Ain't got that soul (when younger demographics leave the city): and musings about the nightlife economy
The San Francisco Chronicle ("Why 20-somethings are abandoning San Francisco — even when they can afford it") makes the point that as the demographic of younger people shrinks in the center city, mostly due to lack of jobs or high rents, there are fewer customers for night life--bars, restaurants, etc.
“Young people supply culture and creativity, which are the beating hearts of a city,” said Assembly Member Matt Haney, who represents eastern San Francisco. “When a lot of young people leave a city, that place loses some of its soul.”
Overall, from 2013 to 2023, the share of 20-somethings in San Francisco County dropped from about 18% of the population to about 14% — the largest such decline of any major U.S. county and nearly quadruple the national drop. The data prompts a big question relating to the city’s economic future: Is this the mere ebbs and flows of San Francisco’s demographics at play, or the start of something much grimmer? ...
“You can feel the drain of young people from the city just by how empty the bars are,” said Aaron Paul, co-owner of San Francisco bars Macondray and Zhuzh. “It’s definitely a tough time to be working in nightlife.”
Positioning in neighborhoods versus entertainment districts. I saw this in a different way in DC in terms of neighborhood demographics. As people age they go out less to bars, spend less in restaurants, and maybe on concerts, etc. So there is a distinct difference in clientele and positioning for restaurants in entertainment districts versus neighborhood districts, which is captured in the various "Richard's Rules for Restaurant (Food) Based Revitalization, Salt Lake City and DC's Chinatown" posts over the past 20 years.
Aging out. And I've written about how people age out of living in "entertainment districts" as they get older, their household configuration changes, etc. I've written about this, "Daypart and age-group planning in mixed use (commercial) districts" 2009), partly in response to a Washington Post article (but there were others), "Residents of Washington's U Street Corridor Tired of Area's Growing Noise.."
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Sometimes restaurant pricing seems out of control. I was looking at the tasting menus of the restaurant Gravitas in DC, which got online opprobrium because of the chef-owner's support of Elon Musk's wacking government--when government is the main business in DC--and I was somewhat shocked at the pricing.
It's a once/year super special occasion if anything. But the food looks amazing.
Get the $60 upcharge for wagyu prime rib, which seems cheap compared to the caviar course that can be as much as $1800.
Patton's is not the kind of restaurant that should be placed in a neighborhood (Savoir is on the cusp) even though it's definitely a high income neighborhood, unless somehow it can develop a regional clientele that transcends its neighborhood location. My sense is that the average neighbor might go there once/year, which isn't enough of a revenue stream.
Musings/further implications for night life in the city
1. Reduced number of the college aged going forward. Extending from this, another demographic trend that will negatively impact cities is the decline of the college age population. Fewer students in college ultimately means fewer graduates moving to cities.
2. Fewer patrons means that some places are over-supplied with entertainment districts, and likely some will suffer. Is that a problem for H Street NE in DC ("H Street NE went from riot-torn neighborhood to success story. Now it’s lost its magic," GGW, although I wrote about this in 2023, "H Street NE nightlife district, failing?" and "A follow up on the H Street article: Learning from Philadelphia | More sophisticated daypart, retail, cultural, and experience planning").
3. Some entertainment districts will broaden their reach by adding upscale establishments, e.g., the Minetta's Tavern mentioned above is but one of a large number of expensive choices in the Union Market district.
4. Programming and management of the district will help some become stronger than others, remaining successful. Union Market has a significant chunk of property owned by a sophisticated property owner and manager, while H Street NE is laissez faire with a commercial district revitalization organization and Eastern Market is encumbered by city ownership and other issues ("Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my unrealized master plan for the market").
5. High quality transit access probably makes a difference, e.g., Union Market has a Metrorail station within walking distance, not so much for H Street NE or Ivy City.
6. Arena/stadium entertainment districts may have similar issues. As ticket prices increase, the patron base shrinks, and older patrons are less likely to consume a lot of alcohol or stay out later.
7. WFH affects after work happy hour culture and sales. Fewer workers, fewer younger workers, means happy hour is a less successful sales event.
