Superseded edition, archived. This is the District Index tab exactly as published on 6 September 2026, from the 5 September panel. Its certification counts, composite scores, ownership finding and district records are not current and are kept only so they stay checkable. The current release state.

Hall Capital Advisory research

The District Index

All districts. One geography. Three readings.

The District Index is a ground-floor reading of 83 American downtowns, 45 of them in Texas and 38 outside it, taken inside the boundary each city adopted for its own downtown. It reports how long the shops on that ground floor have been trading, how often those ground-floor businesses change hands, and how much of the street any single owner holds. Underneath the three it reports the people the boundary contains. A reading of a ground floor means something different in a district holding six hundred people an acre than in one holding five.

Every figure on this page is read inside one line. The earlier version of this index read tenure and turnover on the ZIP code containing the downtown. That is a postal area, and it usually reaches well past the district. Ownership was read on the adopted boundary instead. Two lines in one index is not a comparison, so the ZIP reading is gone from every scale and every record. What it cost is stated rather than absorbed. A boundary is a fraction of the size of the ZIP around it, so it holds fewer records. Where it holds too few, the reading is withheld and the record says so.

SHARE OF THE GROUND FLOOR HELD BY THE LARGEST SINGLE OWNER · 78 DOWNTOWNSNO STANDINGUnder 8 percent63 OF 78A POSITION8 to 1512 OF 78APPROACHING15 to 202 OF 78THE THRESHOLD20 to 251 OF 78AUTHORITYAbove 25None OF 780%5%8%10%15%20%25%30%The median district holds 4.9 percentAT 8 PERCENT A RENT CUT FOR A TENANT WHO DRAWS PEOPLE PAYS THE OWNER BACK. BELOW 8, IT PAYS THE NEIGHBORS.Every district in this figure is named further down the page, with what it reads on tenure, on turnover and on the people its boundary holds.

As of 2026-09-05. District Index version 2026-09-05, methodology 2.0. Census 2020 and LODES version 8. Every figure here changes with the next version.

Figure A. Where every district read on its adopted boundary falls on the standing scale. The bands are the levels at which an owner is able to act on a street rather than watch the street.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDCounty property rolls, entity-resolved by the firm. The band cuts at 8, 15, 20 and 25 percent are the firm's.

The Finding:In 63 of the 78 districts read, no private owner reaches the threshold for coordinated action.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY FINDINGHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDThe eight percent floor is a Hall Capital Advisory threshold. The reasoning is printed below so a reader can move it.

A good tenant lifts the whole block.

A coffee shop draws a crowd every weekday, and that crowd walks past every other storefront on the street. Sales rise along the block, so every landlord on it can charge more rent.

One landlord pays for the crowd, and every landlord collects.

Landing that coffee shop means offering the coffee shop a rent below the market rate. The landlord who owns that storefront carries the whole discount. The crowd the coffee shop draws lifts the rents every building on the block can charge.

Cutting a rent only pays back for a landlord who owns enough of the block.

The landlord who cuts a rent to land the coffee shop earns some of that discount back, as higher rent on the other storefronts the same landlord owns. Under Hall Capital Advisory's current ownership model, approximately eight percent is the first threshold at which the economics may begin to support a coordinated rent cut. The assumptions behind it are stated in the methodology. Below that threshold, the higher rent covers only part of the discount, and the neighboring landlords collect the rest.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDEight percent is a Hall Capital Advisory threshold, not an observed market breakpoint. The reasoning is printed so a reader can move it.

In the median downtown the largest landlord owns 4.9 percent of the ground floor.

That is roughly half the threshold above. 15 of the 78 districts read on this scale reach eight percent. None reaches the twenty-five percent at which the firm reads an owner as able to decline a paying tenant outright. That shortfall is consistent with what the tenure and turnover readings show.

What the finding asks of each reader

A city has to be the curator

A district earns a premium when the mix on the street is chosen rather than accepted, and choosing costs money before it earns any. 15 of the 78 districts read on this scale carry an owner above the eight-percent threshold. In the other 63, no private party holds enough frontage to carry that cost, and a city is the party whose interest covers the whole block. A city can curate by taking the control no private owner holds. A master lease across a run of ground floor puts the choice of tenant in one hand. A grant paid through the landlord to the tenant makes the discount land on the rent. An hours covenant in the lease keeps the doors open in the evening.

An allocator has to ask who improves the mix

When an underwriting assumes a better tenant mix will lift rents, somebody has to cut a rent to land the tenant that improves the mix. Under the firm's ownership model the cut begins to pay that landlord back above eight percent of the storefronts on the block, because the higher rents otherwise land on the neighbors. The largest landlord in the median downtown owns 4.9 percent, which is below that threshold. The rent growth in the underwriting has no identified party standing behind it, and the premium paid at entry rests on the same absence.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLD

A developer has to check the share first

Before cutting a rent to land a tenant who draws a crowd, count the storefronts you hold on that block. Above the firm's eight-percent threshold, the higher rent across your own frontage can cover the discount. Below it, the landlords next door collect most of the rent the crowd creates while you carry the cost. The check takes an afternoon on the county roll, and the answer indicates whether your leasing sequence is a strategy or a subsidy.

Read one downtown

Every district carries a record. Choose one below and it lights up on all four scales at once, and that record opens under the scales, read on the boundary its own city adopted.

Every reading on this screen is a planning input. It states what the public record supports. It is not an appraisal, not investment advice, and not a substitute for diligence on a specific asset.

FILLED OUTLINEDprovisional The band on a record is filled when the source behind that reading has cleared the Class A gates governing it, and outlined when it has not. An outlined band is the same arithmetic on a source the firm has not yet standardized against the rest of the universe. The value does not change. What is provisional is the comparison across districts, and 15 of the 147 bands published today are filled. The six gates.

83 downtowns. The scales and the record below both follow this selection.

All 83, on one geography

Each downtown is one dot. The colored segments running under the first three scales are the bands, meaning the stretches of the scale that share one name. The vertical red line inside each is a cut, and a cut is drawn at the value where the reading starts to mean something different for a decision. Choosing a downtown above dims every other dot and leaves that one downtown bright on every scale it appears on.

A district appears on a scale when its boundary carries enough records to support that reading, and is carried in the index with the reading withheld when it does not. Tenure is drawn for 38 of the 83, turnover for 31, ownership for 78 and the population base for all 83. The population base reaches every district because it comes from two national files, read the same way everywhere. The other three are built from more than eighty separate municipal and county files, and their coverage is what it is.

Each dot is one downtown, read inside the boundary that city adopted for its own downtown. The colored bar under each of the first three scales is the band the reading falls in. The red line is the level at which the reading changes what a principal should assume. The fourth scale carries no bands, because no cut on district population has been earned yet. Nothing is hidden behind a hover.

