Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Clinging to streetwalls and pedestrian friendliness has the stink of desperation. Amsterdam kills NYC in pedestrian friendliness, does that make it more urban? DC has better transit than Philly, is it more urban? Not really.
Most statistics have Los Angeles solidly ahead of the other cities on this list. It is dense in every sense of the word--one of the unflattering articles Bajan posted about L.A. shows that the region has the most jobs per sq mile of any metro in the U.S.
The urban form can take on many forms. The notion that it has to approximate a certain design to qualify as urban is crazy talk. Borderline illogical. Yet that is the tiresome argument posters cling to for all their life around here.
It seems to me that LA just looks too different from the others, so it's hard for people to figure out how it's urban or walkable. Again, I really think what it would take is for people to give urban LA a shot and try it out.
In the Northeast, it may indeed be very intuitive as to what "urban" means. You look at the suburbs and you look at the central city, and there's a stark difference. As you move toward the core, the streetwall gets progressively tighter and higher, the percentage of residents that use transit increases, and the employment and population density increases. You have a pretty clear (at least perceived) progression from "suburban" to "urban" and this sets up a very nice dichotomy between the two.
But clearly this is a delineation that can just as easily be made in Southern California. Otherwise, we wouldn't have posters citing Koreatown, DTLA and Hollywood as examples of the city's urbanity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dweebo2220
In Los Angeles, this spectrum is much less clear. It exists to a degree, but to a much lesser degree than, say, in Boston.
Well, that's true only because the suburbs of Boston are very bucolic whereas the suburbs of Los Angeles are not that distinct from much of the city limits. But I don't think this has any impact on how the average Angeleno judges urbanity since, as I already mentioned, people can distinguish the more urban parts (i.e., Hollywood) from the less urban parts (South Central).
Quote:
Originally Posted by dweebo2220
Is Manhattan Beach or South LA more urban? Ask residents which one is the suburb and which is urban, and everyone will have a clear response (MB=suburb, SLA=urban). And yet Manhattan Beach has more consistent streetwalls, greater mixed use, a cohesive downtown, vibrant pedestrian culture, etc. etc.
If you asked that specific question, then those answers would not surprise me since MB is technically a suburb of Los Angeles. As to which one is more urban, I'm not so sure if I'd be inclined to say MB because much of it does in fact look very suburban (even beyond the "suburban" that exists in South Central).
Amsterdam kills NYC in pedestrian friendliness, does that make it more urban?
No it's just much better looking and walkable in terms of streetscapes than New York--though New York has more amenities. Both of which are more important to most people than how "urban" somewhere is.
Clinging to streetwalls and pedestrian friendliness has the stink of desperation. Amsterdam kills NYC in pedestrian friendliness, does that make it more urban? DC has better transit than Philly, is it more urban? Not really.
Actually, Amsterdam does not kill NYC in pedestrian-friendliness, unless you're comparing all Five Boroughs to Amsterdam's 80 sq. miles or so (of which only a fraction is the highly developed portion of the city). Amsterdam has no match for Times Square, Herald Square or the daily crush of commuters leaving Penn Station during rush hour. However, I would consider Amsterdam more urban than any city in America that's not New York.
If the only metric we were looking at were transit, then yes, DC would be more urban than Philly. But as I've stated multiple times already (which you're purposefully refusing to acknowledge), nobody's judging any of the cities based on one single metric.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RaymondChandlerLives
Most statistics have Los Angeles solidly ahead of the other cities on this list. It is dense in every sense of the word--one of the unflattering articles Bajan posted about L.A. shows that the region has the most jobs per sq mile of any metro in the U.S.
If all "urban" means is "dense," then yes, you're 100 percent right. But apparently not even Angelenos in the LA forum would agree with that definition as the LA vs Chicago thread so aptly demonstrated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RaymondChandlerLives
Yet that is the tiresome argument posters cling to for all their life around here.
Who else is "clinging" besides you? I don't think you post in any thread that does not involve this topic. You don't really post in the UP forum, or Sports, or seem to care much about transit. But you're hell bent on forcing a view onto people that they're not willing to accept.
Clinging to streetwalls and pedestrian friendliness has the stink of desperation. Amsterdam kills NYC in pedestrian friendliness, does that make it more urban? DC has better transit than Philly, is it more urban? Not really.
Most statistics have Los Angeles solidly ahead of the other cities on this list. It is dense in every sense of the word--one of the unflattering articles Bajan posted about L.A. shows that the region has the most jobs per sq mile of any metro in the U.S.
The urban form can take on many forms. The notion that it has to approximate a certain design to qualify as urban is crazy talk. Borderline illogical. Yet that is the tiresome argument posters cling to for all their life around here.
I would probably argue yes in certain parts,, e.g. it has a few nice "features" but overall no, as it is lacking in others. Amsterdam is setup awesome. Nobody is clinging to things, most people just have an idea of what it is. That is why I said, stop using urban, b/c you obviously think having pop density and using stupid walkscore and clustered zones with major gaps constitutes this vague notion of urban. LA meets this vague paramater, and it is larger, so therefore it is more urban. But people don't care about that, they could just look at stats and see that. It defeats the purpose of the thread. The physically built environment needs to be analyzed.
It seems to me that LA just looks too different from the others, so it's hard for people to figure out how it's urban or walkable. Again, I really think what it would take is for people to give urban LA a shot and try it out.
Plenty of us have been to LA, it's pretty clear you couldn't get around LA in the same way due to the wider streets, space out areas, lack of quality public transit. Wider streets make things farther away on bike or foot. Simple math.
If you can't visualize this, this should help.
Clinging to streetwalls and pedestrian friendliness has the stink of desperation. Amsterdam kills NYC in pedestrian friendliness, does that make it more urban? DC has better transit than Philly, is it more urban? Not really.
Most statistics have Los Angeles solidly ahead of the other cities on this list. It is dense in every sense of the word--one of the unflattering articles Bajan posted about L.A. shows that the region has the most jobs per sq mile of any metro in the U.S.
The urban form can take on many forms. The notion that it has to approximate a certain design to qualify as urban is crazy talk. Borderline illogical. Yet that is the tiresome argument posters cling to for all their life around here.
That would make sense on a metro calculation
isnt the absolute area of LA basically the densest in terms of people per sq mile among large metros, jobs would likely be in that space
Jobs are somewhat centralized in LA, especially on the metro level but probably not compressed.
Ya know ansterdam has a population of 800k in 80 sm?!? San fransisco has that in 40 sm... So NO its not... Also Philly, is denser then it also...
How is that relevant?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
