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View Poll Results: Which are more alike
LA and Houston 139 45.28%
LA and Miami 168 54.72%
Voters: 307. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 11-21-2012, 09:48 PM
 
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Not having been to Houston, I enjoy LA much more as a visitor than I did Miami. I went to Miami thinking it would have the great ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants of LA, but they were in much scarcer supply. Inner Miami is densely populated, but most of it is not very pleasant to walk in. Brickell Ave. was lined with towers but there were few people walking, everybody drove into garages in the buildings. You see a lot more people walking in Los Angeles, whether from their homes, from transit, or even from street and surface parking lots. South Beach seemed to be the only really walkable place in the Miami area, whereas LA has many. Miami was interesting in the way various South American people had their own districts and stores--Venezuelans, Argentinians.

Los Angeles is an older city than Houston or Miami. Los Angeles County had a population of 936,000 in 1920, and over 2.2 million in 1930. Neither Houston nor Miami-Dade County reached 1,000,000 until 1970. Among other things, this meant that some strong transit corridors were permanently established in LA. LA and Houston are expanding their transit systems, especially light rail, Miami much less so.

LA has lost a considerable amount of manufacturing, but it is still a major industrial and port city. I believe the combined port of Los Angeles/Long Beach is the second busiest in the country. Houston is a major industrial city. Miami never had a substantial industrial sector, and the port is oriented towards cruise ships, not goods movement. Though Downtown LA is stronger and has more diverse land uses than Downtown Houston, the two cities are alike in having multiple major economic centers. Miami didn't seem to have as many, outside of Downtown Miami and Miami Beach.

The beach seems much more important economically and culturally in Miami than in LA. The beach is part of LA's story, but millions of people live a long way away and see it rarely, if at all.

It might be that San Diego is really Miami's comparable. Both strongly beach-oriented, non-industrial, both ports of entry for immigrants, selling sunshine.
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Old 11-21-2012, 09:57 PM
 
14,256 posts, read 26,789,930 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zombieExtraordinaire View Post
Houston feels like it has more asians than it does when I glance at the statistics. Miami never felt that way when I lived there.

Ultimately, this is very hard.

Houston's latino's are largely from Mexico and central America (same for LA) while Miami's latinos are largely from the islands. This has a different impact on culture. To add further case to Houston is the asian population.

However, ethnic whites in Los Angeles are from all over the place and that simply isn't true for Houston (not to say Houston doesn't have Russians etc, but in the same prevalence as either LA or Miami). Miami matches with LA a lot here.

So overall, demographics favor Houston to Los Angeles, but it's close.
Yeah, closer than people realize. While Houston has the Mexican/Vietnamese connection with LA, Miami has the Russian/Jewish connection.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:00 PM
 
14,256 posts, read 26,789,930 times
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Originally Posted by Carlite View Post
Not having been to Houston, I enjoy LA much more as a visitor than I did Miami. I went to Miami thinking it would have the great ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants of LA, but they were in much scarcer supply. Inner Miami is densely populated, but most of it is not very pleasant to walk in. Brickell Ave. was lined with towers but there were few people walking, everybody drove into garages in the buildings. You see a lot more people walking in Los Angeles, whether from their homes, from transit, or even from street and surface parking lots. South Beach seemed to be the only really walkable place in the Miami area, whereas LA has many. Miami was interesting in the way various South American people had their own districts and stores--Venezuelans, Argentinians.

Los Angeles is an older city than Houston or Miami. Los Angeles County had a population of 936,000 in 1920, and over 2.2 million in 1930. Neither Houston nor Miami-Dade County reached 1,000,000 until 1970. Among other things, this meant that some strong transit corridors were permanently established in LA. LA and Houston are expanding their transit systems, especially light rail, Miami much less so.

LA has lost a considerable amount of manufacturing, but it is still a major industrial and port city. I believe the combined port of Los Angeles/Long Beach is the second busiest in the country. Houston is a major industrial city. Miami never had a substantial industrial sector, and the port is oriented towards cruise ships, not goods movement. Though Downtown LA is stronger and has more diverse land uses than Downtown Houston, the two cities are alike in having multiple major economic centers. Miami didn't seem to have as many, outside of Downtown Miami and Miami Beach.

The beach seems much more important economically and culturally in Miami than in LA. The beach is part of LA's story, but millions of people live a long way away and see it rarely, if at all.

