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Great panoramas by the way, really nice, I checked out 8 or 10 of them, but came to the same conclusion. Even looking at the picture you just posted. Its just not that dense and lively. Look between the buildings, I see a whole lot of parking lots.
DT San Francisco just has more going on.
(these are my pictures from a few years ago out from the SF Hilton & Towers)
Because I'm seeing a lot more storefronts in those ones and they are more comparable having people walking in them rather than driving through not showing much.
Your first picture is near the intersection of MacArthur Blvd and Patterson Ave. While that section of MacArthur Blvd is lined with storefronts, you only have to go 3 blocks until you're here:
Furthermore, take a look at the residential street less than half a block off MacArthur (Patterson Ave). Keep in mind this is an area that YOU have chosen, which I presume you did because it's one of the denser parts of the city. The driveways, yards and space between houses obviously has a far more suburban character than the Philly rowhouses that directly abut the sidewalk.
There are probably twice as many houses on Cedar Ave as there are on Patterson Ave. And this is a long, long way from Center City, Philadelphia. You could walk up 52nd, take a left on Haverford, and see nothing but dense residential streets tucked in between commercial thoroughfares until you get to 69th Street. I mean, you could pretty much walk in any direction from this point and encounter nothing but rowhouses and storefronts.
This is why I prefer videos to photos. Videos, imo, tell more of the story than pics do.
For one, Patterson was 4 blocks away and blocks of nothing but businesses continue for several more streets in that direction after you pass Patterson.
Secondly, I'm sorry but I have to call BS. You have a valid point that Philly overall has a much more urban layout than Oakland, I'm not disputing that at all. But you are overstating how "suburban" Oakland supposedly is by quite a lot (just b/c the homes aren't rowhouses doesn't mean you feel like you're in the burbs when you're there), and you only have to walk 1 1/2 blocks in the other direction to have West Philly look like this:
The "endless rowhouses" become detached duplexes and driveways suddenly start to appear with trees everywhere, making this look quite a bit suburban too if we're following the same criteria that you gave for Oakland. One more block down and you have detached single homes.
Not that I don't agree with your assertion that there are probably twice as many homes on the Philly street, or that Philly is much more urban in appearance. But you were overstating things quite a bit.
And although I do agree that tons of rowhouses and storefronts give a city a much more urban feel, I feel that it is too much of an oversimplification to suggest that if a city has single-family homes with driveways that it is suddenly a suburb or suburban. That in itself is not enough to define it, and if it was then Philly has some non-urban blocks within it as well. Personally, I do not consider ANY area of a major urban city to be "suburbs" if they lie within the city limits. They may be more residential, but a suburb is a different animal IMO.
And there is quite a difference between Oakland's setup and that of a REAL suburb, or at least a real one out here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
No. I just think (as most people would) that buildings that are connected create a more urban environment than buildings or houses that are detached. I mean, the very definition of "suburbia" is detached housing, driveways, and yards.
Coming from Philly, Oakland looks suburban to me. I can't say whether it looks suburban compared to an "actual west coast suburb" because I haven't spent that much time on the West Coast. I can say that it looks like some of the denser East Coast burbs, though. Take a look at Somerville, Mass, for example.
These are good examples. I can see why you would find Oakland to be suburban from its pics/videos if those are what you are used to thinking of as suburbs. Many of the residential parts of Oakland do have a more suburban design, but most of Oakland itself doesn't really FEEL that way. And those residential areas are interconnected by urban blocks/areas that distinguish Oakland from the suburbs out here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
No, you didn't. I completely exposed that by using Google maps to walk just a few blocks up MacArthur. I mean, you're not going to walk three blocks up 52nd Street and then all of a sudden see it transform into suburbia.
Well, actually you are if were going off your oversimplified definition of suburbia. But in reality I agree that the Philly portion of that comparison is the more urban of the two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Oakland is a mass of dense, suburban style neighborhoods.
Again, this is an oversimplification. Oakland is still a real city. It still has a large downtown with public transit, an airport, a major port, industrial districts, a stadium and arena, etc. There may be many of what YOU would consider suburban-style neighborhoods, but that does not describe the entirety of Oakland.
Areas like these are not what one finds in "suburbs."
Sure, there are some little "yards" (I guess) and driveways, but it is definitely not suburban at all on these blocks. These are all in West Oakland, but there are other parts of Oakland that feel less "suburban" the same way that these do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Detached housing, yards, and driveways do not an urban area make.