BUSINESS TENURE, OFFICIAL DISTRICT BOUNDARY, MEDIAN YEARS TRADING AT ONE ADDRESS
THINSETTLINGDEEP0481216202428ONE LEASE CYCLEAlbuquerque 9.13 yearsAustin 6.32 yearsBaltimore 7.51 yearsBoston 10.85 yearsBrownsville 4.05 yearsCarrollton 5.99 yearsCharlotte 7.96 yearsChicago 6.58 yearsCorpus Christi 5.6 yearsDallas 6.99 yearsDenton 4.16 yearsDenver 12.26 yearsEl Paso 8.2 yearsFort Worth 4.65 yearsGeorgetown 5.6 yearsGrand Prairie 5.02 yearsHartford 6.78 yearsHouston 6.24 yearsJacksonville 5.72 yearsLas Vegas 5.6 yearsLos Angeles 12.68 yearsMcAllen 2.36 yearsMcKinney 5.29 yearsMiami 7.56 yearsMidland 5.65 yearsNew York City 7.96 yearsOrlando 7.39 yearsPhiladelphia 14.75 yearsRaleigh 3.59 yearsSacramento 7.32 yearsSan Antonio 5.7 yearsSan Diego 9.26 yearsSan Francisco 8.96 yearsSeattle 10.68 yearsTampa 5.65 yearsTucson 8.44 yearsWaco 3.49 yearsWashington DC 7.56 years

Drawn for 38 of the 83 districts. A district is drawn here when at least twenty-five dated businesses sit inside its boundary. The rest are carried in the index with this reading withheld rather than banded on a handful of records. At six years the roster has survived one commercial lease cycle. Below it, every business on the street is inside its first lease.

FOUR-YEAR TURNOVER, OFFICIAL DISTRICT BOUNDARY, OPENINGS PLUS CLOSURES PER HUNDRED BUSINESSES
HELDCYCLINGREPLACINGCHURNING020406080100120140FASTER THAN A LEASE CYCLEAustin 50.2 per 100Baltimore 72.5 per 100Boston 46.2 per 100Brownsville 83.6 per 100Chicago 115.9 per 100Corpus Christi 58.5 per 100Dallas 60.1 per 100Denton 78.3 per 100Denver 37.2 per 100El Paso 85.2 per 100Fort Worth 69.6 per 100Georgetown 56.6 per 100Grand Prairie 62.7 per 100Hartford 107.4 per 100Houston 56 per 100Laredo 87.5 per 100Las Vegas 135.3 per 100Los Angeles 27.2 per 100McAllen 93.6 per 100McKinney 61.3 per 100Miami 50.6 per 100Midland 73.5 per 100New York City 56.8 per 100Orlando 115.2 per 100Philadelphia 31.1 per 100Sacramento 79 per 100San Antonio 65.5 per 100San Diego 110.9 per 100San Francisco 66.1 per 100Waco 80.3 per 100Washington DC 70.8 per 100

Drawn for 31 of the 83 districts, the ones carrying at least forty ground-floor businesses at the start of the four-year window. At seventy per hundred the street is remaking itself faster than a lease cycle replaces it, and that cost sits in nobody's rent roll. Turnover is a rate, not a driver, and it contributes no points to the District Premium Score.

LARGEST PRIVATE HOLDER, OFFICIAL DISTRICT BOUNDARY, SHARE OF COMMERCIAL ACCOUNTS
NO STANDINGA POSITIONAPPROACHINGTHE THRESHOLD0510152025THE EIGHT PERCENT FLOORAbilene 4.2%Albuquerque 6.55%Allen 18.47%Amarillo 3.86%Arlington 9.4%Austin 4.24%Baltimore 6.55%Baytown 6.49%Beaumont 20.41%Boston 2.11%Brownsville 4.68%Bryan 5.59%Carrollton 4.08%Charlotte 8.68%Chicago 6.67%College Station 10.14%Columbus 4.28%Conroe 2.91%Corpus Christi 4.11%Dallas 3.11%Denton 5.08%Denver 1.36%Detroit 4.57%Edinburg 3.51%El Paso 5.01%Fort Worth 7.13%Frisco 2.78%Garland 5.36%Georgetown 5.17%Grand Prairie 1.89%Hartford 10.53%Houston 3.46%Indianapolis 7.8%Irving 6.54%Jacksonville 9.38%Kansas City 7.4%Killeen 5.81%Laredo 5.08%Las Vegas 4.54%League City 5.66%Lewisville 2.08%Longview 11.28%Lubbock 7.72%McAllen 2.37%McKinney 3.62%Memphis 2.18%Mesa 2.46%Mesquite 4.4%Miami 4.86%Midland 7.09%Milwaukee 2.78%Minneapolis 7.21%Nashville 2.64%New Braunfels 3.65%New York City 0.88%Odessa 9.7%Oklahoma City 8.36%Orlando 7.82%Pearland 8.04%Pharr 5.04%Philadelphia 2.82%Plano 3.76%Portland OR 1.37%Raleigh 4.56%Richardson 8.8%Round Rock 3.23%Salt Lake City 15.78%San Antonio 4.16%San Diego 2.94%San Jose 9.42%Seattle 2.06%Tampa 10.15%Temple 5.37%Tucson 4.86%Tyler 4.79%Waco 4.36%Washington DC 5.86%Wichita Falls 3.5%

Drawn for 78 of the 83 districts, the ones carrying at least forty commercial accounts after entity resolution. Eight percent is the floor. Below it no owner holds enough neighboring property to price a traffic-making tenant below market and recover the cost from the neighbors who benefit.

BASELINE PRESENCE DENSITY, OFFICIAL DISTRICT BOUNDARY, RESIDENTS PLUS WORKERS PER ACRE
5102550100250500THE MEDIAN DISTRICTAbilene 15.91 per acreAlbuquerque 65.91 per acreAllen 8.36 per acreAmarillo 12.55 per acreArlington 25.6 per acreAustin 134.12 per acreBaltimore 112.05 per acreBaytown 7.31 per acreBeaumont 23.91 per acreBoston 627.83 per acreBrownsville 22.53 per acreBryan 26.08 per acreCarrollton 21 per acreCharlotte 432.89 per acreChicago 298.83 per acreCollege Station 47.39 per acreColumbus 65.88 per acreConroe 9.8 per acreCorpus Christi 13.61 per acreDallas 124.13 per acreDenton 22.12 per acreDenver 155.53 per acreDetroit 81.68 per acreEdinburg 37.97 per acreEl Paso 42.46 per acreFort Worth 72.59 per acreFresno 42.04 per acreFrisco 14.76 per acreGarland 9.52 per acreGeorgetown 43.62 per acreGrand Prairie 4.69 per acreHartford 128.47 per acreHouston 146.77 per acreIndianapolis 42.13 per acreIrving 11.76 per acreJacksonville 29.27 per acreKansas City 87.17 per acreKilleen 22.42 per acreLaredo 28.43 per acreLas Vegas 29.43 per acreLeague City 12.2 per acreLewisville 13.18 per acreLongview 16.73 per acreLos Angeles 134.8 per acreLouisville 89.64 per acreLubbock 19.62 per acreMcAllen 29.43 per acreMcKinney 18.62 per acreMemphis 23.41 per acreMesa 28.33 per acreMesquite 5.54 per acreMiami 182.62 per acreMidland 55.27 per acreMilwaukee 91.47 per acreMinneapolis 126.39 per acreNashville 58.52 per acreNew Braunfels 14.75 per acreNew York City 634.21 per acreOdessa 24.25 per acreOklahoma City 30.55 per acreOrlando 91.97 per acrePearland 8.41 per acrePharr 18.86 per acrePhiladelphia 413.31 per acrePlano 30.2 per acrePortland OR 58.47 per acreRaleigh 81.13 per acreRichardson 19.21 per acreRound Rock 12.62 per acreSacramento 124.31 per acreSalt Lake City 108.38 per acreSan Antonio 42.84 per acreSan Diego 98.36 per acreSan Francisco 609.21 per acreSan Jose 65.42 per acreSeattle 261.99 per acreTampa 146.55 per acreTemple 12.59 per acreTucson 59.31 per acreTyler 25.15 per acreWaco 40.12 per acreWashington DC 292.69 per acreWichita Falls 16.99 per acre

Drawn for all 83 districts, because this reading comes from two national files rather than from eighty local ones and every boundary can be read on it. The axis is logarithmic: the densest district in the index carries more than a hundred times the people per acre the thinnest does. On an even axis two thirds of the field would sit in the first inch. The dashed line is the median district, which describes the field. It is not a cut, and no band is drawn, because a larger population is not by itself a better district.

