Misplaced Pages

#212787

74-669: Harper College has a 200-acre (80.9 ha) campus, approximately 25 miles (40 km) northwest of downtown Chicago, in the suburb of Palatine, Illinois . Harper also offers classes and services at other locations: Harper College District 512 comprises these communities: Arlington Heights, Barrington, Barrington Hills, Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, Inverness, Lake Barrington, Mount Prospect, North Barrington, Palatine, Prospect Heights, Rolling Meadows, Schaumburg , South Barrington, Tower Lakes, Wheeling and small portions of Buffalo Grove, Carpentersville, Deer Park, Des Plaines, Fox River Grove, Hanover Park and Roselle. The football program

148-457: A Christian cross , among other things, inside an outline of an eagle . A 1992 advisory referendum to keep the seal passed, but another referendum to use public funds to defend the seal failed, leading the village to drop the seal. While Rolling Meadows and Zion developed new seals with the crosses removed, Palatine has since been without an official seal or flag, and is Illinois' largest city or village to be so. The French tricolor reflecting

222-468: A female householder with no husband present, and 36.13% were non-families. 28.32% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.17% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.15 and the average family size was 2.52. The village's age distribution consisted of 24.0% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 28.9% from 25 to 44, 26.9% from 45 to 64, and 13.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age

296-424: A great deal of money, while others would stand to gain. One way in which downtown changed from the late 19th century to the early part of the 20th century was that industrial concerns began to leave downtown and move to the periphery of the city, which meant that downtown's businesses were chiefly part of the burgeoning service sector . Brand new firms followed the older ones, and never came to downtown, settling at

370-618: A model law, the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act of 1922 was drawn up for the guidance of cities wishing to enact zoning regulations, which are now part of virtually every American city. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the downtown area was the business district of the American city, but beginning around the 1920s and 1930s, as cities continued to grow in size and population, rival business districts began to appear outside of downtown in outlying districts. This

444-465: A nearby parking garage, and several new condominiums , rowhouses, and commercial buildings. In 2008, Palatine made news by threatening to secede from Cook County over the latter's sales tax hike; as a result of the tax hike, Palatine's sales tax is 9.0%. In 2009, residents of Palatine Township (which includes the village of Palatine) overwhelmingly voted to pass an advisory referendum stating that they would like to secede from Cook County. According to

518-572: A relief map, the Loop would be equivalent to the peaks of the Himalayas compared to the rest of the city. In 1926, Chicago's central business district, which took up less than 1% of the city, had 20% of the city's land value. The same relationship was true in St. Louis in the mid-20s (20%) and Los Angeles in the early 1930s (17%). So when a downtown area started to shift its location, some property owners were bound to lose

592-509: Is uptown . In the common New York City phrase "We're going to take the subway downtown", downtown refers to traveling in the geographic direction of south. A person standing on 121st Street and walking ten blocks south could also be said to have walked ten blocks downtown. The term uptown is used to refer to the cardinal direction north. Such concepts derive from Manhattan's elongated shape, running roughly north–south and nowhere more than 2 mi (3.2 km) wide. As such, transportation on

666-616: Is a term primarily used in North America to refer to a city's sometimes commercial , cultural and often the historical, political , and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district (CBD). It may also be a center for shopping and entertainment. Downtowns typically contain a small percentage of a city's employment but are concentrated in services, including high-end services (office or white-collar jobs). Sometimes, smaller downtowns include lower population densities and nearby lower incomes than suburbs . It

740-514: Is generally thought to be George Ela, who built a log cabin in the area now called Deer Grove. Ela was one of the first of a wave of pioneers to migrate to northern Illinois following the Black Hawk War . A road that passes through the western edge of Palatine is called Ela Road in his honor. Palatine is thought to be named after a town in New York . The Village of Palatine was founded in 1866. It

814-407: Is located. Most major North American cities are located on major bodies of water, like oceans, lakes, and rivers. As cities expanded, people built further away from the water and their historical cores, often uphill. Thus the central business district of a North American city, or the historical core of the city, is often located "down", in altitude, relative to the remainder of the city. Many cities use

SECTION 10

#1733085082213

888-468: Is often distinguished as a hub of public transit and culture. The Oxford English Dictionary ' s first citation for "down town" or "downtown" dates to 1770, in reference to the center of Boston . Some have posited that the term "downtown" was coined in New York City , where it was in use by the 1830s to refer to the original settlement, or town , at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan . As

