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Please treat "Greater Center City Philadelphia" as the region bounded by the following: Washington Ave to the south, Spring Garden Street to the north, Front Street to the east, and the Schuylkill River to the west. This means do not include University City or regions of the Art Museum Area north of Spring Garden Street in your comparison, but do include the Italian Market area (i.e. Bella Vista north of Washington St.), Hawthorne north of Washington St., Queen Village north of Washington St, Old City, and sections of the Art Museum Area south of Spring Garden St.
Please treat "Greater Downtown Vancouver" as the geographically contiguous region encompassing everything that's traditionally considered downtown Vancouver in addition to Gastown, Yaletown, Chinatown, Coal Harbor and the West End. Bound the region to the east by main street and by water everywhere else.
Items for Comparison
1) Cohesiveness of development between constituent sections (i.e. is it easy to walk from one end to the other through different neighborhoods without going through "dead zones"/surface parking lots)
2) Transit WITHIN each region (for example, judge only how easy it is to use transit to get across "Greater Center City Philadelphia" NOT into/out of it)
3) Integration between residential, commercial and retail corridors (the district in which offices, restaurants, grocery stores, banks, and houses are all found on the same street would for the purposes of this comparison be considered "better integrated" than the district in which the aforementioned are found on separate streets)
4) Viability as a 24 hour district (here I'm NOT concerned about last call/nightlife, but i AM concerned about restaurants/grocery stores/gyms being open 24 hours and public transit WITHIN THE DISTRICT- NOT BETWEEN IT AND OTHER DISTRICTS- being available 24 hours)
5) Size of the District (i.e. number of retail shops/restaurants/jobs/residences/population/physical size)
6) General viability as a live/work/play region
Items NOT to be included in the comparison 1) Diversity
2) Weather
3) Cost of Living
4) Aesthetic factors (i.e. how pretty/classic/ugly/sterile the architecture is; how amazing the natural features are; how beautiful the parks are)
Last edited by bballniket; 06-16-2013 at 07:07 AM..
Reason: typo
Exactly, especially since Vancouver would run away with that.
According to you. We all know that preferences for living environments are subjective.
I've never been to Vancouver, so I can't speak with authority on this comparison, but the strong sense that I get based off of pictures is that it is less human-scaled and intimate than Philadelphia.
Certainly there's room for improvement in areas of "Greater Center City," but overall, based on the narrow streets and rowhouse architecture alone, I'd say Philly has a strong argument for better cohesion -- particularly as it infills.
According to you. We all know that preferences for living environments are subjective.
These cities offer very interesting contrasts. Each are vibrant and beautiful but in very different ways. Vancouver is in a spectacular setting, surrounded by mountains and water. The scale of the street scene is more expansive than Philly with wider streets lined with more contemporary architecture. To me, it is what a sunbelt city could be, in the city planners and residents were interested in density and human scale v getting folks from place to place via automobile.
Philly, on the other hand, offers a intimacy that Vancouver can't, with it's tight warren of streets, dark and cozy restaurants and watering holes, and more street bustle. All if this in encased in the glow of Philly's warm red brick vs the shiny new facades of Vancouver.
Based on the time I have spent in each, Vancouver wins in basically all the metrics that matter to me.
Cohesiveness - Vancouver by a long shot. There's very little land wasted by parking lots and blight--practically none. But most importantly, they purposefully make side streets discontinuous for motorists, which makes them extremely safe, walkable, and pleasant. The number of cars moving around is generally a lot lower in Vancouver, and much more of the built space is devoted to humans/bikes/public transit. Meanwhile, there are some lonely walks to be had in City Center Philly, although it's far better than the sunbelt.
Transit - Didn't take transit much within either place. I just walked. Neither is that large.
Integration - Probably a tie. Both have residential thick throughout.
24 hours - Neither?
Size - Philly. It's the center of a metro of 6 million vs a metro of 2 million. Vancouver can't match the sheer volume of office space and commercial establishments.
Live/work/play viability - Vancouver. Not close. Stanley Park alone is enough to leave Philly in the dust. It's probably what...the second best urban park in North America? Top 5 in the planet? (I see you excluded park aesthetics from the criteria, but having high quality park options is intimately connected to live/work/play viability. DT Philly would get stifling really quick to me.) Both have lots of offices and residences, but Vancouver's built environment generally seems more geared towards people living downtown.
DT Philly would get stifling really quick to me.) Both have lots of offices and residences, but Vancouver's built environment generally seems more geared towards people living downtown.
I realize your post is based on your personal assessment, which you are fully entitled to. Regarding this last point, however, DT Vancouver and Center City Philly have popualtions of 54,690 and 57,239 respectively. While you may find Vancouver better geared towards supporting a DT residential population, the cores of the cities themselves end up attracting almost identical populations.
Based on the time I have spent in each, Vancouver wins in basically all the metrics that matter to me.
Cohesiveness - Vancouver by a long shot. There's very little land wasted by parking lots and blight--practically none. But most importantly, they purposefully make side streets discontinuous for motorists, which makes them extremely safe, walkable, and pleasant. The number of cars moving around is generally a lot lower in Vancouver, and much more of the built space is devoted to humans/bikes/public transit. Meanwhile, there are some lonely walks to be had in City Center Philly, although it's far better than the sunbelt.
Live/work/play viability - Vancouver. Not close. Stanley Park alone is enough to leave Philly in the dust. It's probably what...the second best urban park in North America? Top 5 in the planet? (I see you excluded park aesthetics from the criteria, but having high quality park options is intimately connected to live/work/play viability. DT Philly would get stifling really quick to me.) Both have lots of offices and residences, but Vancouver's built environment generally seems more geared towards people living downtown.
I'm just a bit confused by your assessment. Not trying to nitpick, but there are a lot of questionable things that you noted.
Center City in Philadelphia is extremely geared toward pedestrian and bike traffic. In fact, Broad and Market streets are essentially the only two-way thoroughfares in Center City, giving the CBD very little vehicular traffic for a city its size.
Due to its many colonial era streets, there are also many streets that are off limits to vehicles due to being so narrow. It's absolutely one of the top cities in the US for walkability. Describing someone as "lonely" when they're walking around Center City leads me to believe you really did not spend much time there.
I can see an argument for Vancouver in terms of public space -- it seems "roomier" -- but Center City certainly isn't lacking in high quality park space with Rittenhouse Square, Filter Square, Fairmount Park and Washington Square right at your leisure.
The built environment is also extremely amenable to downtown living. Aside from a couple of limited areas in the high-rise district of Center City, people live on essentially every street -- intertwined with plenty of shopping and restaurants. There are few places in America that have such a successful live/work/play environment.
Exactly, especially since Vancouver would run away with that.
Vancver runs away with it?
Cost of living?
Weather ? 9 months out of the year the avg high temps in Vancouver is 55 or below.
Aesthetics- Vancouver certainly has a nice setting. The harbor and mts are pretty to look at but it's not very practical to live, not very centrally located, not amenable to growth.
As far as items not to be included, it sort of defeats the purpose for us to not talk about how the place looks or the people who run into, imHo.
Yeah dude I see your point, but I figured that aesthetically, architecturally, and climatically they're so different, but in terms of viability as a self-contained urban district they seemed more comparable.
I'd imagine ppl's preferences would enter the picture a lot more when comparing stuff like aesthetics, etc.
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