As of 2026-09-05. District Index version 2026-09-05, methodology 2.0. Census 2020 and LODES version 8. Every figure here changes with the next version.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDMunicipal and county registers and rolls, plus the 2020 Census and the LEHD LODES workplace and origin-destination files. Every band cut and every record floor is the firm's.

Research views

Presence density against each reading.

Three questions the firm has not answered. Does a denser district hold its businesses longer, replace them more slowly, or concentrate ownership any differently? The relationships are drawn so a reader can see for themselves. Nothing here is banded, nothing is scored, and no line is fitted, because a fitted line on eighty-odd points is a claim and these are observations.

BUSINESS TENURE, YEARS AGAINST BASELINE PRESENCE DENSITY, PER ACRE51025501002505000481216ONE LEASE CYCLEAlbuquerque. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 66. Business Tenure, years 9.13Austin. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 134. Business Tenure, years 6.32Baltimore. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 112. Business Tenure, years 7.51Boston. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 628. Business Tenure, years 10.85Brownsville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 23. Business Tenure, years 4.05Carrollton. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 21. Business Tenure, years 5.99Charlotte. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 433. Business Tenure, years 7.96Chicago. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 299. Business Tenure, years 6.58Corpus Christi. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 14. Business Tenure, years 5.60Dallas. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 124. Business Tenure, years 6.99Denton. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 22. Business Tenure, years 4.16Denver. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 156. Business Tenure, years 12.26El Paso. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 42. Business Tenure, years 8.20Fort Worth. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 73. Business Tenure, years 4.65Georgetown. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 44. Business Tenure, years 5.60Grand Prairie. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 5. Business Tenure, years 5.02Hartford. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 128. Business Tenure, years 6.78Houston. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 147. Business Tenure, years 6.24Jacksonville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Business Tenure, years 5.72Las Vegas. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Business Tenure, years 5.60Los Angeles. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 135. Business Tenure, years 12.68McAllen. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Business Tenure, years 2.36McKinney. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 19. Business Tenure, years 5.29Miami. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 183. Business Tenure, years 7.56Midland. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 55. Business Tenure, years 5.65New York City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 634. Business Tenure, years 7.96Orlando. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 92. Business Tenure, years 7.39Philadelphia. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 413. Business Tenure, years 14.75Raleigh. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 81. Business Tenure, years 3.59Sacramento. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 124. Business Tenure, years 7.32San Antonio. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 43. Business Tenure, years 5.70San Diego. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 98. Business Tenure, years 9.26San Francisco. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 609. Business Tenure, years 8.96Seattle. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 262. Business Tenure, years 10.68Tampa. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 147. Business Tenure, years 5.65Tucson. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 59. Business Tenure, years 8.44Waco. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 40. Business Tenure, years 3.49Washington DC. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 293. Business Tenure, years 7.5638 districts. Horizontal axis logarithmic.
FOUR-YEAR TURNOVER, PER 100 AGAINST BASELINE PRESENCE DENSITY, PER ACRE510255010025050003773110146FASTER THAN A LEASE CYCLEAustin. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 134. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 50.20Baltimore. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 112. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 72.50Boston. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 628. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 46.20Brownsville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 23. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 83.60Chicago. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 299. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 115.90Corpus Christi. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 14. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 58.50Dallas. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 124. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 60.10Denton. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 22. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 78.30Denver. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 156. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 37.20El Paso. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 42. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 85.20Fort Worth. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 73. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 69.60Georgetown. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 44. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 56.60Grand Prairie. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 5. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 62.70Hartford. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 128. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 107.40Houston. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 147. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 56.00Laredo. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 28. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 87.50Las Vegas. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 135.30Los Angeles. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 135. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 27.20McAllen. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 93.60McKinney. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 19. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 61.30Miami. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 183. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 50.60Midland. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 55. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 73.50New York City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 634. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 56.80Orlando. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 92. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 115.20Philadelphia. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 413. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 31.10Sacramento. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 124. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 79.00San Antonio. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 43. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 65.50San Diego. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 98. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 110.90San Francisco. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 609. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 66.10Waco. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 40. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 80.30Washington DC. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 293. Four-Year Turnover, per 100 70.8031 districts. Horizontal axis logarithmic.
LARGEST PRIVATE HOLDER, PERCENT AGAINST BASELINE PRESENCE DENSITY, PER ACRE510255010025050006111722THE EIGHT PERCENT THRESHOLDAbilene. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 16. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.20Albuquerque. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 66. Largest Private Holder, percent 6.55Allen. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 8. Largest Private Holder, percent 18.47Amarillo. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 13. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.86Arlington. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 26. Largest Private Holder, percent 9.40Austin. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 134. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.24Baltimore. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 112. Largest Private Holder, percent 6.55Baytown. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 7. Largest Private Holder, percent 6.49Beaumont. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 24. Largest Private Holder, percent 20.41Boston. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 628. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.11Brownsville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 23. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.68Bryan. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 26. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.59Carrollton. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 21. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.08Charlotte. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 433. Largest Private Holder, percent 8.68Chicago. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 299. Largest Private Holder, percent 6.67College Station. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 47. Largest Private Holder, percent 10.14Columbus. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 66. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.28Conroe. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 10. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.91Corpus Christi. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 14. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.11Dallas. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 124. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.11Denton. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 22. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.08Denver. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 156. Largest Private Holder, percent 1.36Detroit. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 82. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.57Edinburg. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 38. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.51El Paso. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 42. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.01Fort Worth. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 73. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.13Frisco. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 15. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.78Garland. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 10. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.36Georgetown. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 44. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.17Grand Prairie. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 5. Largest Private Holder, percent 1.89Hartford. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 128. Largest Private Holder, percent 10.53Houston. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 147. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.46Indianapolis. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 42. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.80Irving. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 12. Largest Private Holder, percent 6.54Jacksonville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Largest Private Holder, percent 9.38Kansas City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 87. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.40Killeen. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 22. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.81Laredo. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 28. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.08Las Vegas. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.54League City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 12. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.66Lewisville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 13. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.08Longview. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 17. Largest Private Holder, percent 11.28Lubbock. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 20. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.72McAllen. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 29. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.37McKinney. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 19. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.62Memphis. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 23. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.18Mesa. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 28. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.46Mesquite. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 6. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.40Miami. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 183. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.86Midland. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 55. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.09Milwaukee. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 91. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.78Minneapolis. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 126. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.21Nashville. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 59. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.64New Braunfels. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 15. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.65New York City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 634. Largest Private Holder, percent 0.88Odessa. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 24. Largest Private Holder, percent 9.70Oklahoma City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 31. Largest Private Holder, percent 8.36Orlando. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 92. Largest Private Holder, percent 7.82Pearland. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 8. Largest Private Holder, percent 8.04Pharr. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 19. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.04Philadelphia. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 413. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.82Plano. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 30. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.76Portland OR. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 58. Largest Private Holder, percent 1.37Raleigh. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 81. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.56Richardson. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 19. Largest Private Holder, percent 8.80Round Rock. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 13. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.23Salt Lake City. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 108. Largest Private Holder, percent 15.78San Antonio. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 43. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.16San Diego. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 98. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.94San Jose. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 65. Largest Private Holder, percent 9.42Seattle. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 262. Largest Private Holder, percent 2.06Tampa. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 147. Largest Private Holder, percent 10.15Temple. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 13. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.37Tucson. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 59. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.86Tyler. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 25. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.79Waco. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 40. Largest Private Holder, percent 4.36Washington DC. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 293. Largest Private Holder, percent 5.86Wichita Falls. Baseline Presence Density, per acre 17. Largest Private Holder, percent 3.5078 districts. Horizontal axis logarithmic.