962-593: The Detroit Public Library and the Detroit Institute of Art , and most of the cultural institutions in Pittsburgh . Public reaction to these moves was mixed, with some bemoaning the loss of a counterbalance to the overall materialism of downtown, while others, particularly those involved in real estate, looked positively on the availability of the land which the cultural institutions left behind. The loss of

1036-758: The Great Depression had a major effect on the country's downtown area. Downtown was just coming off a major building boom, in which significant amounts of new commercial and office space, hotels, and department stores had been built. By 1931 there were 89 buildings of 30 stories or more in Manhattan, and between 1925 and 1931, office space nearly doubled; in Chicago, it increased by almost 75%, in Philadelphia by almost two-thirds, and by more than 50% in New Orleans and Denver. In

1110-484: The Interstate Highway System , and white flight from urban cores to rapidly expanding suburbs . Due to well-intended but ineptly executed urban revitalization projects, downtowns eventually came to be dominated by high-rise office buildings in which commuters from the suburbs filled white-collar jobs, while the remaining residential populations sank further into unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. By

1184-1055: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , the New-York Historical Society , the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the City of New York , all in Manhattan, moved out of downtown, as did the Museum of Fine Arts , the Boston Public Library , the Boston Symphony Orchestra , and the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art , the Baltimore Museum of Art ,

1258-688: The Union Pacific Northwest Line . Trains travel southeast to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago, and northwest to Harvard station or McHenry station . Pace provides bus service on Routes 604 and 697 connecting Palatine to the Northwest Transportation Center in Schaumburg, and other destinations. Former: Evanston • Hyde Park • Jefferson • Lake • Lake View • North Chicago • Rogers Park • South Chicago • West Chicago Downtown Downtown

1332-497: The poverty line , including 18.7% of those under age 18 and 3.8% of those age 65 or over. The village is home to a large Sikh gurdwara on its northwest side that is visited by Sikhs from across the country. Weber-Stephen Products , manufacturer of the Weber grill , is headquartered in Palatine. According to Palatine's 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in

1406-402: The "Sun" that the outlying business districts revolved around. Others doubted whether decentralization had as strong an impact as it was credited with. Positions were taken that downtown was a natural part of the evolution of a city, or the unnatural result of a de facto conspiracy by merchants and property owners, so the question of what decentralization would do to downtown became bound up with

1480-405: The 1880s, and from there spread to most other American cities in the 1890s and 1900s. The apparent lack of a height limitation of this type of building set off a fervent debate over whether their height should be restricted by law, with proponents and opponents of height limits bringing out numerous arguments in favor of their position. The question of height limits also had a profound implication for

1554-488: The 1920s, 500,000 additional hotel rooms were built in New York, and from 1927 to 1931 there were 84 large hotels built there, an increase of hotel space by two-thirds. When the boom was over, and the Depression had begun to have its effect, much of this new space became unneeded excess. Owners of smaller buildings who could not keep a sufficient number of tenants to pay their overhead, tore down their buildings, but whereas in

SECTION 20

#1733085082213

1628-589: The 1990s, many office-oriented businesses began to abandon the tired old downtowns for the suburbs, resulting in what are now known as " edge cities ". One textbook, in explaining why edge cities are so popular, stated: The big central city comes with dirt, crime, subways, stress, congestion, high taxes, and poor public schools. Edge cities are not immune to all of these problems (especially congestion) but for now they largely avoid most of them. Since then, between 2000 and 2010, downtown areas grew rapidly in population. In U.S. metro areas with at least five million people,

1702-443: The 2021 census gazetteer files, Palatine has a total area of 14.28 square miles (36.99 km ), of which 14.11 square miles (36.54 km ) (or 98.87%) is land and 0.16 square miles (0.41 km ) (or 1.13%) is water. Palatine's shape resembles that of the head of an axe . Palatine is in a wooded marshland where several streams rise around the village. Most of these streams meet up with Salt Creek which rises at Wilke Marsh on

1776-647: The Chicago Loop – although values in other parts of the city, including the outlying business districts, fared even worse. Department stores were hit hard; most managed to keep their doors open, but few made money. Hotels which needed to have large staffs, and required high occupancy rates to make a profit were also deeply affected; in Manhattan the hotel occupancy rate fell from 1929's 70% to around 50% in 1933. Room rates were slashed, revenue dropped, and many hotels closed or defaulted. By 1934, 80% of hotels in Manhattan were owned by their creditors. The slow recovery from