For the most part I do agree with this statement. The only thing I disagree with is that these features alone are enough to deny an area of being urban.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
You're missing the point. Middle-class people are more likely to live in the suburbs than they are in the city, period. This is true for the Philadelphia region as well. However, Philadelphia has a much larger number and percentage of middle-class families than San Francisco and Oakland. In the Bay Area, the middle-class is out in places like Richmond and Vallejo. In Philly, the middle class is in the city in neighborhoods like Roxborough and East Falls. So we have the very affluent (Chestnut Hill/W. Mount Airy, Overbrook Park), the Yuppie affluent (Center City/Manayunk/University City), the solidly middle class (Roxborough/E. Mount Airy/East Falls, Wynnefield), the working middle-class (Overbrook, Oak Lane, Tacony, Far Northeast, Cobbs Creek, Cedarbrook), and the indigent (Badlands, Nicetown, Grays Ferry, Mantua) all in urban areas within the same jurisdiction.
Imo, this makes the city a more interesting mix than SF. In San Francisco, you have the ultra-leftist, Stanford sweatshirt while jogging-wearing yuppie, poor blacks, poor Hispanics, and a historically entrenched Asian population that's feeling the squeeze of gentrification. Oakland, from what I've noticed is similar, though not as bad as San Francisco. You can just look at the rents and home prices there and tell that the average family is trucking it out to the Outer Bay.
Man, you were doing so well looking as though you were beginning to finally understand a little bit about the Bay, and then you came crashing back down with this. The "middle-class" in the Bay is not limited to the cities with crime problems. The middle-class is all over the place in cities like SSF, San Bruno, Daly City, Hayward, San Mateo, Redwood City, San Leandro, Fremont, Newark....really most Bay Area cities.
There are very affluent cities like Hillsborough and Atherton, "yuppie affluent" like Palo Alto and the Marina District in SF, solidly middle-class like San Mateo and San Leandro, working middle-class like Daly City, San Bruno and South San Francisco, and "indigent" like East Palo Alto and Richmond, all in an urbanized area no larger than Philly's boundaries. I could do a similar breakdown for just the City of SF itself too, but I figured you could benefit more from hearing a thing or two about other Bay Area cities. Both Philly and the Bay are pretty similar in this regard at least.
I don't even know where to begin to help you on your concept of what exists within SF itself though. You seem very misinformed and limited by a few stereotypes you may have seen acted out in front of you at some point. But I promise you, the City of SF itself has (or at least had in recent memory) just about every walk of life you can find in America to some varying degree. 10-12 years ago there was even a trailer park in downtown SF across from the Caltrain station, before they built up the block that Safeway is on there. There is a lot more variety to the population of SF than you seem to realize. And Oakland you have completely wrong, like not even close.
Philly is definitley more connected to other bonafide cities. From CC you can get to trenton, wilmington, camden, chester and manhatten all via rail. Aside from oakland, where can bart take you? The suburbs of SanFran?
I don't know, I mean if Trenton, Wilmington, Camden and Chester all count as "bonafide cities" then I would use Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley and Hayward as examples of where BART can bring you, and then I would say San Mateo, Palo Alto and San Jose as cities that can be reached from SF by Caltrain. And then there's still the options of taking a Ferry to historic Angel Island or Sausalito, etc.
But I get where you were going there, and there's no question that Philly's proximity to NYC is a huge bonus for you guys.
Eh, that doesn't look so bad. They don't even have alleyways, vacants, or abandoned warehouses they use can use for torture or to chop up bodies. Those guys wouldn't last an hour in Philly.
As Oschino Vasquez said, "These Philly streets turned us from Boyz II Men."
But on the real, you really have no clue if you just said that about Sunnydale LOL. I mean, you obviously don't know the first thing about it so its understandable, but that hood is as serious as it gets in the US. And you'd be surprised about the whole "vacants" issue lol.
