heart of it. Mixed ratings. * Crime issues are certainly getting better but plenty of blight and crime issues still west of Ferry Street. * Decent Park space access but certainly better than neighboring Grant Ferry. There is a nice splash pad park, Bidwell Parky, access to the green space of the State Hospital, and decent access to Delaware Park (.5-1 mile from the neighborhood). * Condo for sale options are largely missing from the Grant Ferry housing market. There also are few larger apartment buildings. This would go a long way towards adding density to the district.
The Grant Ferry is neighborhood is a segment of the larger Upper West District, which also includes the Forest neighborhood to the north. Grant Ferry was developed around the turn of the 19th century and was known as a traditional landing zoning for immigrants thanks to its convenient location near the Lake and many jobs. Grant Ferry initially welcomed many Sicilian immigrants. In the 50s-70s it became home to many Puerto Rican and SE Asian enclaves. Most recently large Somali, Bhutanese, Sudanese, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Hispanic immigrants.
Like many American neighborhoods disinvestment came to the Grant Ferry neighborhood in the 70s. Historically Grant Street was the blight line dividing more blight and “immigrant” areas to the west and more stable and “White” areas to the east. Streets west of here get progressively worse and streets east of here get progressively more stable as one moves to Elmwood Avenue. But unlike East Buffalo, Grant Ferry was mostly left standing thanks to a large influx of immigrants.
Gentrification is making the traditional Grant St blight line more and more fuzzy as North Buffalo’s revitalization pushes westward. More and more homes around and west of Grant St are being fully renovated and selling in the 200Ks and low 300Ks. The revitalization of Grant St seems to be lagging behind but hopefully will pick up pace. Niagara St along the lake recently received a streetscaping overhaul, although still has many missing teeth. Overall Grant Ferry has great public transit, bike infrastructure, diverse housing, great racial & economic diversity, solid cultural & retail amenities, and generally good urban form. Main areas for improvement include: revitalization of Grant Street, need for more parks, better schools, and more diverse for-sale options and more apartments.
* Solid Density * Quality public transit access. * Only 2-3 miles from Dwtn. Only a 10 minute drive and 20 min bus ride. University of Buffalo is pretty easy to drive to, but challenging transit trip. * Great bike infrastructure with plenty of bike shares and a pair of convenient north-south dedicated bike lanes. * Excellent diversity, especially racial. * Good # of walkable schools in the neighborhood but mixed ratings. * Decent amount of rental housing that’s pretty affordable. 1-beds range btwn $800-1.2K, 2-beds generally in the mid 1ks, 3-beds lease btwn the low 1Ks and mid 2ks. * Good mix of affordable, moderately priced, and high end housing. 2-beds sell btwn low 100Ks to mid 200Ks, 3 & 4 beds sell btwn the low 100Ks-500K. * Very good sidewalk infrastructure and generally consistant ADA curbs but sometimes its missing. * Good cultural amenities including many restaurants, bars & cafes, a couple art galleries & breweries and a couple community theaters. * Good retail amenities as well including a Save a Lot, A Co-op, plenty of ethnic grocerias, a hardware store, a couple home goods stores, salons & barbershops, a drug store, several banks, a good number boutiques, gift shops, & consignment stores, a couple dessert joints, and several churches. * Urban massing and streetscape are great along Elmwood. Massing is decent along Grant but its very warn down by blight. Niagara is a mixed bag. Lots of warehouses and autocentric industrial businesses mixed together but new streetscaping here.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Condo for sale options are largely missing from the Grant Ferry housing market. There also are few larger apartment buildings. This would go a long way towards adding density to the district. * Crime issues are certainly getting better but plenty of blight and crime issues still west of Ferry Street. * Parks are pretty limited. The only parks in Grant Ferry include Colonial Circle, Broderick Park (a small part of Unity Island) and a playground. * Some good modern in-fill along Elmwood but generally pretty limited west of here. What does exist is often crummy autocentric uses.
