Downtown Office Workforce: 85,000

[Mastermind]

The number i always heard was 70-75k. This is quite a jump if accurate. The downtown workforce as a percent of the population is 15%. It appears the rule of thumb is a U.S. metro population of 1million will have 50,000 employees in its downtown or 5%.
http://www.businessrecord.com/main.asp? ... M=46121.77
Not too impressed with the comparisons. Anyone have numbers for Omaha, Boise, Albuquerque, Madison, Knoxville, Little Rock, etc?

[DMRyan]

I don't have anything that would refute this number, but I'm skeptical. How could the workforce population go up by nearly 10,000 during the recession years when we know heads were rolling at our big financial companies?

That doesn't contradict the fact that there is a huge downtown workforce for this size of metro, and that the concentration of employees downtown vs. the rest of the metro is one of the strongest around. This number just sounds a little too rosy, even if you gerrymander the boundaries of what's considered downtown.

[Mastermind]

I don't have anything that would refute this number, but I'm skeptical. How could the workforce population go up by nearly 10,000 during the recession years when we know heads were rolling at our big financial companies?

That doesn't contradict the fact that there is a huge downtown workforce for this size of metro, and that the concentration of employees downtown vs. the rest of the metro is one of the strongest around. This number just sounds a little too rosy, even if you gerrymander the boundaries of what's considered downtown.

Id love to see the numbers, current and prior. I know Nationwide is larger. Is Wellmark larger? I assume EMC, Methodist, and Mercy are larger. Maybe the numbers include Aviva employees before they moved as well.

[DMRyan]

Here's a quick internet search of downtown workforce populations for the city's you mentioned. Obviously, there will be variables galore in size of what is considered downtown, when the last estimate was, etc. Perhaps new Census data has this information somewhat available by zip code?

Boise: 40,000
Little Rock: 42,000
Omaha: 54,000
Knoxville: 26,000
Albuquerque: 20,000
Madison: 35,000 (seems low when the university is taken into account)

[Mastermind]

Here's a quick internet search of downtown workforce populations for the city's you mentioned. Obviously, there will be variables galore in size of what is considered downtown, when the last estimate was, etc. Perhaps new Census data has this information somewhat available by zip code?

Boise: 40,000
Little Rock: 42,000
Omaha: 54,000
Knoxville: 26,000
Albuquerque: 20,000
Madison: 35,000 (seems low when the university is taken into account)

The key to DSM's numbers are they are only counting "office" jobs, i imagine others are including all employees office and otherwise.

[dogbo]

I agree the current number might be a bit in question, but at the end of the day the overall message is true and important for the metro to not lose sight of. That is, we need to nurture and grow our downtown workforce because that is what has the greatest positive affect in terms of prestige, attracting workforce from other parts of the country (i.e.…at some point we have to do more that migrate rural Iowans to DM), allowing mass transit to be a viable/practical option, and overall just making a positive impression even to those that are just visiting the area.

[Mastermind]

Some of us like to complain about sprawl, but jobs in the CBD in DSM are the higher than much larger cities.

-89% of jobs in DSM are within 10 miles of the central business district.

-37.5% of jobs in the metro are within 3 miles of the central business district. That is actually down 8.6% from 2000. This also confirms or downtown workforce is very large with 101,083 jobs within 3 miles of the CBD.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Multim ... Moines.pdf

Here is how peers and other cities of interest compare:
METRO ST Within 3 Miles
Boise ID 39.4%
Des Moines IA 37.5%
Wichita KS 36.3%
Colorado Springs CO 33.0%
Madison WI 30.1%
Albuquerque NM 26.7%
Grand Rapids MI 26.0%
Dayton OH 24.5%
Omaha NE 23.3%


I think actual # of jobs shows true density, for fun i showed much larger cities.
METRO ST Jobs Within 3 Miles Professional Sports
Providence RI 126,290
Oklahoma City OK 114,184 NBA
Sacramento CA 108,408 NBA
Orlando FL 107,712 NBA
Des Moines IA 101,083
Jacksonville FL 95,001 NFL, NHL
Little Rock AR 93,833
Omaha NE 91,571
Wichita KS 90,716
Buffalo NY 82,360 NFL, NHL
Boise ID 82,051
Grand Rapids MI 80,022
Madison WI 76,123
Dayton OH 75,481
Albuquerque NM 74,061
Colorado Springs CO 71,048
Memphis TN 60,840 NBA

[Mastermind]

Wow, KC's job sprawl is attrocious! Only 16.3% work within 3 miles, worse than Phoenix (18%), but still above Memphis at 12%

NYC Metro is only 30% within 3 miles, that surprised me, but i think once you get that big the 10 miles radius is a better factor. There is only so many people that can fit in a 3 miles radius.