As of 2026-09-05. District Index version 2026-09-05, methodology 2.0. Census 2020 and LODES version 8. Every figure here changes with the next version.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDDrawn only for districts clearing the record floor on the reading in question. The dashed line on each panel is a Hall Capital Advisory threshold, marked for orientation rather than as a finding about the relationship.

The record

No downtown chosen yet. Pick a downtown above and the full record opens here. The record prints all three readings, the band each reading earns, the count of public records standing behind each reading, and the residents and workers the boundary holds.

The Class A standard

Six gates. 5 of the 83 districts pass all six.

Class A standardization is in progress. The gates that remain open turn on a single standardized national establishment history and a single standardized national parcel source. Candidates are under evaluation and none is announced as the production source, because licensing, field semantics and empirical validation are not complete. Until they are, the correct description of the national architecture is standardization in progress. The readings on this page stay versioned, so a figure taken today remains checkable against the method that produced it.

A standardized geography does not by itself establish equivalent source quality. Every district in this version is read inside its adopted boundary. Certification is a separate question, and it is answered district by district rather than for the panel as a whole. A certified composite is published only where all six gates pass.

5Class A certifiedAll six gates pass. A composite is published, as a relative benchmark against the certified peer set.
33Provisional, composite withheldAssessed against the six gates, with at least one blocking requirement named on the record.
45Assessment pendingNot yet in the machine-readable production file, so no Class A determination has been made.
G1
Official district geometry

The exact adopted or administratively defined polygon, its authority and its effective date.

38 of 38 assessed
G2
Broad establishment universe

A physical business-location population broad enough to represent the district, rather than a licensed or regulated subset.

5 of 38 assessed
G3
Valid start history

Actual establishment persistence evidence rather than database ingestion age.

5 of 38 assessed
G4
Valid trailing 48-month exit history

Dated closures, with moves distinguishable from true exits.

5 of 38 assessed
G5
Standardized ownership

One qualifying commercial parcel universe and one owner-normalization method across every district.

5 of 38 assessed
G6
Harmonized context

Census and one common LODES vintage clipped to the same district polygon.

5 of 38 assessed

One district. One geography. Three readings. That is what the boundary standardization delivers, and it is a different claim from one district, one source. The second is what Class A certification carries, and it is made for 5 districts.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDThe six gates and their requirements are Hall Capital Advisory's standard. Index version 2026-09-05.

District workspace

Four ways in. One workflow.

Every path below ends in the same place: a boundary validated against what the record supports, the readings that boundary carries, and a comparison against the districts already published. A boundary Hall Capital Advisory has read is labelled as such. A boundary a client supplies is labelled as the client's and is never presented as a firm reading.

  1. Validate
  2. Analyze
  3. Compare
  4. Save
  5. Export

Choose an entry path above.

How this page treats an absence. A reading the boundary cannot support prints WITHHELD with the count that fell short. A reading no source publishes prints NOT AVAILABLE. A reading the pipeline has not reached prints AWAITING_ETL. None of the three prints as a zero, because a zero is a measurement and an absence is not.
Structural Footfall Potential is not in this workspace. The model carries MODEL IN DEVELOPMENT. No coefficient, no score, no projected visitation and no Attraction Lift appears here or anywhere else on this site until Hall Capital Advisory promotes the model.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDReadings and boundaries from the published District Index, version 2026-09-05. Change magnitude is banded on percentile movement at substantial at 30 points or more, material at 15 points or more, moderate at 5 points or more. Those cuts are Hall Capital Advisory thresholds and are printed here because moving a cut moves the band.

The metric stack

Five measures. Two are published.

Population says who is structurally present. Structural Footfall Potential would estimate how much pedestrian activity that population should support. Observed footfall would measure what actually happens. Attraction Lift would say whether the district performs above or below that expectation. Baseline Presence and its density are published. Structural Footfall Potential has a published methodology and no reading. Attraction Lift waits on both. Each says what it would require.

THE ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY, AND WHAT IS PUBLISHED TODAYDISTRICT CONDITIONBusiness Tenure | Four-Year Turnover | Ownership ConcentrationWhat condition is the commercial ecosystem in?PUBLISHEDSTRUCTURAL DEMANDResidents | Workers | Resident and Worker Balance | Baseline Presence | Presence DensityWho is structurally attached to the district?PUBLISHEDMODELLED DEMANDStructural Footfall PotentialHow much pedestrian activity should that structure support?MODEL INDEVELOPMENTReadings withheld until calibratedOBSERVED DEMANDObserved Footfall | Observed VisitationHow much activity actually occurs?NOT PUBLISHEDRequires observed dataPERFORMANCE AGAINST STRUCTUREPresence Conversion | Attraction LiftDoes the district convert or outperform its structural base?NOT PUBLISHEDRequires observed dataCAPITAL INTERPRETATIONReturn Ladder | Baseline Coverage | District Premium | MandateWhat does the condition mean for a capital decision?PUBLISHEDCLIENT DECISIONAcquire | Reprice | Develop | Lease | Preserve | Intervene | Allocate public capitalWhat does the principal do?PUBLISHEDEach layer answers a different question and none substitutes for the one below it. A structural count is not a modelled estimate, and a modelled estimate is not an observed one.
Seven layers, and none substitutes for the one below it. The District Index describes the condition of the commercial ecosystem. Population describes the people structurally attached to it. A modelled expectation is neither.
Baseline PresencePUBLISHED

The resident and worker population structurally associated with the official district geography.

Residents plus workers, with resident-worker overlap removed where the origin and destination file supports it.

Not observed footfall, and not a fourth District Index reading.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVED

Baseline Presence DensityPUBLISHED

Baseline Presence divided by district acres.

The measure that makes a 60 acre district and a 1,600 acre district comparable.

Contextual. It carries no band and no score, and it is outside the Index composite.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVED

Structural Footfall PotentialMODEL IN DEVELOPMENT

Estimates the pedestrian activity a district's structural population should support after accounting for density, resident and worker composition, land-use mix, connectivity, transit access and destination intensity.

