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In other words, SF is in fact as urban as BK, but not over as large of an area. (Translation: BK wins urbanity)
However, urbanity is far from the only criteria. You'd be extremely hard-pressed to argue that BK has a better art-scene, parks, scenery, street vibrancy or nightlife than SF. Architecture-wise, I personally prefer SF to BK but I'm not going to argue what is very much a subjective criteria. BK wins the rest of this criteria, but if you'd ever take the NYC glasses off you'd realize this comparison is nowhere near one-sided and is far, far closer than you're willing to admit. There are plenty of good reasons to pick SF over BK, just as there are plenty of good reasons to pick BK over SF.
Every city has those types of areas. Do you think Brooklyn doesn't have warehouses, industrial areas, free-standing homes, and parkland? Have you ever been to Sheepshead Bay, Bay Ridge, Marine Park or Canarsie? Have you ever been deep into Flatbush? Brownsville or East New York? Brooklyn has more industrial zones than San Francisco, more free-standing homes than San Francisco, and a ton of parkland as well. It also has an amusement park, salt marsh, and a beach. If you drive all the way down Flatbush Avenue, you'll see some neighborhoods that could easily be mistaken for Jersey.
That said, the Borough has a population density that's twice that of San Francisco. That means that a whole lot of people are packed into Northwest Brooklyn. You guys can do all the statistical gymnastics you want, but you're not going to find any part of San Francisco that compete with Brooklyn when it comes to density and vibrancy.
Kinda subjective don't you think? Especially when it comes to comparing BK to SF, 2 vibrant cities/borough. You may think Flatbush is more vibrant than say...Haight-Ashbury because of Flatbush's Carib population, but that's not something you can prove factually, it's rather your preference.
That's the problem with these arguments, so much of the criteria is based on preference:
Parks
Scenery
Vibrancy
Nightlife
Art
Architecture
Aren't these all preferences? Even when comparing Manhattan to any other large US city, it's mostly preference. Outside of power and PT, is Manhattan really "better" than SF?
Completely false. None of the neighborhoods on that list go above 6 square miles, let alone 12.3, and most of them are below one square mile. Only a few of them even go above 30,000 and none of them were as dense as the densest neighborhoods in San Francisco:
SF has literally dozens of neighborhoods in the 20'000-30,000's and more neighborhoods in the 40,000-50,000 range than Brooklyn does.
This is why SF is not on the same level as Brooklyn. The Tenderloin has a density of 71,959 in .35 sq. miles, as your post suggests. It only has about 25,000 people in total. The densest zip code in Brooklyn has a population density of 83,297 in 1.3 sq. miles. It has a population of more than 110,000. So Brooklyn has a whole zip code that is (a) nearly 4 times as large in area as SF's densest "neighborhood" and (b) denser than SF's densest nabe despite its larger size. That's density and urbanity on a scale that SF cannot match. What skews the data is that the .35 area called the "Tenderloin" is classified as a neighborhood and the 4.1 sq. miles called "Bedford-Stuyvesant" is also classified as a neighborhood (there are "sub" neighborhoods in Bed-Stuy just like there are sub-nabes in Harlem). As kidphilly said, you can find a census tract the same size as the Tenderloin in Brooklyn and its population density would triple the Tenderloin's.
If we want to make it apples-to-apples, you should find a 1.3 contiguous sq. mile area in SF that has a population density greater than 83,000. Are you up to the challenge?
Kinda subjective don't you think? Especially when it comes to comparing BK to SF, 2 vibrant cities/borough. You may think Flatbush is more vibrant than say...Haight-Ashbury because of Flatbush's Carib population, but that's not something you can prove factually, it's rather your preference.
Well, polo89, you should just go ahead and deactivate your C-D account because 98% of the stuff we talk about on here compares things like parks, museums, etc. You act as if I created a whole new set of criteria that have never been used on C-D before. If you have a problem with the criteria, you should either not post here, or go make the same complaint in the other 41,000 threads that use basically the same criteria.
In other words, SF is in fact as urban as BK, but not over as large of an area. (Translation: BK wins urbanity)
However, urbanity is far from the only criteria. You'd be extremely hard-pressed to argue that BK has a better art-scene, parks, scenery, street vibrancy or nightlife than SF. Architecture-wise, I personally prefer SF to BK but I'm not going to argue what is very much a subjective criteria. BK wins the rest of this criteria, but if you'd ever take the NYC glasses off you'd realize this comparison is nowhere near one-sided and is far, far closer than you're willing to admit. There are plenty of good reasons to pick SF over BK, just as there are plenty of good reasons to pick BK over SF.
Dont really diagree with anything you say here and great stats a few posts back. My point is more people in urban nabes when compared to SF, which is also true. SF is absolutely urban, at NY standard even remotely on the number and cohesion, absolutely not. I personally dont think SF achieves the level of Philly in this regard let alone BK and NYC as a whole. While others will differ these stats with dimished density actually make me believe more that Philly offers more urbanity (which overall pales compared to even just BK). Argue a smale portion of SF delivers higher than BK (or Philly or whatever). It just isnt as large nor as continuos. Maybe different aspects but in this case even if a small portion of SF is more dense, the vastly lerger coverage of BK really plays out the difference. They are two different animals, truly and that is the point. Everyone loves to describe SF as dense (well it is) but not at NYC level and not for a long way. These core measurements and continuity are also why other cities like LA, Chicago, and Philly have higher densities in thier core 50 sq miles, because they more and more continuity of urbanity or the urban build. SF barely edges BK on density (if it even does) in an EXTREME core and BK DESTROYs SF on coninuity of urban build over a large area.