Mount Lebanon was a bit of a late bloomer as inner ring suburbs go in Pittsburgh. The City was incorporated in 1912 but had just over 2K residents in 1920. By that time Mt. Lebo had streetcar service but it was the opening of the Liberty Tunnel in 1924 allowing easy automobile access to Pittsburgh that led to a real estate boom. Between the 1920s and 1930s, Mt. Lebanon skyrocketed from 2,258 to 13,403 residents. It then reached 26K by 1950 and maxed out at 39K in 1970. The City has seen a steady decline since but appears to be stabilizing at around 32,000 souls.
From an urban perspective about half of the City has a quality urban environment surrounding the two urban commercial districts along Washington Ave and Beverly Rd. The T-Line (light rail line) also runs along this portion of Mt. Lebanon providing 3 stations. The southern half of Mt. Lebanon is more quasi urban. There are generally sidewalks here, but the commercial districts are rather autocentric, and home are also less dense and mostly single family.
Overall Mt. Lebanon excels at providing excellent schools, great parks, a very safe community, many wonderful tree lined streets, quality cultural and retail amenities, and a decent housing mix. Mt. Lebanon is, however, a lily white community, lacks much economic diversity, is hit or miss with ADA infrastructure, and doesn’t have great density for an urban area. I’d love to see this City welcome more people and loosening up its zoning laws to permit more multi-family housing.
* Good public transit thanks to the line rail line running through the City and decent bus connections. * Good access to Dwtn via transit or driving. * Lots of family households here and good age diversity. * Very safe community. * Highly rated schools across all types. Most schools have at least decent walkability. Lots of options too. * Decent amount of rental hsg and pretty moderately priced. 1-beds rent btwn 800K and the low 1Ks, 2-beds low to mid 1Ks, 3-beds 1.5K-2k. * No spectacular parks here but just many small and medium sized parks are well spread throughout the City. The City’s best recreational facilities are located within Mt. Lebanon park and include a recreation center, indoor and outdoor pool, ice rink, major tennis complex, and soccer and baseball fields. * Excellent tree canopy. * Great historic architecture especially the residential homes. * The Beverly and Washington Ave biz district are vibrant but the suburban ones aren’t and plenty of dead spaces in the residential areas. * Good cultural amenities including a diverse array of restaurants, plenty of bars & cafes, a cineplex, several breweries and art galleries, a couple historic sites, and a couple bar/live music venues. * Great retail amenities including several supermarkets & drug stores, the Galleria Mall (a medium sized mall), a hardware store; decent # of boutiques & gift shops and a couple book stores along the walkable biz districts; a public library and post office, several dessert options, St. Clair Hospital, and plenty of churches. Many stores are in autocentric settings.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Density isn’t great but not terrible. * About 70% of City streets have sidewalks. Neighborhood clusters on the edges of town often are with out them and even some arterials. Many residential areas are also missing ADA curb cuts. * Connectively not great although some assemblance of a street grid. * Poor bike infrastructure. No dedicated bike stations and few dedicated bike lanes. * Very lily white community as 95% of Mt. Lebanon is white. Economic diversity isn’t much better. * Housing is generally expensive but a fair amount of affordable condos and some moderately priced SF homes. 1-bed condos sell btwn 60K-150K, 2-beds condos anywhere btwn 100K-300; 2-beds SF sell btwn 200K-400K, 3-beds are a wide range btwn 200K-800K depending on size and condition; and 4 & 5 beds btwn 250K and the low millions. Overall a decent variety of available for sale housing. * Some dedicated affordable housing in Mt. Lebanon but not enough. * Mix of urban and auto centric biz districts. The urban ones are along Washington Ave, Beverley, and park of Cochran. The autocentric ones are along Mt. Lebanon Blvd and Gilkeson.
Difficult to parse out exactly what is urban and suburb in Bedford. As a general rule I used the river as a southern boundary, Wellman St as the eastern, Columbus & albot as the northern, and the railroad tracks as the western boundary.