Resident circulation, plus worker circulation, plus a structural attraction adjustment. Candidate inputs include the resident and worker balance, presence density, land-use diversity, ground-floor destination density, pedestrian connectivity, transit accessibility, internal trip capture, visitor anchors, district type and daypart.

The methodology is Hall Capital Advisory's and it is published. The coefficients are not estimated yet. The firm is calibrating the model against observed district activity, and no reading is published until validation is complete. Choosing weights by judgment and printing the result would be a score, not a measure.

MODEL IN DEVELOPMENTHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLD

Presence ConversionNOT PUBLISHED

Observed street activity relative to the structural population base.

Observed footfall divided by Baseline Presence.

Requires an observed count. The provenance of that count travels with the measure.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVED

Attraction LiftNOT PUBLISHED

Whether actual district activity exceeds or falls short of the modelled expectation.

Observed footfall divided by Structural Footfall Potential. Above 1.00 is more activity than the structure predicts; below 1.00 is less.

Its denominator is Structural Footfall Potential, so it cannot become operational before that model is calibrated. A ratio over an uncalibrated denominator reports a precision neither side of it has. Never displayed without naming both the modelled denominator and the observed numerator, and never characterized as good or bad without the district type, the time period and the three Index readings beside it.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDMODEL IN DEVELOPMENT

What Structural Footfall Potential would have to clear

A designed formula is not a published measure. Seven steps sit between the two, and they are written down here so that publishing later has a standard to clear.

  1. Define the outcome. Pedestrian passages, visit events and unique visitors are three different things and are not interchangeable.
  2. Obtain observed ground truth. Pedestrian counters or cameras where they exist, supplemented by a licensed mobility source, understanding that a mobile-device visit is not a sidewalk passage.
  3. Calibrate on a multi-district panel spanning district types, sizes and regions, rather than fitting one region's coefficients.
  4. Hold out districts the model was not fitted on, and test against them.
  5. Report prediction error. Mean absolute error or the equivalent, published with the model.
  6. Test stability by daypart and by season, and check that the coefficients stay directionally stable.
  7. Freeze a version. Publish inputs, coefficients and the validation universe under a dated methodology version that later versions supersede rather than silently edit.

The Index and the four instruments are different objects

The District Index measures observed and derived district condition: what the tenure, the turnover and the ownership actually are. The four instruments interpret that condition for a capital decision. The Return Ladder reads traffic value, the Baseline Coverage Score reads durability without programming, the District Premium Score reads whether conditions support a premium, and the Mandate Scale reads whether anybody can act. The District Premium Score is not the District Index. The two are never used as synonyms. One is a measurement of the street. The other is a scored judgment about what that measurement supports.

Hall Capital Advisory does not claim to have invented population-based trip generation, pedestrian-demand forecasting or gravity modeling. Those methods have long precedents, and the Environmental Protection Agency's mixed-use trip generation work and Smart Location Database are the nearest standardized national precedent for the explanatory variables above. The proprietary contribution is narrower. It is the firm's district-level method for converting a standardized resident and worker structure into an auditable pedestrian-demand expectation. Then comparing that expectation with observed activity, and reading the result through the District Index and the four instruments.

EXTERNAL BENCHMARKHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLDEXTERNAL BENCHMARK covers the published trip-generation and pedestrian-demand literature. The district-scale conversion, its variables and its coefficients are Hall Capital Advisory's.

Dataset history

Three counts, and what each one means.

Three district counts appear in Hall Capital Advisory's published work and they are not interchangeable. A figure quoted from one universe does not describe another, and a reading produced under one methodology is not restated under a later one.

Dataset history. The District Index began as a fifty-city Texas study. The current displayed universe contains 83 boundary-standardized American downtowns. That is the founding fifty plus a thirty-eight-district national expansion, less El Paso, which both panels name, and less four Texas cities that publish no downtown boundary this firm can read. Hall Capital Advisory’s Class A program is standardizing the broader national universe under one production methodology. Historical findings stay tied to the dataset and the methodology version that produced them.

50

Founding research universe

The fifty largest cities in TexasMethodology 1.0, published August 2026

Tenure and turnover were read on the ZIP code containing the downtown and ownership on the adopted boundary. Those readings belong to that methodology and are not restated under the current one.

38

National expansion

Thirty-eight districts outside the founding fiftyMethodology 2.0, built on the adopted boundary from the start

All three readings taken inside the boundary the city adopted. This is the panel the machine-readable production file covers, and the only panel carrying a Class A determination today.

83

Currently displayed universe

Every district with a readable adopted boundaryMethodology 2.0, index version 2026-09-05

Fifty plus thirty-eight is eighty-eight name slots, not eighty-eight districts. El Paso appears in both panels, so eighty-seven distinct districts exist across the two. Four of those publish no downtown boundary this firm can read, and the one-polygon methodology has nothing to read them on.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY FINDINGVersion and vintage are printed on every reading. A superseded methodology keeps the figures it produced.

Reconciliation

Eighty-eight to eighty-three, in two subtractions.

Both numbers are correct and they count different things. Eighty-eight is the sum of two panels and it counts El Paso twice. Eighty-seven is the count of distinct districts. Eighty-three is the count with a boundary the one-polygon methodology can read.

start50
Founding Texas universe

The fifty largest cities in Texas, methodology 1.0.

plus38
National expansion

Thirty-eight districts outside the founding fifty.

equals88
Name slots, not districts

The figure the research program set as its national target. It is a sum of two panels, and it counts one district twice.

less1
El Paso, counted once

El Paso is in both panels. The Texas panel reads it on Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone number 5 at 307.5 acres. The expansion reads it on the El Paso Downtown Management District at 303.4 acres, which the Texas Special District Local Laws Code makes coterminous with that same TIRZ. Two published polygons of one district, 4.1 acres and 1.33 percent apart on digitization. The district is carried once, on the expansion boundary.

equals87
Distinct districts across both panels

Every district named in either panel, counted once.

less4
No readable adopted boundary

Mission, Pasadena and Sugar Land publish no downtown district of any kind. San Angelo publishes an adopted Downtown Overlay Zone and its license bars this firm from using it. All four sit at rung 5 on the boundary ladder. Under one district, one polygon, there is nothing to read them on.

equals83
Currently displayed and Class A target

The reachable universe under the current methodology. The four excluded districts return to it the moment any of them publishes a boundary this firm can read.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY FINDINGEvery count above is reproducible from the two published panel files and the boundary register. Index version 2026-09-05.

Provenance

How to read a label

Every figure on this site carries the class of evidence behind it. The labels sit beside the number rather than under the page, because a reader deciding whether to trust a figure should not have to hunt for what kind of figure it is.

PUBLIC DATA

A figure taken directly from a government or public administrative record. Census, LODES, a county roll, a state or municipal register. Free to anyone, and checkable against the same file.

LICENSED EXTERNAL DATA

A commercial or licensed source used in an analysis. Named, with its vintage, so a reader knows which part of a reading they cannot reproduce without the same licence.

EXTERNAL BENCHMARK

Published academic, industry or agency evidence the firm is citing rather than producing. The source and the table are named.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVED

A calculation the firm produces from source observations. A rate, a share, a median, a concentration. The inputs are public; the arithmetic is the firm's.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY FINDING

An interpretation produced by the firm's research: what the numbers mean for a decision, stated plainly enough that a reader can dispute it.