1850-485: The Manhattan model and continue to use downtown , midtown , and uptown both as informal relative geographical terms and as formal names for distinct districts. However, the city of Philadelphia uses the designation Center City , not downtown, due to the business district's central location, as well as Philadelphia's age and circumstances; "Center City" corresponds to the City of Philadelphia prior to its amalgamation with Philadelphia County in 1854 , leaving it without

1924-455: The building profitable. What shattered that restriction was the invention of first the iron- and then the steel frame building, in which the building's load was carried by an internal metal frame skeleton, from which the masonry – and later glass – simply hung, without carrying any weight. Although first used in Chicago, the steel-framed skyscraper caught on most quickly in New York City in

1998-528: The business district lower Manhattan and the newer one in midtown began to grow towards each other, or in Chicago, where downtown expanded from the Loop across the Chicago River to Michigan Avenue . In fact, the instability of downtown was a cause for concern for business and real estate interests, as the business district refused to stay where it had been, and shifted its location in response to numerous factors, although it generally stayed fairly compact – in

2072-652: The cities themselves. Cities in the US grew much more slowly than during any other period in the history of the country, and some even lost population. Metropolitan regions grew faster than the cities inside them, indicating the start of the decades of urban sprawl , but they too grew at a slower pace than usual. Downtowns also had less daytime population because people now went to the outlying business districts, which were closer to their homes by car, for their shopping and entertainment, to do business, and to work. The increased use of automobiles over mass transit also damaged downtown, since

2146-594: The city are: The Palatine Park District serves 85,000 residents within the Palatine, Rolling Meadows , Arlington Heights , Inverness , Hoffman Estates and Barrington communities. It is governed by five elected park commissioners who oversee a professional staff. The Palatine Park District operates swimming pools at Family Aquatic Center, Birchwood, and Eagle, as well as recreational centers at its Community Center, Birchwood, and Falcon Park – which opened in January 2010. The district purchased Palatine Stables in 1989, and

2220-579: The companies they did business with elsewhere. As a result of this migration, manufacturing was no longer a significant part of the downtown mix of businesses. Another sector which began to move away from downtown even before the turn of the 20th century were the great cultural institutions: museums, symphony halls, main libraries and so on. Not only was the high cost of land downtown a factor, but these institutions wanted larger plots of land than were available there, so that their buildings could themselves be easily perceived as works of art. Organizations such as

2294-418: The daytime population of the country's downtowns did not rebound. For instance, in Chicago between 1929 and 1949, the population of the city grew 7%, and that of the entire metropolitan area by about 14%, but the daytime population of The Loop only rose 1/3 of 1%. With a few exceptions, such as New York City, this pattern was typical across American cities, and was tied to the slowing down of the rate of growth of

Harper College - Misplaced Pages Continue

2368-543: The decentralization of commerce which affected the importance and influence of downtown and the central business district. Theaters , vaudeville houses, dance halls and night clubs had been primarily located in downtown, with nickelodeons spread throughout the city. When film became the dominant medium, and exhibitors started to build movie theaters to show them in, they at first built those venues downtown as well, but, as in retail shopping, chain exhibitors such as Loews began to construct them in locations convenient to

2442-682: The directionality of both words was lost, so that a Bostonian might refer to going "downtown", even though it was north of where they were. Downtown lay to the south in Detroit, but to the north in Cleveland, to the east in St. Louis, and to the west in Pittsburgh. In Boston, a resident pointed out in 1880, downtown was in the center of the city. Uptown was north of downtown in Cincinnati, but south of downtown in New Orleans and San Francisco. Notably, "downtown"

2516-410: The early 1930s even the largest took up less than 2% of the city's space, and most were significantly smaller – and remained the primary business district of the city. Real estate interests were particularly concerned about the tendency of downtown to move because the downtown area had by far the highest land values in each city. One commentator said that if Chicago's land values were shown as height on

2590-465: The early part of the 20th century, English travel writers felt it necessary to explain to their readers what "downtown" meant. Although American downtowns lacked legally-defined boundaries, and were often parts of several of the wards that most cities used as their basic functional district, locating the downtown area was not difficult, as it was the place where all the street railways and elevated railways converged, and – at least in most places – where

2664-450: The edges of the city or the urban area. Industrial districts developed in these areas, which were sometimes specifically zoned for manufacturing. There, land was considerably cheaper than downtown, property taxes were lower, transportation of supplies and finished products was much easier without the constant congestion emblematic of downtown, and with the improvement of the telephone system, the industrial firms could still keep in touch with

