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Becoming a "24-hour city"


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True, but there still are relatively few late-night places outside of Adams Morgan. Skylinefan has a good point about many of the residents here not having unusual work schedules. There are a few places in my neighborhood which stay open late- i.e. Kramerbooks, Sette and to some extent, the Bistrot du Coin. I can think of almost no 24 hour restaurants in the city itself. Adams Morgan is pretty lively- especially so on weekend nights. I still think it's the exception, rather than the rule.
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The food at the DC Cafe is scary! I live on R Street, just off Dupont Circle. This area is, as you say, generally lively. Walk into the West End or Foggy Bottom after 6:00 PM and the streets are quiet. This is beginning to change- 22 West, the new condo tower next to the Ritz-Carlton in the West End, is supposed to have restaurants and shops on the ground floor. I'm not sure what's going in on the ground floor of the Marriott where Blackie's used to be. I've heard ugly rumors about a Starbucks and a Walgreen's. :sick: All in all, the area is looking up, but the late-night options aren't here in full force- at least not yet.

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Even if you don't want to be a workaholic, many people in this town have to go to bed early. Let's see, I have to get up at 0430 to be able to get to work at 0600 for my Govie job. The best thing about being at work at 0600 is that I miss most of the traffic. Even saying that, it is starting to look like rush hour at that time of the morning. Going home is full rush hour even though it is only 1530. Forty minutes in, in the morning and and hour back in the evening. The evening time is if there is no major wreck to change the normal drive time. I try to get to bed by 2200. I am doing good if I get 61/2 hours of sleep. That is not workaholic. That is just what it takes in Washington.

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First off, why would you want to become a 24-hour city, if you're already not?

Rhetoical I guess yes. However in the South (not FL) you would have only a handful of cities that meet that this critirea:

A decent range of entertainment options open past 2AM

- A decent range of dining options open all night

- Transportation (public, taxis) available all night

- Enough people on the street all night so that some people feel safe on the street (qualified because many people don't feel safe at all in the city after dark)

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The food at the DC Cafe is scary! I live on R Street, just off Dupont Circle. This area is, as you say, generally lively. Walk into the West End or Foggy Bottom after 6:00 PM and the streets are quiet. This is beginning to change- 22 West, the new condo tower next to the Ritz-Carlton in the West End, is supposed to have restaurants and shops on the ground floor. I'm not sure what's going in on the ground floor of the Marriott where Blackie's used to be. I've heard ugly rumors about a Starbucks and a Walgreen's. :sick: All in all, the area is looking up, but the late-night options aren't here in full force- at least not yet.
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Even if you don't want to be a workaholic, many people in this town have to go to bed early. Let's see, I have to get up at 0430 to be able to get to work at 0600 for my Govie job. The best thing about being at work at 0600 is that I miss most of the traffic. Even saying that, it is starting to look like rush hour at that time of the morning. Going home is full rush hour even though it is only 1530. Forty minutes in, in the morning and and hour back in the evening. The evening time is if there is no major wreck to change the normal drive time. I try to get to bed by 2200. I am doing good if I get 61/2 hours of sleep. That is not workaholic. That is just what it takes in Washington.
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I think when as mid sized cities become more urban and people to continue to move back to the urban core they are actually less likely to be 24 hour. I know we saw that in Greenville. With all the new condos residents came the 2 AM Clsoings times which we did not have before.

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That can happen in large cities too. In Washington, I know of sereral cases where residents have successfully fought against restaurants or clubs in their areas (the specific cases I'm thinking of are in Dupont Circle and even in Adams Morgan). A group also nixed the conversion of a building on Connecticut Avenue into a restaurant (it is now a bank) because they were worried about noise. Imagine it....Noise on Connecticut Avenue! Some of these people need to understand that they do, after all, live in a city.

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First off, why would you want to become a 24-hour city, if you're already not?

Rhetoical I guess yes. However in the South (not FL) you would have only a handful of cities that meet that this critirea:

Atlanta, New Orleans. Maybe Charlotte in a few years. Whats stopping other cities down South from following that lead? I think the answer is probably in the culture.

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I don't think "24 hour city" means getting drunk all night like some people are suggesting here. The term came out of the time period when cities were just for work through much of the 60's, 70's and 80's, and closed at 5:00 PM. Everyone wanted to go back to "24 hour cities", which means that it has people inhabiting it 24 hours a day: workers during the day, students days and evenings, shoppers all day and on weekends, diners and bar-hoppers in the evening and at night, and residents. You'll be hard pressed to find businesses other than a Walgreen's open in many cities after 2 or 4 AM, so I don't think that's the determining factor.

I don't know how many people would want to live right in the middle of a city that parties 24 hours a day. It would get annoying real quick. So if your city leaders say they want to be a "24 hour city", find out what they mean. It has different meanings to different people.

