Hartford, Connecticut is a prime example of a city that simply has too many parking lots in its downtown. Hartford’s already small downtown area is littered with parking lots and torn apart my major highways. Its residents largely live in extreme poverty. Yet, Hartford was not always such an impoverished city—in fact after the Civil War it was the richest city in America. The Colt Firearms Factory, on the shores of the Connecticut River, helped “spawn the Industrial Revolution…made guns that helped the United States conquer the West and win two wars” (New York Times). Residents noted a vibrant city where the streets were filled every day, where businesses were profitable, and where crime was low. However, today Hartford has the fourth highest poverty rate in America. Hartford’s poverty rate of 30.6 percent is only behind the cities of Cleveland, Detroit, and Flint, Michigan. The old Colt Firearms factory lies vacant, disintegrating into crumbling bricks and shattered glass. Hartford today is a “destitute 17 square miles…[with an] undistinguished, under populated downtown” (New York Times). Obviously, Hartford is not the city it once was—it has lost an extreme amount of jobs, population, and overall cultural influence.
The automobile was largely responsible for Hartford’s decline. Because of sprawl into large suburban developments, hardly anyone actually lives in the downtown. Hartford’s population of 124,000 (of which only about 5,000 live in the downtown area) is contrasted with the 1.2 million people that live in the metropolitan area. There are hardly any residential buildings in the downtown area.
Downtown Hartford has more parking lots than actual buildings. Photo by Stephen Dunn/The Hartford Courant
Another aerial view of Hartford, this time from Google Earth. The parking lots are circled.
This sea of asphalt has basically destroyed what was once a vibrant downtown. The parking lots have created a “commuter city” with two very different personalities– one during the day, and one after 5 p.m. After 5, downtown Hartford becomes a ghost town, while the roads and highways around it become anything but. Because of the sparse downtown population, restaurants, bars, and other business have an incredibly difficult time staying in business, and most are even closed on weekends when the working population is not in the city. The parking lots empty, Hartford becomes a sea of asphalt with nothing interesting or exciting drawing people to its downtown.
A view of vacant commercial space in the downtown. These stores have been vacant for the past four years as businesses haven’t even tried to come to downtown. Stephen Dunn/The Hartford Courant