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLD

A proprietary cut, weight, gate or scoring rule. This is where the firm made a choice. Move the cut and the band changes, which is why every cut on this site is printed.

MODEL IN DEVELOPMENT

A Hall Capital Advisory model whose purpose, variables and validation sequence are published and whose coefficients are not yet estimated against observed activity. It marks a method, never a number. No reading is published under it.

MODELLED

An estimate produced by a calibrated model rather than a directly observed count. A model earns this label after calibration, holdout testing and a published error. Nothing on this site carries it yet, and the Index says what would have to happen first.

The last two labels are the ones to watch. A finding is an interpretation the firm will defend. A threshold is a cut the firm chose, and every cut on this site is printed so a reader can move it and see what happens.

The method behind every reading

The scale and the source behind every metric on this page.

Three readings carry this index and one layer sits beneath them. Every panel states what the number counts, which public record produced the number, and the reasoning behind each cut on the scale. The fourth panel states why it carries no cuts at all.

Business tenure The median years the businesses on a ground floor have been trading, cut at six and fifteen years.
What it is

The median number of years the businesses on a district’s ground floor have been trading at the same address under the same name. The unit counted is a business at an address, not a license. One restaurant holding a liquor permit, a food permit and a lottery agency is one business, and counting the permits would count that door three times.

What it is not

Not the age of the buildings. Not the length of the leases. Not a vacancy rate and not foot traffic. Those measure whether people come. This measures whether anything stays.

How it is measured

Most cities and states require a business to hold a license, a permit or a registration before trading, and publish a dated record of it. The firm collects every such record inside the declared boundary, resolves it to a business at an address, and counts the years between the first date and the as-of date. Those counts are ranked and the reading is the median. Each district prints how many businesses were ranked, and a district carrying fewer than twenty-five inside its boundary has the reading withheld rather than printed with a caveat beside it.

Why a reading falls where it does

A commercial lease runs about six years. A district under six years has not yet renewed a single lease, so nothing on that street has been tested by a renewal decision. A district over fifteen years has renewed twice, which means the businesses chose to stay through two decisions to leave. That is the difference between a street people happen to pass and a street people travel to reach.

Four-year turnover Openings plus closures per hundred ground-floor businesses in four years, read on a rolling window.
What it is

Every shop that opened and every shop that closed on a district’s ground floor over four years. An opening is one event and a closure is one event. The total is divided by the number of ground-floor businesses trading at the start of those four years, so the unit is events per hundred businesses. A district reading 60 saw sixty of those events on a hundred businesses, which is about thirty closing and thirty opening. The unit is a business at an address, the same unit tenure counts, not a lease and not a license.

What it is not

Not a vacancy rate. A vacancy rate holding steady at 12 percent can be a stable street or a street cycling half its tenants a year through the same empty units. The rate cannot tell you which. Dated openings and closures can.

How it is measured

From the same dated registers tenure is read on, where the register carries a closing date as well as an opening one. Many do not, and a register with no closing date cannot produce this reading at all: a file holding only the living records shows a street that never loses anybody. The window is four years because a commercial lease runs about six, so four years is short enough that most shops have not yet reached a renewal decision. What the count picks up is therefore a shop that failed or moved, not a shop that reached the end of a term and chose to leave.

Why it matters to a price

Every closure costs the landlord money. The unit stands empty for months and earns no rent. A broker is paid to find the next tenant. The landlord then pays to build out the space for that tenant. On the median street, thirty of every hundred ground-floor businesses close inside four years, and the landlord pays that bill again and again. The bill never reaches the rent roll, and it never reaches the cap rate a buyer uses to price the building.

Largest private holder The share of commercial accounts held by the largest private owner, with the floor at eight percent.
What it is

The share of commercial property accounts inside the declared boundary held by the largest single private owner. That share is what the index calls curation, because choosing which shops trade on a street requires holding enough of the street to turn a paying tenant away. Cities, counties and transit agencies are counted on a separate line, since a public body does not lease a storefront on commercial terms.

What it is not

Not a measure of who owns the most land or the most value. The unit counted is the property tax account, which a county opens one per parcel. The question the share answers is how many separate parcels one owner can decide alone.

How it is measured

County property records, read one county at a time. A single owner usually holds property under several company names, so every name on the roll is traced back to the party that controls the company before any share is calculated. Two limited liability companies filed by the same principal count as one owner. What counts as a commercial account is decided per county, from that county’s own use codes. The residential condominium, the apartment block titled unit by unit and the parking bay titled bay by bay are all excluded, because none of them is a door on a street.

Why a reading falls where it does

Eight percent is the floor. Below it no owner holds enough neighboring property to price a traffic-making tenant below market and recover the cost from the neighbors who benefit. Above 25 percent an owner can decline a paying tenant, which is the only definition of curation that means anything.

Baseline presence The residents and workers a boundary holds, published with no bands and no score.
What it is

The people structurally attached to a district: the residents who live inside the boundary plus the workers whose workplace is inside it, with anyone who does both counted once. Divided by the district’s acres it becomes Baseline Presence Density, which is what makes a 60 acre district and a 1,600 acre district comparable.

What it is not

Not footfall. Nothing in this layer counts anybody walking anywhere. It is the base pedestrian activity is drawn from, not the activity itself. A resident is present at night and a worker on a weekday, and how much of either reaches a pavement depends on the street, the transit, the mix of uses and the weather. That conversion is a separate question and this reading does not answer it.

How it is measured

Residents from the 2020 Decennial Census, the P.L. 94-171 redistricting file, at census block level. Workers from the Census Bureau’s LODES workplace file, also at block level. Each block is counted in proportion to the share of its area inside the boundary. Each record prints how many of the blocks it met lie wholly inside, which is the measure of how much of the reading rests on that apportionment. The overlap is measured rather than assumed: the LODES origin and destination file publishes home-to-work pairs block by block, and a pair with both ends inside the boundary is a person counted twice. Across the 83 districts the median is 3.8 percent of residents also working inside their own downtown, rising to 17.5 percent in Indianapolis.

Why it carries no bands

The three readings above are scored because the firm has published where the cuts fall and why. Nobody has published where the cuts fall on district population, this firm included. A larger population is not by itself a better district: it is the demand base against which durability, churn and ownership are read. The distribution is drawn and the median district is marked, and no line on it is called weak or strong until there is evidence for the line.

All 83 in one table

Every district carries three readings and one base, all four read inside the boundary the city adopted. The table prints them for all 83 districts and sorts on any column. The scales above plot one reading at a time. The table is the reference.

