Chapter 6
Keys to a Thriving City
Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities: Fostering Resilient and Vibrant Urban Environments
5 Minute Read
Opportunity
Cities have a compelling opportunity to evolve into more desirable places to live, work and play for future generations. With many demographers predicting that U.S. population growth will slow, cities will compete to attract an increasing share of people who want to be in them. The next generation to sustain success of cities will be the children of the millennials who contributed to the urban renaissance of the early 21st century. Additionally, the aging population will play a big role in shaping cities. Both these generations will have different needs, expectations and preferences for the function of cities than those of previous generations.
The following six elements are critical for cities to thrive in the future:
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Economic Dynamism
Measuring the vitality and adaptability of a city's economy, including talent pool diversity, industry mix, culture of innovation, capital inflows and civic engagement that collectively drive business growth and economic resilience. -
Demographic Potential
Advantages that position a city for success, including age distribution, education levels, skill sets, cost of living and diversity, all of which contribute to a city's advancement and competitive edge. -
Lifestyle Vibrancy
Quality of life, characterized by an abundance of recreational opportunities, green spaces and a vibrant, active lifestyle that contribute to residents' overall satisfaction and wellbeing. -
Resilient Infrastructure
Development and maintenance of robust and adaptable infrastructure, including social, educational and medical facilities, transportation systems and essential services like water and power—all crucial for a city's growth and resilience. -
Distinctive Identity
The unique aspects of a city—defined by its history, natural resources and culture—that differentiate it from others and contribute to its enduring character. -
Responsive Governance
The importance of effective and proactive city governance, including efficient zoning and permitting regulations, economic incentives, immigration policies, safety and cleanliness standards, and tax structures and rates that collectively contribute to a competitive, well-managed and thriving urban environment.
A Deep Dive by Archetype
For Mixed Majors, Sprawling Darlings and Developing Destinations, we have bucketed these six key elements into existing strengths or opportunities to improve. This provides a framework to think about the big ideas each city should focus on for future success.
The appendix of this report includes a traditional SWOT analysis for the Super Cities of Los Angeles and New York.
Mixed Majors
Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C.
Jump to: Sprawling Darlings | Developing Destinations | Back to Top
Washington, D.C. is well positioned for the future, already boasting demographic potential, lifestyle vibrancy, and distinctive identity. This market is lucky to also have responsive local government proactively evaluating opportunities for a more dynamic and vibrant mixed-use downtown. This post-pandemic evolution would strengthen the city’s competitive advantage in a global economy.
Strengths of Mixed Majors
Lifestyle Vibrancy – Distinctive Identity – Economic Dynamism
Mixed majors are characterized by central business districts and densely populated urban areas connected to suburbs by extensive, older infrastructure, including highways and local/regional public transit systems.
These markets are economic powerhouses with a higher GDP per capita than the U.S. average. They have renowned educational institutions and highly educated domestic and international labor forces.
Downtown office, especially prime trophy assets, grew in the decade leading up to the pandemic as office-using jobs became more concentrated in the CBD.
Vibrant Mixed-Use districts also grew in Mixed Majors as residents and occupiers sought out dynamic live-work-play environments.
Mixed Majors should take advantage of their unique characteristics, including talent, history & culture, and natural outdoor amenities that make them attractive global cities. Adding more Vibrant Mixed-Use districts, while also focusing on sustainability and wellness, will further attract businesses and young talent.
San Francisco is the world’s most important technology center with a history of innovation from the microchip, internet, social media and now artificial intelligence sectors – bringing economic prosperity, exuberance and social change. While growth comes with adjustment, the strength of San Francisco’s tech ecosystem and resilient intellectual capital always enables our market to reposition for future success.
Opportunities for Mixed Majors
Responsive Governance – Resilient Infrastructure – Demographic Potential
Post-pandemic office utilization in the Mixed Majors is relatively low, with vacant office space in their downtown markets increasing by 82 million sq. ft. between Q1 2020 and Q1 2024. Continued high vacancy could lead to a reduction in municipal revenues.
With space utilization down and vacancy rates remaining above historical levels, some districts now lack vibrancy to attract people organically.
Vibrant Mixed-Use districts have relatively lower office vacancy rates on average as occupiers renew and relocate in them to attract employees back to the office.
Multifamily vacancy has fallen to near pre-pandemic levels, with Vibrant Mixed-Use districts outperforming. A shortage of housing units continues to push rents up and people out, making the high cost of living a major concern.
There is an opportunity to enact effective policies that promote impactful redevelopment through expedited permitting processes, zoning code changes, financial incentives and public-private partnerships.
This will help sustain population growth, build cities that are fit for changing purposes and help restore trust as public safety concerns are addressed.
Mixed Majors are primed to prosper given their urban density and other inherent attributes.
However, they must take deliberate action to create modern, clean and safe transit infrastructure, as well as competitive business-friendly regulations and tax codes. Focused and incentivized redevelopment will drive further transformation of less vibrant single-purpose districts into thriving Vibrant Mixed-Use districts.
Sprawling Darlings
Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Phoenix
Jump to: Mixed Majors | Developing Destinations | Back to Top
Dallas has become a prominent market due to its accessibility, low cost and ease of living and doing business. An identity rooted in ambition drove this rise and should be fostered to welcome continued growth.