The first settlers to Bedford arrived in 1813. Early settlers to the region were drawn to Tinkers Creek and the hardwood forests. Waterfalls on Tinkers Creek were ideal for mills. In 1837 Bedford Township had a population of 475 people and petitioned to become the Village of Bedford. With the growth of industry in the area Bedford reached 2,000 souls in 1840. Bedford’s population quickly declined, however, as separate municipalities splintered off. In 1900 just under 1,500 people lived here. Population grew swiftly in the 20th century leading to over 7K residents in 1940 and more than doubling to 17K in 1970. Bedford’s population contracted by about 4K but has appeared to stabilize at around 13K.
Bedford has a fairly in tact main street core along Broadway between Franklin and Powers roads. A decent array of local shops and food and beverage businesses are here but I wouldn’t say its thriving. The oldest buildings in town surround Bedford public square. There is a sizable pre-WWII fabric mainly to the east of Broadway with decent urban form. Bedford also has great access to the Metro Parks, a very diverse population, affordable for-sale hsg, good historic architecture, and good public transit. Bedford struggles with poor schools, low density, limited bike infrastructure, limited rental supply, and many autocentric stretches. I’d love to see more dense mixed-use development here, but the market just isn’t strong enough currently.
* Good public transit, especially for a suburb. * Great economic and racial diversity here. Majority African American suburb with 1/3 of the population is White and about 4% is Hispanic. Good generational diversity too. * For sale housing is very affordable and moderately priced. 1-beds sell btwn 65K-100K, 2-beds sell btwn 100K-150, 3&4 beds sell btwn 85K-250K. High end housing and for sale condos is certainly missing here. * Good historic architecture. * Good tree canopy. * Just west of Dwtn Bedford is the extensive Metroparks surrounding Tinkers Creek. Also a public pool and several ballfields and a nice public square. * Decent cultural amenities including a good array of restaurants, bars, and cafes, a couple art galleries, and the Bedford Historic Museum. * Decent retail amenities include a supermarket, a couple drug stores, several boutiques, a couple consignment stores, a vinyl store, bookstore, a couple banks, several bakeries and dessert stores, a dwtn public library and post office, plenty of churches, and a major hospital. Many of the commercial amenities lie within autocentric spaces. * Bedford is pretty safe overall but some pretty underutilized and sometimes vacant space along the southern reaches of Broadway Ave.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Density is more like that of a suburb. * Decent access to Dwtn with a 25 min drive and 45 minute bus ride. A bit longer for both modes to University Circle. * Some gridded blocks but connectivity is so . * Limited biking infrastructure. Dedicated bike path in the metro parks however, but that connects mostly to other parks. * Only a handful of schools within the Bedford Dwtn and Bedford schools overall have poor ratings. * Rentals are pretty limited esp. 1 & 2 bedrooms. What is available for lease is generally pretty affordable. * Decent but not great ADA infrastructure. * Modern in-fill in Dwtn Bedford is almost all autocentric and pretty ugly. * Good urban form and streetscaping along the core of Broadway. But very autocentric in the north and southern reaches of Broadway and along OH-8. * Pedestrian activity is pretty limited to the core of Broadway Ave and even here it’s not terribly active. * Dwtn Bedford certainly struggles from a positive image.
The core of Chardon is along Chardon square and then extends out along the various roads radiating from Dwtn where there are sidewalks and older homes.
Chardon Township was incorporated in 1812. The town slowly grew decade by decade and by around the Civil War Chardon had reached 885 souls. This was also around the time of the Chardon Fire which, in 1868, destroyed the majority of the uptown area around Chardon Square. Fortunately Chardon Square was quickly rebuilt and what followed was a concentrated array of gorgeous Italianate Victorian commercial structures from the 1870s & 1880s. A new more beautiful county courthouse was also built at this time.
Post fire, Chardon’s population continued to modestly grow reaching 1,350 residents by 1900 and 2000 by 1940. Chardon also witnessed a modest amount of post-War II suburban growing doubling to 4,000 people in the 70s and reached just over 5,200 residents in 2020.