District Tenure, years Turnover, per 100 Largest holder Presence per acre Presence mix
AbileneCB Central Business zoning districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records4.20%NO STANDING16Residents 12%
AlbuquerqueMX-FB-UD form based urban development district9.1SETTLINGwithheld, too few records6.55%NO STANDING66Residents 6%
AllenDowntown Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records18.47%APPROACHING8Residents 14%
AmarilloTIRZ Center City Zone 1withheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records3.86%NO STANDING13Residents 16%
ArlingtonDB Downtown Business zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records9.40%A POSITION26Residents 16%
AustinDowntown Austin Plan Districts6.3SETTLING50.2CYCLING4.24%NO STANDING134Residents 9%
BaltimoreC-5 Downtown District7.5SETTLING72.5REPLACING6.55%NO STANDING112Residents 13%
BaytownDowntown Arts, Main Street and Flex zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records6.49%NO STANDING7Residents 50%
BeaumontCBD Central Business District zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records20.41%THE THRESHOLD24Residents 8%
BostonPLAN: Downtown10.8SETTLING46.2HELD2.11%NO STANDING628Residents 11%
BrownsvilleDowntown Core, Edge and General zoning4.0THIN83.6CHURNING4.68%NO STANDING23Residents 44%
BryanDT-C, DT-N and DT-S downtown zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records5.59%NO STANDING26Residents 9%
CarrolltonDTC Downtown Transit Center zoning6.0THINwithheld, too few records4.08%NO STANDING21Residents 41%
CharlotteCenter City Municipal Service District, MSD 38.0SETTLINGwithheld, too few records8.68%A POSITION433Residents 4%
ChicagoDowntown districts DC, DX, DR, DS6.6SETTLING115.9CHURNING6.67%NO STANDING299Residents 15%
College StationNG-1, NG-2 and NG-3 Northgate zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records10.14%A POSITION47Residents 86%
ColumbusDowntown Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records4.28%NO STANDING66Residents 10%
ConroeDowntown, Code section 14-601withheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.91%NO STANDING10Residents 37%
Corpus ChristiReinvestment Zone Number 3, Downtown5.6THIN58.5CYCLING4.11%NO STANDING14Residents 14%
DallasDowntown Improvement District7.0SETTLING60.1CYCLING3.11%NO STANDING124Residents 8%
DentonDowntown Implementation Plan boundary4.2THIN78.3REPLACING5.08%NO STANDING22Residents 18%
DenverDowntown neighborhood context zone districts12.3SETTLING37.2HELD1.36%NO STANDING156Residents 11%
DetroitCentral Business District per the zoning ordinancewithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records4.57%NO STANDING82Residents 8%
EdinburgDT Downtown zoning districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records3.51%NO STANDING38Residents 5%
El PasoEl Paso Downtown Management District8.2SETTLING85.2CHURNING5.01%NO STANDING42Residents 12%
Fort WorthH Central Business zoning district4.7THIN69.6CYCLING7.13%NO STANDING73Residents 16%
FresnoDowntown Core, General and Neighborhood districtswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records42Residents 15%
FriscoThe Rail Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.78%NO STANDING15Residents 24%
GarlandDT downtown zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records5.36%NO STANDING10Residents 32%
GeorgetownDowntown Overlay District5.6THIN56.6CYCLING5.17%NO STANDING44Residents 10%
Grand PrairieCentral Business District, four sub-districts5.0THIN62.7CYCLING1.89%NO STANDING5Residents 51%
HartfordDT-1, DT-2 and DT-3 Downtown districts6.8SETTLING107.4CHURNING10.53%A POSITION128Residents 9%
HoustonHouston Downtown Management District6.2SETTLING56.0CYCLING3.46%NO STANDING147Residents 10%
IndianapolisRegional Centerwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records7.80%NO STANDING42Residents 15%
IrvingDowntown Development District overlaywithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records6.54%NO STANDING12Residents 47%
JacksonvilleDowntown Overlay Zone5.7THINwithheld, too few records9.38%A POSITION29Residents 12%
Kansas CityDowntown KC Community Improvement Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records7.40%NO STANDING87Residents 22%
KilleenHistorical Downtown overlaywithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records5.81%NO STANDING22Residents 6%
LaredoCBD zoning districtwithheld, too few records87.5CHURNING5.08%NO STANDING28Residents 20%
Las VegasDowntown Las Vegas Overlay District5.6THIN135.3CHURNING4.54%NO STANDING29Residents 23%
League CityOlde Towne and Olde Towne Transition zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records5.66%NO STANDING12Residents 25%
LewisvilleOld Town Design Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.08%NO STANDING13Residents 40%
LongviewCentral Business zoning districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records11.28%A POSITION17Residents 19%
Los AngelesDowntown Community Plan Implementation Overlay12.7SETTLING27.2HELDwithheld, too few records135Residents 21%
LouisvilleDowntown Development Review Overlaywithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records90Residents 8%
LubbockCentral Business District TIFwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records7.72%NO STANDING20Residents 13%
McAllenCC-DT City Core Downtown zoning2.4THIN93.6CHURNING2.37%NO STANDING29Residents 12%
McKinneyMTC McKinney Town Center zoning5.3THIN61.3CYCLING3.62%NO STANDING19Residents 22%
MemphisCentral Business Improvement Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.18%NO STANDING23Residents 25%
MesaDowntown Mesa zoning districtswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.46%NO STANDING28Residents 21%
MesquiteDowntown Main Street Program Areawithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records4.40%NO STANDING6Residents 4%
MiamiMiami Downtown Development Authority7.6SETTLING50.6CYCLING4.86%NO STANDING183Residents 25%
MidlandDowntown Midland Management District5.7THIN73.5REPLACING7.09%NO STANDING55Residents 1%
MilwaukeeDowntown districts C9A to C9Hwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.78%NO STANDING91Residents 18%
MinneapolisDowntown Center and Downtown Destination districtswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records7.21%NO STANDING126Residents 16%
NashvilleDowntown Code districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records2.64%NO STANDING59Residents 13%
New BraunfelsMain Street Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records3.65%NO STANDING15Residents 12%
New York CitySpecial Lower Manhattan District8.0SETTLING56.8CYCLING0.88%NO STANDING634Residents 15%
OdessaDowntown Overlay Zonewithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records9.70%A POSITION24Residents 8%
Oklahoma CityDowntown Design Districtswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records8.36%A POSITION31Residents 15%
OrlandoDowntown Development Board area7.4SETTLING115.2CHURNING7.82%NO STANDING92Residents 14%
PearlandOld Townsite zoning districtswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records8.04%A POSITION8Residents 66%
PharrMain Street district parcelswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records5.04%NO STANDING19Residents 13%
PhiladelphiaCenter City District14.8SETTLING31.1HELD2.82%NO STANDING413Residents 12%
PlanoBG Downtown Business/Government zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records3.76%NO STANDING30Residents 32%
Portland ORCentral City Plan Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records1.37%NO STANDING58Residents 25%
RaleighDowntown Mixed Use districts3.6THINwithheld, too few records4.56%NO STANDING81Residents 10%
RichardsonCORE District, Downtown sub-districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records8.80%A POSITION19Residents 12%
Round RockDowntown Mixed Use Amendment Areawithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records3.23%NO STANDING13Residents 29%
SacramentoC-3 Central Business District zone7.3SETTLING79.0REPLACINGwithheld, too few records124Residents 8%
Salt Lake CityD-1 Central Business Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records15.78%APPROACHING108Residents 7%
San AntonioCentral Business District5.7THIN65.5CYCLING4.16%NO STANDING43Residents 10%
San DiegoCentre City Planned District9.3SETTLING110.9CHURNING2.94%NO STANDING98Residents 40%
San FranciscoC-3 Downtown Commercial Districts9.0SETTLING66.1CYCLINGwithheld, too few records609Residents 7%
San JoseDowntown Primary Commercial districtswithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records9.42%A POSITION65Residents 23%
SeattleDowntown zoning designations10.7SETTLINGwithheld, too few records2.06%NO STANDING262Residents 16%
TampaCentral Business District5.7THINwithheld, too few records10.15%A POSITION147Residents 6%
TempleCA Central Area zoning districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records5.37%NO STANDING13Residents 22%
TucsonDowntown Core Sub-District, Downtown Area Infill Incentive District8.4SETTLINGwithheld, too few records4.86%NO STANDING59Residents 6%
TylerDBAC Downtown Business, Arts and Culture zoningwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records4.79%NO STANDING25Residents 28%
WacoDowntown Overlay District3.5THIN80.3CHURNING4.36%NO STANDING40Residents 6%
Washington DCDowntown DC BID7.6SETTLING70.8REPLACING5.86%NO STANDING293Residents 5%
Wichita FallsCBD, the core of the Greater Downtown Zoning Districtwithheld, too few recordswithheld, too few records3.50%NO STANDING17Residents 17%

