Have you ever wondered why it is, that say, on one fine spring day in 1999, a downtown condo can be had for under $100,000, then just three years later an urban buyer’s epidemic breaks out and you can’t find one for less than $300,000?  Thousands believe that business consultant Malcolm Gladwell covered the reasoning quite well in his best-seller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

The three rules of epidemics, as he sees it:

1. The Law of the Few.  It doesn’t

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It started with public-private leadership.  City officials, business groups, banks and nonprofits formed a public-private partnership, Downtown Now! in 1997 to develop a 5-7 year plan to revitalize downtown St. Louis. The City of St. Louis officially adopted this Downtown Development Action Plan in December of 1999, directing $1.5 billion in public (one-third) and private (two-thirds) investment into four clearly distinct areas (see image).

What makes this work in the real world is that the

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Let’s put it this way - just the population increase of already maxed-out Manhattan, NY from 1990-2000 is five times greater than the entire downtown population of St. Louis today; 9610 people.  Still though, it’s the present that counts, and 1863 residential units have been added since 2000, with another 1050 in 2005 and an additional 1359 planned.  Figuring 1.5 people per unit, that’s a doubling of the downtown population since 2000!

Why are people moving downtown?  The major reason is

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People are starting to favor the unique establishments of downtown over the “What neighborhood am I in?“ homegeneity of suburbia…

Charlotte’s downtown population has grown tenfold from just 800 in the early 1990s to 9500 today.

The Census showed that for the first time in 30 years Atlanta’s downtown city population grew, 16,000 of them between 2000 and 2003 alone.

For the first time ever, Houston’s inner city growth equaled or exceeded that of the suburbs

Denver’s central city population

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Great young minds think alike: Educated 20-, 30-somethings flock to city (Denver Post)
By David Olinger, November 12, 2003

According to a U.S. Census Bureau report released last week, Denver’s one of the top ‘brain-gain’ cities in the country, ranking sixth in net migration of single college graduates during the late 1990s.  Portland, OR, Atlanta and Charlotte, NC were winners as well, the industrial age-dependent Rust Belt and New England cities - not, namely Philadelphia, Cleveland and

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Well, since most Gen Xers are single/divorced (over 70%), they sure aren’t looking to settle down in a family-oriented neighborhood.  Here are the top 10 cities that Gen Xers are migrating to:

1. Orlando: An abundance of new tech jobs and limitless entertainment are hard to resist.
2. Las Vegas:  The entertainment and affordable living capital.
3. San Francisco:  Diversity, entertainment and hundreds of great dining experiences.
4. Denver:  The outdoor entertainment capital.
5. Charlotte: 

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