From an urban perspective Chardon has a lovely historic square surrounded by well occupied historic commercial bldgs on the west side and more institution buildings on the east. Several historic residential streets radiate out from Chardon Square, but a street grid is limited and the City quickly transitions into more suburban/bucolic development. Chardon is also very isolated, located more than 30 minutes from any major employment center and thus has poor public transit. But the City posts good cultural and retail amenities, great schools, decent parks, moderately priced housing, and a safe and quite environment.
* ADA infrastructure is good along the Chardon Square and hit or miss in streets move out. * Good cultural amenities including a good array of restaurants, cafes, and a couple of community theaters, * Good generational diversity with lots of families living here, but young adults are a bit limited.* Very high quality schools located within or just north of the core town. * For sale housing prices are very reasonable here with 1-beds selling around 100K, 2-beds 150K-300K 3 &4 beds btwn 175-400K. * Decent park amenities with the attractive central Chardon Square and Chardon Park, which includes a pool, several ballfields and other attractions. * Very good tree canopy overall. * Great historic architecture, especially the wonderful concentration of 1870s-1890s Italian commercial structures (thanks to a fire!). The residential homes are also very attractive. * This is a very safe community. * Good retail amenities although many reside just outside of the core area in strip malls (e.g. several supermarkets, a big lots, a home depot, a couple drug store, several banks, ). Around the square there are several boutiques, antique, and home good stores, a couple banks, a couple gyms, several churches, a dwtn post office and public library. * Definitively an in-demand Cleveland suburb.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* Density is similar to that of a suburb. * Very limited transit provided by Geauga County. * 35-40 minutes drive to all major employments areas (Chagrin Highlands, University Circle, and Dwtn. No real transit connections. * Decent connectivity. Along the square but it quickly fades out. * Bike infrastructure is overall limited but a nice dedicated recreational path cuts through town. * Horrible racial diversity with over 96% of the population as white. * Okay economic diversity. * Rentals are reasonably priced but very limited, especially 1 & 2 bedrooms. * No art galleries, live music venues, nor museums in Chardon. * A decent amount of unattractive autocentric in-fill on the edge of the core. No inf-ill around Chardon Square. * Not a ton of pedestrian activity but some around Chardon Square.
Downtown York is another great example of a well-built historic PA mid-sized Downtown. For a long time York lived under the shadow of Lancaster 40 minutes to the east. Lancaster was the sought out and revitalized downtown with great vibrancy, shops, and tourism. York was the beat down, poverty stricken old and dying Pennsylvania city. Fortunately that dynamic is changing thanks to Hispanic immigration, which has stabilized and even grown the city’s population since 2000. And the revitalization efforts of a wealthy civic leader who has begun renovating historic buildings and filling them with local artists and local businesses.
I would categorize George Street as York’s Main Street. It’s lined with the City’s tallest buildings, many significant institutions & office towers, the Capitol & Valencia theater, and the City’s central Market Square. Market St is the Downtown’s second main street. The western half functions as a traditional main street, which is nicely streetscaped and hosts several historic sites. The eastern half is regal 3-5 story buildings from the 19th century with mixed-uses. The Western half of Philadelphia St and Queen St. are also pretty important streets hosting significant Downtown buildings and quality historic fabric.
My hope is the Downtown York can continue its positive revitalization trajectory and begin to fill in its dead spaces and add more retail and cultural amenities.
* Very compact and intact Dwtn area. * Great historic architecture. * In tact and active historic market. * Lots of rowhouse, residential fabric within the Dtwn area. * Good cultural amenities including plenty of restaurants, bars & cafes, several art galleries, a couple local theaters, several breweries and a couple live music venues. * Pretty good retail amenities including the Central Market, plenty of boutiques & gift shops, some small grocerias, dwtn post office & library, a couple of drug stores, etc.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* So density and dwtn population. Could be better. * There is one dedicated bike lanes cutting down King St. but bike infrastructure could certainly be better. * No supermarket are other retail amenities found is very vibrant districts. * Some underutilization, grit, and vacancy on the edges of Downtown.
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 