While SF may pack more in the core this is solely because it is VASTLY smaller than NYC in aggregate. SF or a Philly would pack more in their immeadiate core but on scale of urbanity it just isnt the case. Remember that Manhattan and Queens (also higher density than SF) are right next door to BK. SF better compares to stand alone places like a Boston or Philly because they are so much smaller and offer far less quantity (though all offer some great urbanity no doubt) of urbanity so they all fit everything a smaller area because there is less to fit in.
I personally find it laughable when people compare an uber small area of SF to Manhattan when to me the urbanity cant even compete with the Manhattan neighbor of BK. Again this is not to say SF isnt urban or an awesome place. I think it more delivers on both but when the comparisons are made (Tenderloin and whatever) are just like Manhattan, well no they are not. Honestly for better or worse the SF faithful tend to compare micro aspects of SF to places punching way above its weight when in actuality I find them largely mis cast.
If you wanna argue SF is wealthier, have at it, the percentages are true, but this to me always flies directly in the face of the diversity of SF, from this regard it is actually not diverse at all and more a mirco bubble. A false proclaimed diverse place when at the root it is an ivory tower that overly pontificates its glory. That said I love SF, one of my 5 favorite places in the US, a panacea as many proclaim it is not.
That's the problem with these arguments, so much of the criteria is based on preference:
Parks
Scenery
Vibrancy
Nightlife
Art
Architecture
Aren't these all preferences? Even when comparing Manhattan to any other large US city, it's mostly preference. Outside of power and PT, is Manhattan really "better" than SF?
In terms of Art, Vibrancy, Nightlife Absolutely!
Probably architecture too
This is like saying look my dime is as shiney as your dime when failing to acknowledge the 8 shiney quarters sitting next to the other shiney dime.
Parks ehh both are very good and scenery one could easily say SF. On an urban experience, two different leagues and by a wide margin
Well, polo89, you should just go ahead and deactivate your C-D account because 98% of the stuff we talk about on here compares things like parks, museums, etc. You act as if I created a whole new set of criteria that have never been used on C-D before. If you have a problem with the criteria, you should either not post here, or go make the same complaint in the other 41,000 threads that use basically the same criteria.
Well you did say you excluded certain criteria that you thought didn't necessarily mean much, like "what companies are based in BK or SF" and stuff like that.
Well you did say you excluded certain criteria that you thought didn't necessarily mean much, like "what companies are based in BK or SF" and stuff like that.
Well this is where isolation is tough, though on the whole the comparison is tough. That being said residents of BK generate more total income than do residents of SF, but it should there are nearly 3 times as many people in BK
Dont really diagree with anything you say here and great stats a few posts back. My point is more people in urban nabes when compared to SF, which is also true. SF is absolutely urban, at NY standard even remotely on the number and cohesion, absolutely not. I personally dont think SF achieves the level of Philly in this regard let alone BK and NYC as a whole. While others will differ these stats with dimished density actually make me believe more that Philly offers more urbanity (which overall pales compared to even just BK). Argue a smale portion of SF delivers higher than BK (or Philly or whatever). It just isnt as large nor as continuos. Maybe different aspects but in this case even if a small portion of SF is more dense, the vastly lerger coverage of BK really plays out the difference. They are two different animals, truly and that is the point. Everyone loves to describe SF as dense (well it is) but not at NYC level and not for a long way. These core measurements and continuity are also why other cities like LA, Chicago, and Philly have higher densities in thier core 50 sq miles, because they more and more continuity of urbanity or the urban build. SF barely edges BK on density (if it even does) in an EXTREME core and BK DESTROYs SF on coninuity of urban build over a large area.
While SF may pack more in the core this is solely because it is VASTLY smaller than NYC in aggregate. SF or a Philly would pack more in their immeadiate core but on scale of urbanity it just isnt the case. Remember that Manhattan and Queens (also higher density than SF) are right next door to BK. SF better compares to stand alone places like a Boston or Philly because they are so much smaller and offer far less quantity (though all offer some great urbanity no doubt) of urbanity so they all fit everything a smaller area because there is less to fit in.
I personally find it laughable when people compare an uber small area of SF to Manhattan when to me the urbanity cant even compete with the Manhattan neighbor of BK. Again this is not to say SF isnt urban or an awesome place. I think it more delivers on both but when the comparisons are made (Tenderloin and whatever) are just like Manhattan, well no they are not. Honestly for better or worse the SF faithful tend to compare micro aspects of SF to places punching way above its weight when in actuality I find them largely mis cast.
If you wanna argue SF is wealthier, have at it, the percentages are true, but this to me always flies directly in the face of the diversity of SF, from this regard it is actually not diverse at all and more a mirco bubble. A false proclaimed diverse place when at the root it is an ivory tower that overly pontificates its glory. That said I love SF, one of my 5 favorite places in the US, a panacea as many proclaim it is not.
Funny you mention Philly, I did the same comparison for SF vs. Philly and I was about to post it in the Northeastern vs. California thread. I recounted SF, turns out I left out 2 neighborhoods in the 15-20K category, two neighborhoods in the 20K category and 1 in the 30K category. Might as well post it here...
When looking at the data, the only category above that Philly has more of is 20K neighborhoods; SF literally has twice as many 30K neighborhoods and obviously outperforms Philly above 40K. Interestingly, though, Philly also has more sub-10K neighborhoods... I'll get around to tallying the exact number.
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