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like cloudship, i am not sure why there is a need to become a 24 hour city. in most 24 hour cities, the only things you can do 24 hours a day are go to a diner, a bar, ride the public transit, get gas, and pick up some necessities from a convenience store (obviously this differs from city to city, but the only 24 hour city i've experienced is NYC).

someone mentioned that staying up all night means more business. i think that person failed to realize that unless a restaurant or store gets a certain amount of business each hour they are open, they actually lose money paying employees and utilities (electricity, heat, etc).

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i think a lot of being a 24 hour city has to do with what the economy is driven by.

new orleans is not made up of people who are stupid and dont have to wake up in the morning,

new orleans is a tourism, retail, entertainment and food spot. many people who work here own or manage restaurants and bars, they get off work late and want to go out or they dont have to work until later in the day, the shifts and schedules rotate and there are enough people who work in the service industry or come here on vacation to keep the city open all night long. its nothing but restaurants, hotels, casinos, bars, strip clubs, and markets in the middle of the french quarter. there is always a band or three playing somewhere and the lifestyle affords it because of the mix of people.

there are plenty of professionals and we do not make it out on the week nights, but there are plenty of musicians or restaurant managers whos weekend nights may just happen to be tuesday and wednesday rather than saturday and sunday.

when you have a place with a largely rotating schedule and enough tourism alone to fill all of the restaurants and hotels on any given day then you have a 24 hour city.

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I got tickets to a DJ live set (aka live music) at this nightclub in New York City. Living in the Connecticut system, I'm used to things starting at like 10-10:30, main event coming on about an hour later and going an hour. But oh no, I get down there and it's like... the main event DJ isn't coming on until at least 1 am, perhaps 2 or 3. The club would be open until 7 or 8, and I was welcome to stay.

I'm just thinking to myself... do these people in New York have jobs? There's no way I can hang around in New York till daybreak, then jump the Metro North back home and be able to get enough sleep to go to work midday.

Certain places apparently are good for being 24 hours. I knew New York was moving around all day and all night long, but I wasn't sure just how late the bars and clubs were open. I don't even think Boston is on the level New York is.

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I got tickets to a DJ live set (aka live music) at this nightclub in New York City. Living in the Connecticut system, I'm used to things starting at like 10-10:30, main event coming on about an hour later and going an hour. But oh no, I get down there and it's like... the main event DJ isn't coming on until at least 1 am, perhaps 2 or 3. The club would be open until 7 or 8, and I was welcome to stay.

I'm just thinking to myself... do these people in New York have jobs? There's no way I can hang around in New York till daybreak, then jump the Metro North back home and be able to get enough sleep to go to work midday.

Certain places apparently are good for being 24 hours. I knew New York was moving around all day and all night long, but I wasn't sure just how late the bars and clubs were open. I don't even think Boston is on the level New York is.

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That can happen in large cities too. In Washington, I know of sereral cases where residents have successfully fought against restaurants or clubs in their areas (the specific cases I'm thinking of are in Dupont Circle and even in Adams Morgan). A group also nixed the conversion of a building on Connecticut Avenue into a restaurant (it is now a bank) because they were worried about noise. Imagine it....Noise on Connecticut Avenue! Some of these people need to understand that they do, after all, live in a city.
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  • 1 month later...

I'm very pleased to find this discussion thread, and hope to see it continue. The phrase "24-hour city" was coined in 1995, it is claimed, by the publication "Emerging Trends in Real Estate." It was proposed as a operational term to avoid the conventional "CBD/suburb" categorizations, and the initial assertion in this publication (a joint project, at that point, of Equitable Real Estate and Real Estate Research Corp.) was that such cities would prove "the premier investment opportunities... for office, retail, hotel, and multifamily" property types.

I was asked to speak on this subject in 1999 at an Institute of Real Estate Management conference. Preparing that talk, I was amazed to find that the amount of serious research on the subject amounted to ZERO. Therefore, I tried to stimulate quite a few of my full-time academic colleagues to undertake some of the needed rigorous research. But no one really picked up the ball.

Recently, though, I've had a terrific opportunity to undertake this research myself, and am working on a Ph.D dissertation looking at the subject in earnest. As many of you will know, much of the work will need to be of the dry and quantitative variety. But you really can't make cities dull and boring (well, maybe you can, but I hope not to). Keeping abreast of the controversies surfaced in this discussion thread is one way to stay lively, I hope.

So let me make an offer and a request. I've done some work already and will be pleased to share my findings and thoughts. Just ask. And, as for my request, it is just that you keep your comments and thoughts coming. This is definitely, in the real estate investment world, a topic that is worth some serious attention.... and so it will be affecting cities, for better or worse, as time goes on.

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