Most "Downtown" parts of Chicago?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Chicago76

This really shouldn't be surprising though. In just about any huge urban area in a developing country, you will see the same thing. Density in this case is largely a product of large households occupying very small apartments. The average household size in Istanbul is roughly 4 people, and these 4 people occupy a home that on average contains only 4 rooms (with bathrooms not counted as rooms). The standard apartment one of these typical families occupies might only be 500 to 700 square feet. That's not something the average New Yorker will tolerate.

It's great for street life and vibrance, but within the residence, it won't meet the space needs of the majority of the people living in New York, Amsterdam, London, etc.

Totally, and in some areas it's even worse than that because of how many millions of people in Istanbul are not registered with the Census there, but are in some other place (and then you have the fact that it's also a big human trafficking city so many illegals as well).

There's such a huge disconnect of rich and poor there. In some of these areas though, rent is not cheap if you are living like a normal person in those areas. My friends were living in Fatih about 1/4 mile from the Blue Mosque and were paying about as much as I do for my apartment in Chicago. Comparable in size, though it had an excellent view of the Marmara. I was actually thinking of moving to Istanbul for a little bit earlier this year (before all that stuff started happening there). I was looking in Beyoglu and it was kind of the same as Fatih - comparable in price to what I pay here. I understand though that a lot more people pile into these places, but some people do that in NYC too for sure. NYC is probably THE worst city in the US for this, so I'm not sure why you're making the claim that nobody in NYC lives like crap. Have you seen some of the conditions for places there? It's more like a developing country in some places than a first world one because people want to live there so badly and not all of them have the money, so they still pile up into places.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Chicago76

This really shouldn't be surprising though. In just about any huge urban area in a developing country, you will see the same thing. Density in this case is largely a product of large households occupying very small apartments. The average household size in Istanbul is roughly 4 people, and these 4 people occupy a home that on average contains only 4 rooms (with bathrooms not counted as rooms). The standard apartment one of these typical families occupies might only be 500 to 700 square feet. That's not something the average New Yorker will tolerate.

It's great for street life and vibrance, but within the residence, it won't meet the space needs of the majority of the people living in New York, Amsterdam, London, etc.

Some immigrants in NYC live in some rather overcrowded conditions. There was one poster on the NYC forum who said he lived in a one bedroom apartment with a family of four as a kid [one was a baby, they moved out soon afterwards]. Some immigrant neighborhoods must have some rather packed housing conditions.