2738-468: The effects of the Great Depression began in the mid-1930s, decelerated at the end of the 1930s, and picked up speed with the start of World War II , so that by the early 1940s the country was for the most part out of the Depression. Excess commercial space began to be used, vacancy rates dropped, department store sales rose, hotel occupancy rates went up, and revenues increased. Despite this recovery,

2812-802: The facility is home to approximately 70 horses. Palatine operates under the Council–manager form of local government. Six councilmen are elected from their respective districts, while the entire village elects the Village Clerk and the Mayor. The council then hires a Village Manager to oversee the town's day-to-day operation. The current mayor is Jim Schwantz . Palatine is part of Community Consolidated School District 15 for public elementary schools and Township High School District 211 for public high schools. Schools located in Palatine include: The Palatine station provides Metra commuter rail service along

2886-468: The growth of the chain stores, to the detriment of the big downtown department stores. Furthermore, the "taxpayers", which many people had expected to disappear once the economy improved, remained in place, and even increased in number. In the Loop in Chicago, by the early 1940s, 18% of the land was vacant or was used for parking; in Los Angeles at the same time, the figure was 25%. Demand for commercial space

2960-527: The highways leading to the camp with motorists. A shortline railroad , the Palatine, Lake Zurich and Wauconda Railroad , was built in 1911, and began full passenger service to Wauconda, Illinois , in 1912. The line was closed in 1924 after a series of financial misfortunes and the improvement of roads in the area. The PLZ&W provided transportation to Dr. Wilson's Deer Grove Park, just north of Dundee Road in Palatine. Palatine's first suburb-style subdivision

3034-473: The island travels in the uptown/downtown directions. The other boroughs are wider, and "downtown" there refers to Lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn , or some more local business district. Mercantile efforts to promote the South Bronx as "Downtown Bronx" have met with little success. In some North American cities, downtown is the formal name of the neighborhood in which the city's central business district

Harper College - Misplaced Pages Continue

3108-446: The major cultural institutions left downtown as a place primarily dedicated to business, but the loss of another sector, retail shopping, defined the type of business that was done there. The great retail outlets like the department stores had always had the tendency to move closer to the residential districts, to make it easier for their customers to get to them, but after 1920 they started to congregate in secondary business districts on

3182-515: The major cultural institutions, much of the retail shopping in the city, and its loss of status as the entertainment center, the nature of downtown had changed considerably. It was still the location of banks, stocks and commodity exchanges, law and accounting firms, the headquarters of the major industrial concerns and public utilities, insurance companies, and advertising agencies, and in its confines continued to be built new and taller skyscrapers housing offices, hotels and even department stores, but it

3256-409: The mass audience they were seeking; again, it was a matter of bringing their product to where the people were. By the late 1920s, movie houses outside of downtown far outnumbered those in the central district. Not all the movie theaters in the periphery were palaces , but some were, and the net effect was that downtown was no longer the entertainment center of the city. With the loss of manufacturing,

3330-437: The nature of downtown itself: would it continue to be a concentrated core, or as it grew, would height limits force it to spread out into a larger area. In the short run, the proponents of height limits were successful in their efforts. By the 1910s, most of the large and medium-sized cities had height limits in effect, although New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis were notable exceptions. Ultimately, it

3404-482: The original town – which was also New York's only major center of business at the time – became known as "downtown" ( Lower Manhattan ). During the late 19th century, the term was gradually adopted by cities across the United States to refer to the historical core of the city, which was most often the same as the commercial heart of the city. "Uptown" also spread, but to a much lesser extent. In both cases, though,

3478-410: The outer wall, making higher-up segments of the building progressively narrower than the base) to reduce a building's bulk by allowing additional height per foot of setback – the exact amount depending on what zone the building was in. The ultimate effect of setbacks is to increase the sunlight and visible sky at street level. New York City was the first to do this, with the 1916 Zoning Resolution , which

3552-503: The periphery of the city. The growth of chain stores such as J. C. Penney , F. W. Woolworth , Kresge and W. T. Grant , contributed to the increased importance of the outlying shopping districts, which began outselling those retail stores which had remained in the central business district, and provoked those stores to open branches in the secondary districts in attempt to go to where there customers were instead of having them come downtown to them. Entertainment venues also contributed to

