When Russell Manthy moved to Houston two years ago, he combed the city for a neighborhood that mirrored his pedestrian-friendly experience in Chicago.

So he settled on downtown, picking out a corner apartment with high ceilings, walls of windows and exposed brick. An architect by trade, Manthy was lured by the good bones and beautiful details of his space, which he has decorated with one-off antiques and oriental rugs. It is refined and tasteful.

But it's also masculine. Just like downtown Houston.

Census data show 298 men for every 100 women living downtown, south of White Oak Bayou. That ratio is radically out of sync with the city as a whole, which averages 100.4 men per 100 women. But Houston isn't alone in this imbalance.

Economist Jed Kolko has also spotted the trend elsewhere. A man's world has emerged in Los Angeles and Boston as well.

"High men-to-women ratio in downtown Houston is consistent with the pattern we see in many other cities," Kolko said.

In Hogg Palace, where Manthy lives, 42 of the leases are held by men, while 22 are held by women.

Why does this happen? Mark Cline, associate director of the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas, has theories. "I think it's related to the types of businesses around that area - maybe more executives in those buildings are men than women," he said.

More Information Residential projects Coming by end of 2015: 500 Crawford; 400 units.1111 Rusk; 323 units. Coming in 2016: Block 334, 1515 Main; 207 units.The Hamilton, St. Joseph Parkway at Hamilton Street; 149 units.Catalyst, 1423 Texas; 361 units.SkyHouse Main, 1625 Main; 336 units.

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But Houston is evolving, and downtown will morph along with the rest of the sprawling metropolis. As the area inside the Loop grows denser, greener and more pedestrian-friendly, downtown is poised to transform itself into a residential hot spot. Still, it's not as simple as "If you build it, they will come." Perceptions of safety often shape reality, and can affect whether women, families and empty nesters move downtown.

Job and pay gaps

Downtown Houston's skyline rises between Interstate 45 on the south and west and Route 59 on the east. During the day, its glass-and-steel towers are packed with white-collar workers - jobs that are more likely to be filled by men than women.

When it comes to certain jobs and salaries, the gap between men and women in Houston is wider than the national average.

Nationally, 55.8 percent of workers in management, business and financial occupations are men, according to the Census. But in Houston, men make up 57.5 percent of that same category.

And those men are earning more money.

Across the country, women are paid about 78 percent of what men earn, according to the most recent data published by the American Association of University Women. But in Houston's white-collar workforce, the divide is even deeper. For every dollar earned by a Houston-area man in management, business and financial occupations, a woman in that field earns 65 cents.

That 35-cent pay gap can price women out of more expensive neighborhoods - such as downtown Houston, where the median rent of $1,416 was 67 percent higher than the city's $848 norm, according to the 2013 Census.

Not all of downtown is high-rent. A federal detention center housing 951 inmates on Texas Avenue is also counted by the Census Bureau. Though it's a co-ed facility, prisons tend to house more men than women.

For Adam Curley, 34, proximity to the office where he works as a lawyer drew him to downtown a little more than a year ago. He leases a one-bedroom apartment in the new SkyHouse Houston on Main Street.

"I love the idea of being able to walk to work," Curley said. "And SkyHouse is brand new, which was nice. Plus, in the last two years, the whole bar scene has opened up on the north side of town. Like, at Congress and Main, there's The Pastry War and OKRA. Downtown never had a bar-hopping scene, and now you can go out and hit six to seven bars."

Akbar Dosani, a 25-year-old investment banker, was drawn to downtown for similar reasons. After living with his parents in Katy for three years after earning his bachelor's degree, he traded a 45-minute drive for a six-block walk to the office from his apartment at Fannin and Leeland. Being close to the office was a selling point, but Dosani also said he prefers going out in downtown.

"Someplace like Midtown, that's a different crowd," he said. "In downtown, it's more kick back and hang with your friends than getting rowdy. The general feeling of downtown is a little older. A few years ago … I would have said I loved Midtown, but it's a little fratty and a little aggressive."

