Reimagining Cities-Disrupting the Urban Doom Loop

But this recovery’s impact has been uneven, depending on whether it is a gateway or secondary city. Urban University WalkUPs attract a larger share of visitors in secondary cities (about 20%) compared to gateway cities (10% to 13%). This difference may be attributed to the fact that, in secondary cities, 9.4% of WalkUP retail stock and 11.8% of sports/entertainment stock is in Urban University WalkUPs, compared to just 4% (retail) and 8.5% (sports/entertainment) in gateway cities. Although Urban University WalkUPs are the least common destination for visitors, they have still played a vital role in the recovery of cities, a trend we’ll cover further. There are other distinctions for how visitor patterns differ in WalkUPs in gateway versus secondary cities. In gateway cities, Urban Commercial WalkUPs attract the largest share of visitors (34% of all visitors in 2019 and 2023), compared to Downtown Adjacent WalkUPs (30%) and Downtown WalkUPs

(22% to 24%). In secondary cities, Downtown WalkUPs draw the most visitors (30%), a slight edge over Downtown Adjacent WalkUPs (28% to 29%), while Urban Commercial WalkUPs are far less important (with only about 20% of visitors.) The higher visitor share in secondary city Downtowns may be because only 16.8% of retail stock and 21.2% of sports/entertainment stock is in gateway city Downtowns, compared to 34.4% and 65.9%, respectively, in secondary city Downtowns. Further, Downtowns in moderate secondary cities like Austin, Denver, Phoenix and Raleigh are often the only WalkUP with a critical mass—that is, the only walkable places that have a true sense of identity and activity. The importance of visitors to WalkUPs, specifically to Downtowns, has not always been acknowledged, with the focus typically given to workers and residents. However, visitors carry a significant economic weight, especially for local businesses and cultural

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