8. Private clubs will diminish the amount of spend available to "in the wild" restaurants ("Inside Ned’s, the private club for a new generation of D.C. cool kids," Washington Post).
9. And I forgot that Gen Z is less inclined to drink alcohol ("Why Gen Z is drinking less," TIME Magazine).
Labels: demographics, high cost of housing, nightlife economy, restaurants, urban revitalization
posted by Richard Layman @ 4:10 PM&Permanent Link
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https://www.standard.co.uk/going-out/restaurants/is-the-spirit-of-soho-slowly-being-suffocated-b1217442.html
The suffocation of Soho: how London's creative rogue is being sanitised
3/19/25
Because we are again witnessing residents’ complaints. The Soho Society, which represents the district’s circa 2,000 residents, is again lambasting the noise and supposed dereliction of the streets they live on, as if Soho were not Soho but some kind of leafy suburb in Zone 4.
There have been numerous battles between locals and business owners. Last year, one of the more high profile involved Trisha’s, the basement bar on Greek Street trading for more than 80 years, which had to fight to stay open.
Not so long ago, the society launched a legal fight against plans for a new gin distillery and shop in Meard Street, which had been granted in July. Members appealed against “procedural unfairness” and wanted amendments to three licensing conditions. Busybodies, much?
We are seeing fewer than 2,000 people — a miniscule figure, especially if one considers that 30,000 used to live in Soho just after the Second World War — attempting to decide the fate of millions, railing against conviviality, joy, camaraderie and romance. Against new business, against progress. So many Londoners are already priced out of living in London’s town centre. Are they not even allowed to visit any more?
Most recently there has been Westminster City Council’s proposal of “quiet nights” for pubs, clubs and bars, to help curb resident complaints. The new “After Dark” strategy comes amid concerns the capital’s nightlife is being crushed by bureaucracy and spiralling costs. In turn the draft policy aims to “champion sensory-friendly and inclusive entertainment”, encouraging venues to reduce noise levels, dim lighting and implement designated calm zones. Some of this sounds fine — so too calls for increased CCTV. Safety is paramount to nightlife. But it is a policing of fun in the places where fun is supposed to happen.
Businesses in one of the world’s most famous party locales should be able to make money with equal rigour. London’s nightlife suffers enough and it’s embarrassing to see Soho diluted when you consider New York, Athens and Bangkok, three cities that do not falter past 11pm. If ley lines exist, those three are on one, by the way.
At the same time, businesses are facing rising rents and staffing costs, ever more restrictions and rising food prices, not to mention a coming Budget nightmare owing to an increase in employer National Insurance Contributions. It looks set to wreak havoc on hospitality after years of Brexit and pandemic-induced unease.
https://www.westminster.gov.uk/westminster-after-dark
Downtown Boston is trying to find its post-pandemic identity. It’s fighting an uphill battle.
People in Greater Boston are less likely to spend time in neighborhoods not like their own than they were five years ago. Here’s why that’s a problem for downtown.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/19/business/covid-downtown-boston-changed
Five years ago this week, Boston was unrecognizable. Its normally bustling streets were deserted. Its office towers and arenas empty. Its restaurants dark. The days stretched to weeks, then months, of wondering when the people would come back.
Eventually, they did.
Five years after COVID shut down Boston, things feel, by and large, normal again. There are lines at lunch spots, crowds at the Garden, college kids at the bars. But the city isn’t the same.
Measures of foot traffic and office vacancy haven’t fully rebounded. Hybrid work remains pretty common. Car traffic is worse. Empty storefronts persist.
But more than anything, we just don’t mix like we did before.
A Northeastern University study of cellphone data found that when COVID hit, inhabitants of Greater Boston became far less likely to interact with people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Those numbers have been recovering, but for many parts of the region, particularly in the suburbs, levels of what researchers call “social exploration” have fallen sharply.
And that’s bad news for a city whose culture and economy have, for centuries, been built on people mixing, connecting, and sharing ideas, said Northeastern University physicist Esteban Moro, who’s leading the study. Bad enough that it raises questions about what cities like Boston are for, now, and how we make them places that people connect once again.
“Cities are these social engines that put together people,” Moro said. “This is the purpose of the city, right?”