Young, single and living alone, Dosani and Curley represent the target demographic for developers in the downtown zone.

Cyrus Bahrami, a managing director at Alliance Residential, said his team is planning a higher concentration of one-bedroom spaces downtown than in their other local properties.

"Let's be honest, you have more individuals than families that live downtown," said Bahrami, whose company is developing Block 334, a 207-unit Main Street property scheduled to come online early next year. While some of Alliance's properties are 70 percent one-bedrooms and studios and 30 percent two-bedrooms, the mix will be closer to 80-20 at Block 334, Bahrami said.

"We're marketing that type of project to a young urban professional that might be five to 10 years out of school, working downtown or in the Med Center," he said.

As downtown gets glossier, Alliance isn't the only company with their eyes on that prize.

Shift in perception

From all those windows in his Hogg Palace apartment, Manthy can watch the steady progress of the 40-story luxury Market Square Tower at the corner of Milam and Preston. With plans for 463 apartments and amenities including a rooftop pool, an indoor basketball court and a virtual golf simulator, rents will be significantly higher there - between $1,800 and $5,800.

The heftier price tag is likely attract a different clientelle, and may even lure some married couples looking to trade their traditional suburban homes for a new urban lifestyle.

Baby boomers downsizing into downtown living is national trend, and Houston has seen a bit of that action, says Terry Stanfield, a Realtor with Heritage Texas Properties. He estimates about 40 to 45 percent of his sales last year were "empty nesters, who are over driving from the suburbs every day."

Yet the sticker shock associated with upscale urban living may keep some boomers away, especially since living spaces downtown are so much smaller.

Market Square Tower is just one piece of a massive residential renaissance taking place downtown, where 4,063 people resided in 2013, according to the Census. But it will take more than cranes and scaffolding to create a downtown boom. There has to be a shift in perception about the area.

"For most Houstonians, downtown - they don't really think of as a residential place," said Jessica Phifer, 33, who works in business development for Christie's Auction House and lives downtown. "But I think that most of the folks living downtown are living here for practical reasons. They probably didn't know the city prior."

Manthy agrees. He refers to the neighbors he sees hanging out at La Carafe and other area hotspots as "expats." In conversations with long-time Houstonians, he said he's heard plenty of pre-conceived notions about the area's safety.

"Coming from Chicago and New York, this downtown is very safe to me," said Manthy. But he said his colleagues living in other areas of Houston comment that "downtown is dangerous."

The Houston Police Department recorded eight aggravated assaults and two rapes in downtown Houston in July, the most recent data available. That same month saw 813 aggravated assaults, 82 rapes and 24 murders around the city as a whole.

"It's about what you're used to, what you're relatively comfortable with," Manthy said. "And if you're from a place like Chicago, this will seem really mild. But the people from here, the downtown nature is going to seem probably a little more negative."

And that, he said, may be another reason why more men than women live downtown.

"I think maybe as a single woman, it would be harder to be downtown - or perceived to be harder to be downtown - for safety," he said. "Guys just don't worry about it as much."

Phifer, who grew up in Houston but lived in New York and France before moving back, said she's often asked whether she feels safe living downtown. Her answer is a quick yes. But she may be in the minority.

"If we're talking about developing a vibrant residential area downtown, you've got to make that downtown feel safe for women and families," Cline said. "And that may tell us a little bit about that perception of - rightly or wrongly - whether downtown is safe, or perceived as safe."

As high-rent high-rises continue cropping up, Cline said it's likely this perception will change. And downtown's demographics will shift - something Phifer said she has already noticed.

"You feel like there are definitely more financiers who moved here from somewhere else as of late," she said. "I feel like the demographic is looking less like the Houston I knew, and more like a traditional business district. It much more closely resembles something you'd see in Manhattan on Wall Street."

Whether this metamorphosis will draw more women or couples downtown remains to be seen.