It might be that San Diego is really Miami's comparable. Both strongly beach-oriented, non-industrial, both ports of entry for immigrants, selling sunshine.
Miami may not have light-rail, but Miami's metro-rail, tri-rail, and mono-rail are way more extensive rail-based transit than Houston's light-rail. Miami has 3 separate rail-based transit systems. Tri-Rail in particular is South Florida's version of Metrolink.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:06 PM
 
507 posts, read 802,099 times
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Originally Posted by polo89 View Post
Miami may not have light-rail, but Miami's metro-rail, tri-rail, and mono-rail are way more extensive rail-based transit than Houston's light-rail. Miami has 3 separate rail-based transit systems. Tri-Rail in particular is South Florida's version of Metrolink.
Yeah I don't know what the other person was talking about but Miami has of now a much better rail system than Houston, Houston has a whole lot of catching up to do when it comes to rail.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:18 PM
 
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La csa 18,000,000 million people. Way out of houston or miami's league. nyc and chicago have similarities. La has its own thing, there is really no city that is similar at all. La is way bigger then houston. Houston will never be as dense and massive as la. once you leave the la metro you are still in extreme populated area that never seems to end. Miami night life might be able to hang with la nightlife on a smaller scale and obviously miami has a bigger skyline.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:20 PM
 
Location: Washington D.C. By way of Texas
20,500 posts, read 33,299,328 times
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Originally Posted by Lifeshadower View Post
4 million? Nah, it's around 2.2 million in the CSA, with only around 460k who live in the City of LA (including myself).

Metro Matt is obsessed with demographics, even though Houston's demographics are a heck of a lot closer to Miami's than it is to LA's if using the 4 race rubric.

Using "large Hispanic and Asian" population, SF Bay, NYC, CHI, DC, ATL, Las Vegas, SD, Sacramento, etc. etc. would apply. In fact, a huge CHUNK of American cities would apply.
Thanks for the correction. I started to type 2 mill but don't know why I typed 4.maybe I'm thinking of the entire state.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:25 PM
 
Location: Upper East Side of Texas
12,498 posts, read 26,846,374 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spade View Post
No it's not. Miami has 2.4 million Hispanics and Houston has 2.1 million. And Houston'a Asian population is far closer to Miami's Asian population than Houston is to LA. LA has over 4 million, I believe? Houston has over 400k and Miami over 150k. Have you ever been to Miami? Miami metro has the 3rd largest Hispanic population in the US.
Houston is the closest to LA in those particular groups. Miami's Asian population is VERY low for such a large city. Houston's diversity is well balanced & distributed unlike most cities. No zoning laws forces people of all types to live together.

Houston-Harris County

Asian 6.18%

Hispanic 40.84%

Los Angeles

Asian 11.3%

Hispanic 48.5%

Miami-Dade County

Asian 1.5%

Hispanic 62.4%

Last edited by Metro Matt; 11-21-2012 at 10:34 PM..
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:27 PM
 
14,256 posts, read 26,789,930 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MPLS_TC View Post
La csa 18,000,000 million people. Way out of houston or miami's league. nyc and chicago have similarities. La has its own thing, there is really no city that is similar at all. La is way bigger then houston. Houston will never be as dense and massive as la. once you leave the la metro you are still in extreme populated area that never seems to end. Miami night life might be able to hang with la nightlife on a smaller scale and obviously miami has a bigger skyline.
Might? Pfft.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:28 PM
 
14,256 posts, read 26,789,930 times
Reputation: 4560
Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro Matt View Post
Houston is the closest to LA in those particular groups.

Houston-Harris County

Asian 6.18%

Hispanic 40.84%

Los Angeles

Asian 11.3%

Hispanic 48.5%

Miami-Dade County

Asian 1.5%

Hispanic 62.4%
5% higher and 5% less.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:53 PM
 
Location: Westminster/Huntington Beach, CA
1,780 posts, read 1,743,106 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by polo89 View Post
Might? Pfft.
Miami has a lot of good spots in large concentrations, but sadly it is overly catered to clubs. At least LA has a better variety of clubs, lounges, dive bars, sports bars, etc. Sure most of them close at 2 but you cant compare a city like Miami to a humongous city like Los Angeles which caters to a more diverse party crowd.
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