... Moro and his colleagues at Northeastern’s Social Urban Networks Group track the movement of people across cities, and when they look at Greater Boston they see, basically, less movement. Generally, people in the most affluent suburbs are staying in their affluent suburbs. People in the region’s lower income corners stay there, too.
It’s an indicator of the diminished role that downtown plays in the daily lives of Bostonians. According to recent figures from the Downtown Boston Alliance, about 20,000 fewer people work downtown than they did five years ago, and they come in, on average, about three fewer days per month. Add it up, and the work trips into the core of the city district have fallen by almost half.
... “The fundamental thing that we’re asking is where are people?” she said. “Where is the center of gravity in the city, whether for shopping or for hanging out or for work? Where do people come together?”
Increasingly, that’s neighborhoods where people do more than work. While foot traffic downtown remains below pre-pandemic levels, according to city data, it’s nearly back citywide, and up in places such as Fenway and Longwood. What’s the difference? These “multipurpose” neighborhoods, as Moro describes them, provide chances to live, work, and play in more equal measure.
“Every building that comes back to life makes a difference,” Wu said.
Even office buildings that aren’t being converted are seeing new life.
Take 63 Franklin St., an old bank headquarters in Downtown Crossing. In December, job-training nonprofit Breaktime paid $6.3 million to buy it to house their 40-plus employees, a health clinic, and retail space where the teens Breaktime works with can hold jobs — showing how a downturn in office values can open new doors for new ideas.
The city’s trying other things too, like doling out $10 million in federal COVID relief funds to help 90 small businesses find a toehold in empty storefronts, and pushing Beacon Hill to provide 225 new liquor licenses, which it will distribute across the city to spur new restaurants in all corners of Boston.
But these efforts are fighting an uphill battle.
... “If people are going to venture out of their home for any reason,” she said, “it’s to have a particular experience.”
And experience is a big part of how developers aim to draw people out now. Food halls, for instance, are springing up across the city, not just catering to office workers seeking lunch but also tourists, families, and after-hours crowds into the night.
A slew of for-profit “Instagram museums” and immersive art experiences have recently taken up residence in hollowed-out storefronts. A Harry Potter exhibit has lately drawn throngs to an empty old Best Buy at the CambridgeSide mall. “Competitive socializing” is all the rage in the Seaport, where different venues offer mini-golf, ping pong, bowling, pickleball, or darts. And the recent arrival of new spaces where people can both shop and linger — be it at Beacon Hill Books & Cafe, or the batting-cage-boasting Dick’s House of Sport in Back Bay — are models for how businesses can transform an errand into an event.
In the wake of the pandemic, Justin Sorbo and two colleagues left their longstanding jobs at gym chain Equinox to open Pearl Street Fitness training studio in the Financial District. The gym’s owner, David Cheal, purchased a former convenience store and renovated it into a boutique gym where customers can linger after workouts on tufted leather couches, sipping whiskey or getting a trim from one of the visiting barbers that pass through. His goal was to create a ”third space” for clients to hang out in, and to work from before or after sessions.
“The entire thing is to facilitate relationship-building of different kinds and having strong bonds and connections with people,” Sorbo said. “Normal face-to-face interactions are something that’s becoming sparse in the area of remote work. We’re definitely shooting for a tighter community here, and we do have that.”
But there’s a catch. All of these new places are private spaces, and many of them quite pricey.
That’s a challenge in a city that aspires to be for all of its people, said Ted Landsmark, director of Northeastern’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy. Cities, after all, aren’t just blocks and buildings, but places where “joyful interactions” can bring people together.
“It’s incumbent on public leadership to encourage those kinds of informal interactions,” Landsmark said, “particularly around entertainment, shopping, play, and culture.”
That can take various forms, he said, from public art to public gatherings — both of which the Wu administration has experimented with — to lowering T fares on weekends to draw more young people downtown. It can mean ensuring that major developments include space for civic life — such as the popular new plaza atop the Massachusetts Turnpike at the Lyrik building. And it can mean making more of the public spaces Boston is fortunate to have, especially along Boston Harbor, where longstanding efforts to increase access still have a ways to go.
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