Strengths of Sprawling Darlings
Demographic Potential – Lifestyle Vibrancy – Responsive Governance
Sprawling Darlings have seen rapid population growth over the past 30 years due to their low cost of living, warm climate and plentiful job opportunities. They now rival the population of some Mixed Majors but are geographically larger with an average metro area of 9,800 square miles.
These markets have strong economic development and business-friendly environments, including lower taxes than many coastal cities, that have driven outsized job growth and corporate relocations. Their success in attracting residents and businesses caused their real GDP to grow at a faster rate than that of Super Cities and Mixed Majors since at least 2001.
Sprawling Darlings have the lowest population density of any archetype, which has led to multiple, dispersed hubs of activity that are very car dependent. The suburban nature of these markets should be viewed as a quality-of-life factor to be enhanced. Further investments in rail systems, public transit, airports and trail networks can promote a more unified, accessible and connected landscape across the Sprawling Darlings.
Denver has the benefit of attracting a young and highly educated population of people looking for an active quality of life and economic vibrancy. Continual investment in infrastructure, including transit and utilities (water and power) along with affordable housing are critical to supporting sustainable and collective growth.
Opportunities for Sprawling Darlings
Resilient Infrastructure - Distinctive Identity - Economic Dynamism
As designed, there is little urban vibrancy and therefore little distinct identity in these markets, which could hamper efforts to attract talent and innovative businesses. Creating vitality and connection across both downtown and suburban hubs will benefit the entire region.
Downtown markets can leverage tourism, sports, arts and culture to energize the area, which will remain an important feature of their identity. Adding mixed-use elements around sports arenas and entertainment venues and connecting them to other downtown features such as parks and museums will help improve urban vibrancy.
The conversion of suburban office properties to mixed-use developments presents a unique opportunity to increase residential density, enhance walkability of scattered districts and provide convenient services and attractions for nearby residents.
This redevelopment can energize suburbs and create vibrant well-connected urban nodes across these sprawling markets.
By adding live-work-play elements that have thrived in denser cities, Sprawling Darlings can improve their overall urban vibrancy. The Sprawling Darlings that succeed in forging a collective identity and vision from their many constituent counties and towns will be better equipped to govern, grow and thrive over the next 50 years.
Developing Destinations
Austin, Charlotte, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa
Jump to: Mixed Majors | Sprawling Darlings | Back to Top
Miami is growing economically and competing with other global cities by attracting talent and business at a rapid clip. Maintaining a focus on the characteristics that make this market attractive for continued growth is paramount to the future.
Strengths of Developing Destinations
Lifestyle Vibrancy – Demographic Potential – Distinctive Identity
These markets are like the Sprawling Darlings 20 to 30 years ago. They are relatively small but have ample expansion opportunities.
Desirable quality of life, warm climate, recreation and culture have driven rapid population growth in these markets.
Business-friendly, low-tax environments have attracted companies, fueled business creation and created plentiful job opportunities. Combined, these dynamics have accelerated economic growth since 2020.
Rapid population and job growth have fueled increased commercial real estate supply in these markets.
Office inventories grew by an average 2.4% annually from 2020 to 2023, compared with 1.0% for the U.S. overall.
Developing Destinations were the only city archetype with positive net office absorption during the pandemic.
Developing Destinations have relatively small labor forces compared with the other archetypes, making population growth of continued importance for business growth.
These markets have tailwinds that likely will foster continued growth, but this must be managed in a way to leverage strengths and avoid potential pitfalls such as increased cost of living and congestion.
Charlotte continues to attract young talent and retain older residents, with both generations demonstrating a strong preference for urban live-work-play areas. Charlotte can expand its vibrancy by focusing on infill opportunities and mobility for tomorrow’s residents.
Nashville, known as Music City, has harmonized its cultural heritage with robust economic growth, making it an appealing choice for residents, visitors and commercial real estate investors. Nashville has emerged as a contender in corporate relocations due to its business-friendly environment and growing pool of young professionals. Added housing supply incorporated into walkable mixed-use districts will continue to draw residents toward an increasingly dynamic urban core and surrounding micromarkets.
Opportunities for Developing Destinations
Economic Dynamism - Resilient Infrastructure - Responsive Governance
Creating quality of life for residents goes beyond simply building more housing. Some of the fastest-growing urban live-work-play neighborhoods in the country in recent years are in Developing Destinations, but overall, fewer Vibrant Mixed-Use districts exist in these markets than their larger counterparts.
This presents a unique opportunity for Developing Destinations to improve while capitalizing on their unique environmental and cultural attributes.
These markets also face social infrastructure challenges, such as a need for more day care centers, schools and medical facilities to serve their fast-growing populations.
Modern transportation infrastructure also is needed to facilitate sustainable regional growth.
Coordinated planning of and investment in efficient, multi-modal, local and regional transportation networks is necessary to lower commute times and congestion as the population grows.
Developing Destinations can foster future growth by acting strategically around transportation, social infrastructure and housing – especially in dense, vibrant, walkable districts around waterfront areas and parks.
This will allow them to satisfy demand from new residents and mitigate congestion, maintaining the appeal of these markets in the years to come.
Jump to: Mixed Majors | Sprawling Darlings | Developing Destinations | Back to Top
Further Analysis
While these recommendations provide a framework for thinking about the strengths and opportunities of archetypes in this study, they are generalized to cover multiple cities. The appendix of this report includes a traditional SWOT analysis for the Super Cities of Los Angeles and New York that is intended to illustrate the unique factors that individual cities can identify when thinking about their own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
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