3626-399: The population within two miles of the city hall grew twice as fast as the overall population in the metro area. The terms downtown and uptown can refer to cardinal directions , for example, in Manhattan, where downtown is also a relative geographical term. Anything south of where the speaker is currently standing, in most places, is said to be downtown . Anything north of the speaker

3700-587: The question about the area's legitimacy. Decentralization also increased the incidences of rivalry between downtown and burgeoning business districts. In Los Angeles, for instance, downtown and Wilshire Boulevard battled for dominance, and in Cincinnati the rivalry was between the old downtown centered around Fountain Square and the one on Canal Street. The diminishment of downtown by decentralization caused these battles to be between areas that were now more relatively equal. Like almost every other aspect of American life,

3774-448: The railroad terminals were. It was the location of the great department stores and hotels, as well as that of theaters, clubs, cabarets, and dance halls, and where skyscrapers were built once that technology was perfected. It was also frequently, at first, the only part of a city that was electrified. It was also the place where street congestion was the worst, a problem for which a solution was never really found. But most of all, downtown

SECTION 50

#1733085082213

3848-520: The recent past they would have been replaced with taller buildings, now they became one- and two-story parking garages or ground-level parking lots. These were widely known as "taxpayers", as they generated enough revenue for the owner of the lot to pay the taxes on it. Rents fell, sometimes as much as 30%, and non-payment of rent increased. Even with the "taxpayers" taking away commercial space, vacancy rates rose precipitously. Owners went into default, and downtown real estate lost considerable value: 25–30% in

3922-430: The rise of the private automobile, which allowed shoppers to go to peripheral business districts more easily; a strong increase in streetcar fares; and the continuing problem of congestion in the narrow streets of the downtown area. As much as people disagreed about what caused decentralization, they were even less in agreement about how decentralization would affect the central business district, with opinions varying all

3996-422: The streetcar lines converged on downtown, while the roads went everywhere. All of these factors contributed to the lesser recovery of downtown relative to the city as a whole and the metropolitan area. Another sign that downtowns were no longer as central to city life as they once were include the decreased portion of retail trade that took place there as compared to the peripheral business areas, which profited by

4070-408: The town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow on the island was toward the north , proceeding upriver from the original settlement, the "up" and "down" terminology coming from the customary map design in which up was north and down was south . Thus, anything north of the original town became known as " uptown " ( Upper Manhattan ), and was generally a residential area, while

4144-408: The village was 63.88% White , 12.95% Asian , 3.11% African American , 0.85% Native American , 0.03% Pacific Islander , 9.79% from other races , and 9.40% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 19.59% of the population. There were 26,804 households, out of which 30.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.00% were married couples living together, 11.57% had

4218-455: The village's sister city relationship with Fontenay-le-Comte , France , has flown at times on the flagpole meant for the village flag outside the village hall. In 1993, a multiple homicide, the Brown's Chicken massacre , received national attention. Palatine has been in the process of revitalizing its downtown area since December 1999. This process has spawned a new passenger train station ,

4292-639: The village's east side. The most notable exception is the northeast side, where its streams lie in the Buffalo Creek watershed. A small part of the east and southeast sides lies in the McDonald Creek watershed. As of the 2020 census there were 67,908 people, 26,804 households, and 17,120 families residing in the village. The population density was 4,756.79 inhabitants per square mile (1,836.61/km ). There were 29,058 housing units at an average density of 2,035.44 per square mile (785.89/km ). The racial makeup of

4366-436: The way from the belief that it would diminish downtown sufficiently that it would eventually consist of only offices and the headquarters of corporate giants, to the belief that decentralization would lead to the (perhaps deserved) death of downtown entirely as unnecessary, a victim of its untameable traffic congestion. In between were those who saw a diminishment of the area's influence, but not enough to prevent it from remaining

4440-415: Was 37.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.4 males. The median income for a household in the village was $ 83,495, and the median income for a family was $ 108,166. Males had a median income of $ 55,157 versus $ 39,378 for females. The per capita income for the village was $ 43,978. About 7.2% of families and 9.9% of the population were below

4514-451: Was already a sluggish market. To many in the real estate industry, the zoning law was an example of a "reasonable restriction." Once New York had passed its law, other cities followed, although proposed zoning measures did meet stiff resistance in some places, often because of the inclusion of overly restrictive height limits, and sometimes because the entire concept of zoning was seen as undemocratic and bordering on socialism . Eventually,