That's actually the only one of the main SF hoods that doesn't have too many rappers. Probably b/c most of them live the life and look like this:
At least Chester has MLS - Camden has waterfront attractions, like concerts, Battleship NJ, and the Aquarium. Neither place is a city. Trenton is a city in a nominal sense but I don't know why anybody would go there. From Philly you can take NJ Transit to Atlantic City, that's become a bona-fide city, albeit with an economy almost entirely based on gambling. Newark is an actual city, and a rail stop that adds another major international airport with direct access from the train (via airtrain connector). But nobody goes to these places, you are right it is all about NYC, and also DC. I do work in NYC, I have friends there, I go there all the time. From Philly, NYC is $10 by bus, $20 by regional rail, $45 by Amtrak... and about $25 in tolls (round trip) if you drive. Driving and Bus = 2 hours, Amtrak takes about 70 minutes to go from from city center to city center.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jman650
I don't know, I mean if Trenton, Wilmington, Camden and Chester all count as "bonafide cities" then I would use Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley and Hayward as examples of where BART can bring you, and then I would say San Mateo, Palo Alto and San Jose as cities that can be reached from SF by Caltrain. And then there's still the options of taking a Ferry to historic Angel Island or Sausalito, etc.
But I get where you were going there, and there's no question that Philly's proximity to NYC is a huge bonus for you guys.
Is this a joke? If there is one thing Philly beats SF at, hands down, it's ghettos and violence. We've got the murder stats right here in the city that invented graffiti. Our flash mobs are more brazen. http://www.pottsmerc.com/content/articles/2010/04/06/news/doc4bbb3174c776c6881408011.jpg (broken link)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jman650
Pffft...those Philly sissies wouldn't last a minute in the Bay and would get served like this dude:
But on the real, you really have no clue if you just said that about Sunnydale LOL. I mean, you obviously don't know the first thing about it so its understandable, but that hood is as serious as it gets in the US. And you'd be surprised about the whole "vacants" issue lol.
That's actually the only one of the main SF hoods that doesn't have too many rappers. Probably b/c most of them live the life and look like this:
Philly is very urban, but it seems like you're setting Philly's version of urbanity as the only real definition of urbanity without considering broader definitions of it.
I agree, and I think that's why there seems to be no common ground found in that discussion.
How many times do I have to explain this away? Bay area has no real subway, no el. No light rail outside of the city limits, if you even call cable cars light rail. All it really has is a glorified commuter rail with Bart, and that low-budget amtrack called caltrans. Go ahead tell us about buses. And as far as the higher percentage goes, when considering the area actually covered by Septa/Patco which is about the same size as the Bart covered SF metro at just under 4mil, Philly wins easily. Something like 70 percent of downtown office workers use PT in Philly.
C'mon dude, you know better than this by now, don't you? A lot of BART is elevated so it serves the area as both subway and el, and the Muni Metro is a combination light rail/subway that serves a lot of the City. And then there is "that low-budget Amtrack" that is called CALTRAIN LOL (Caltrans is the state department that oversees highways/transit/etc).
I really don't know Philly to even compare the two and I really could care less who wins here, but SF has SOME of these options to choose from and for a long time was basically the only US city outside of the NE and Chicago that could say that. I know subways are a preferable option in a lot of cases and Philly obviously has a pretty impressive, extensive system. But the fleet of buses that serve the City of SF cover us pretty well considering. I agree that Philly wins this part of the discussion tho.
It's silly to describe SF as somehow isolated, transit-wise. I've successfully used CalTrain and BART. SF has a very cohesive transit system in place. Philly does not have an extensive subway system, just two lines. On the flip side, being a pure grid makes using the busses and trolleys, in conjunction with those two lines, very simple. PATCO is kind of a third line but it runs independently because it goes to Jersey. SEPTA Regional Rail is very extensive, no surprise there as Philly was the railroad capital of the world once upon a time. If I had to choose a way to commute, SEPTA regional would be a top choice, but I prefer no commute, no driving, so I live in Center City. I'm under no delusions though, the population of Center City is small compared to true urban cores. It's just that people can get in and out of Phillly so easily, you don't need a huge amount of people to actually live in a neighborhood in order for it to have nighttime foot traffic. South Street being the most obvious example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jman650
C'mon dude, you know better than this by now, don't you? A lot of BART is elevated so it serves the area as both subway and el, and the Muni Metro is a combination light rail/subway that serves a lot of the City. And then there is "that low-budget Amtrack" that is called CALTRAIN LOL (Caltrans is the state department that oversees highways/transit/etc).
I really don't know Philly to even compare the two and I really could care less who wins here, but SF has SOME of these options to choose from and for a long time was basically the only US city outside of the NE and Chicago that could say that. I know subways are a preferable option in a lot of cases and Philly obviously has a pretty impressive, extensive system. But the fleet of buses that serve the City of SF cover us pretty well considering. I agree that Philly wins this part of the discussion tho.
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