Click any column to sort the 83 by that reading. Every column is read inside the boundary the city adopted. A cell saying the reading is withheld means the boundary carries too few records to support it, not that the district was left out.

As of 2026-09-05. District Index version 2026-09-05, methodology 2.0. Census 2020 and LODES version 8. Every figure here changes with the next version.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDEvery column is read inside the boundary the city adopted. The two population columns carry no band, because no cut on district population has been earned.

The synthesis

What the index shows

HALL CAPITAL ADVISORY FINDING

Three readings carry this index. On ownership, no downtown in it has a single owner large enough to choose its tenants. On tenure, not one district read on its own boundary has a roster old enough to be the reason for the trip. On turnover, the median downtown records 70 openings and closures per hundred ground-floor businesses in four years, which is the reason the first two readings sit where they sit. Beneath all three, the median district holds 40 people an acre and 86 percent of them are workers who leave at six.

4.9percent
In 63 of 78 districts, no owner reaches the threshold.

The largest owner in the median downtown holds 4.9 percent of the ground floor. Hall Capital Advisory places the first threshold for a coordinated rent cut at approximately eight percent, and 15 of the 78 districts read on this scale reach it. None reaches 25 percent, which is where the firm reads an owner as able to decline a paying tenant outright.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLD

6.7years
Not one roster read reaches the DEEP band.

The median roster read on its own boundary has been trading 6.7 years, which is one commercial lease cycle and nothing beyond it. 16 of the 38 districts read on this scale sit under six years, where every business on the street is still inside a first lease, and none of the 38 reaches fifteen.

PUBLIC DATAHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY DERIVEDHALL CAPITAL ADVISORY THRESHOLD

70per 100, in four years
The two failures share one cause.

The median downtown sees 70 openings and closures per hundred ground-floor businesses every four years, and 15 of the 31 read on this scale are at or past seventy. A ground floor replacing its businesses that fast is not accumulating the years tenure measures, and an owner below the eight-percent threshold has limited ability to influence which businesses come back.

22of 83 are nine tenths workers
The base under the three readings is a weekday base.

22 of the 83 districts draw at least ninety percent of their baseline presence from workers rather than residents. The densest, New York City, holds 634 people an acre and the thinnest, Grand Prairie, holds 4.7. Two districts can carry the same presence and keep completely different hours, which is why the mix is printed beside the total and not folded into it.

That is the ordinary condition of an American downtown. The condition is not a failure of effort, and no amount of programming fixes a street where no party holds enough frontage to act.

The instruments exist because the condition is measurable, and because a council and a committee can act on a number in a way that neither can act on an adjective.

Method published, reading withheld

MODEL IN DEVELOPMENTEXTERNAL BENCHMARKThe model is Hall Capital Advisory's and its methodology is published. No reading is. The pedestrian-demand literature cited below is external benchmark evidence, not a Hall Capital Advisory model.

Modelled demand, and why no number for it appears here.

The obvious next step from a population base is a projected footfall: take the residents and the workers, apply a rate to each, and print an expected number of people on the pavement. The firm is building that model and will publish it as Structural Footfall Potential. It is not on this page, and the reason is worth stating plainly rather than leaving it as a gap.

The conversion from population to pedestrian volume is well established in pieces. Trip generation estimates trips from land use. Regional travel models start from population and employment by zone. Direct-demand pedestrian models estimate volumes from counts plus nearby land use, network form and transit. Retail gravity models estimate patronage from population, attractiveness and distance. What none of that literature supports is a transferable rule of the form one resident equals so many daily footfalls and one worker equals so many more. Walking propensity changes with land-use mix, street connectivity, transit, trip purpose, time of day and how far a district is from the conditions a model was fitted on. Published tests of transferring a fitted pedestrian model to a new jurisdiction find errors of the same order as the counts themselves, and worse at the high densities downtowns actually sit at.

So the model has to be calibrated against observed counts before any number from it is published, held out on districts it was not fitted on, and reported with its error. Until then this page prints the base and stops. A resident and a worker per acre is a fact about the ground. A projected footfall would be a claim, and a claim without a calibration behind it is worth less than the silence.

Four terms, and what each one would require

Baseline PresenceResidents and workers structurally attached to the district.Published. Public data, apportioned by the firm.
Structural Footfall PotentialThe pedestrian activity a resident and worker structure would be expected to support, after density, composition, land-use mix, connectivity, transit access and destination intensity.Method published, reading withheld. It carries MODEL IN DEVELOPMENT until calibration is complete, and MODELLED after.
Observed FootfallAn actual pedestrian count, or a validated observed measure.Not published. Requires counters or cameras.
Observed VisitationA mobility-derived visit estimate.Not published. Requires a licensed mobility source, and a visit event is not a pedestrian passage.

No reading on this site carries the last three. Where a page needs the general idea rather than one of these four measures, it says pedestrian demand, recurring activity or street-level activity, and means no more than that.

Every reading on this page is a planning input. It states what the public record supports. It is not an appraisal, not investment advice, and not a substitute for diligence on a specific asset. Every band cut is the firm’s and every cut is published.

District Index version 2026-09-05, methodology 2.0. Updated quarterly. A new methodology version supersedes the one before it. It does not restate earlier results as though they had been produced under the new method: a figure published under methodology 1.0 stays associated with methodology 1.0, and stays checkable. The three universes and the methodology that produced each, and the arithmetic from eighty-eight to eighty-three.

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Every reading Hall Capital Advisory publishes is a planning input. It states what the public record supports. It is not an appraisal, not investment advice, and not a substitute for diligence on a specific asset. Hall Capital Advisory LLC is a licensed real estate brokerage. Thomas J. Hall, Founder & Managing Partner. Texas Real Estate License #0615164 | Florida Real Estate Broker License #BK3403424 | Florida Real Estate Brokerage License #CQ1068865. Hall Capital Advisory operates in compliance with the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) and the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC). In accordance with Florida Administrative Code Rule 61J2-10.025, the licensed name of the brokerage firm Hall Capital Advisory appears adjacent to all contact information on this site. Hall Capital Advisory is an Equal Opportunity Employer and practices Equal Housing Opportunity. All information on this website is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Offerings are subject to change, withdrawal, or prior placement without notice.
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