SECTION 60

#1733085082213

4588-417: Was assumed that people would climb, but with the elevator, that limit was shattered, and buildings began to be constructed up to about sixteen stories. What limited them then was the thickness of the masonry needed at the base to hold the weight of the building above it. As the buildings got taller, the thickness of the masonry and the space needed for elevators did not allow for sufficient rentable space to make

4662-565: Was built around a station on the new Chicago and North Western Railway . Joel Wood surveyed and laid out the village, earning him the title of Palatine's founder. One of Palatine's original downtown streets is named after Wood. In 1920, the Indian Fellowship League held its first American Indian Day celebration at Camp Reinberg , in Palatine. According to the Daily Herald, the festivities were attended by 60,000 people, which packed

4736-602: Was called Palanois Park, built shortly after World War II . The town has experienced rapid growth since the 1970s, part of Chicago's growing suburban sprawl. Palatine was home to the Cook County Fair from 1914 to 1931. The fairgrounds are now a subdivision, Fairgrounds Park, whose name pays tribute to Palatine's former fairgrounds. During the early 1990s, Palatine along with neighboring Rolling Meadows and far northern suburb Zion were sued by atheist activist Rob Sherman over its village seal and seal-defaced flag, which had

4810-410: Was done downtown, those who had their homes there were gradually pushed out, selling their property and moving to quieter residential areas uptown. The skyscraper would become the hallmark of the downtown area. Prior to the invention of the elevator – and later the high-speed elevator – buildings were limited in height to about six stories, which was a de facto limit set by the amount of stairs it

4884-600: Was eliminated in January 2012. Palatine, Illinois Palatine ( / ˈ p æ l ə t aɪ n / ) is a village in Cook County, Illinois , United States. It is a northwestern residential suburb of Chicago . As of the 2020 census , it had a population of 67,908. As of the 2010 Census, it was the seventh-largest community in Cook County and the 18th-largest in Illinois. The first European-American to settle in Palatine

4958-424: Was no longer as dominant as it once was. The causes of decentralization, which decreased the importance of downtown in the life of American cities, have been ascribed to many factors, including each city's normal growth patterns; advances in technology like the telephone, which made it easier for business-to-business intercourse to take place over a distance, thus lessening the need for a centralized commercial core;

5032-514: Was not included in dictionaries as late as the 1880s. But by the early 1900s, "downtown" was clearly established as the proper term in American English for a city's central business district, although the word was virtually unknown in Britain and Western Europe, where expressions such as "city centre" (British English), "el centro" (Spanish), "das Zentrum" (German), etc are used. Even as late as

5106-405: Was not simple height limits that restricted skyscrapers, but they were limited by comprehensive zoning laws which set up separate requirements for different parts of a city. Zoning rules would regulate not only height, but also a building's volume, the percentage of the lot used, and the amount of light the building blocked. Zoning regulations sometimes encouraged setbacks (step-like recessions in

5180-474: Was prompted in large part by the construction of the Equitable Building in 1915. The Equitable Building was a 40-story building with straight sides and no setbacks, which raised fears of the downtown area becoming a maze of dark streets that never saw the sun. Worse yet, at least from a real estate perspective, this new building created 1.2 million square feet (111,000 m ) of office space, flooding into what

5254-461: Was so light that it did not make financial sense to construct expensive new buildings, and banks began to refuse to make loans for that purpose, redlining whole neighborhoods in the central business district. The typical American downtown has certain unique characteristics. During the postwar economic boom in the 1950s , the residential population of most downtowns crashed. This has been attributed to reasons such as slum clearance , construction of

5328-406: Was still steadily losing ground as decentralization took its toll. Its daytime population was not keeping pace with the population growth of the city around it, and property values, while continuing to rise, were not rising as fast as those in the secondary business districts. Downtown was still the central business district, and was still the most important area for doing business and commerce, but it

5402-420: Was the place where the city did its business. Inside its small precincts, sometimes as small as several hundred acres, the majority of the trading, selling, and purchasing – retail and wholesale – in the entire area would take place. There were hubs of business in other places around the city and its environs, but the downtown area was the chief one, truly the central business district. And as more and more business

5476-441: Was the time when the term " central business district " began to appear as more-or-less synonymous with the downtown area. The phrase acknowledged the existence of other business districts in the city, but allocated to downtown the primacy of being "central", not only geographically, in many cities, but also in importance. And in many cases, the downtown area or central business district, itself began to grow, such as in Manhattan where

#212787