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I know it's blasphemy now to say anything negative about Boston for at least 10 years but, Boston is kinda overrated in this subject. It's a small area and a lot of it is quite impressive it's IMO not to scale with Chicago. Now, I also think Chicago get's a pass when considering how urban it is. People see that skyline and wet themselves. I'm not trying to start riot here but, Chicago is a large and Brilliant downtown surrounded by an ocean of suburbia. Boston is kinda the same way.
The north side plus some of the west side and NW is more urban than Boston (and San Fran). Chicago in area is a lot bigger though so it really depends on where you're talking about. The above statement of mine is true, but there are definitely neighborhoods on the south side that are much less urban (they used to be a lot more urban back in the day though).
I see a lot of people talking about the "wide roads of Chicago" and this is mainly untrue. The areas where it is wider than Boston are the main roads. If you actually get into the real residential sections of Chicago say in Lincoln Park or Lakeview, the roads are not very wide. We are not talking about European style here, but we aren't talking about wide avenues either. They are usually one land with available parking on the side (tightish slow driving). From my experiences with most of Boston..it's really not terribly different. There are plenty of wide avenues in Boston too and there are plenty of half way narrow residential streets.
Just for people unfamiliar with Chicago, I am going to list a bunch of community areas (basically neighborhoods) of Chicago that form one continuous geographical area just to show you the density of the north/part of west/NW sides of town. Keep in mind that Boston has 625,087 people for an area of 48.43 sq miles.
* Loop - Population: 29,283 | Area: 1.58 sq miles
* Near North Side - Population: 80,484 | Area: 2.72 sq miles
* Lincoln Park - Population: 64,116 | Area: 3.19 sq miles
* Lake View - Population: 94,368 | Area: 3.16 sq miles
* Avondale - Population: 39,262 | Area: 2 sq miles
* North Center - Population: 31,867 | Area: 2.07 sq miles
* Uptown - Population: 56,326 | Area: 2.35 sq miles
* Lincoln Square - Population: 39,493 | Area: 2.57 sq miles
* Edgewater - Population: 56,521 | Area: 1.71 sq miles
* Rogers Park - Population: 54,911 | Area: 1.85 sq miles
* West Ridge - Population: 71,942 | Area: 3.53 sq miles
Total Population: 618,573
Total Area: 26.72
Basically, around the same population of the entire Boston city is located within these 11 community areas (neighborhoods) of Chicago, but in 21.71 fewer square miles. Since it's 6500 less people in the area above, it might be closer to say 21 sq miles, not 21.71 sq miles fewer.
For fun, let's expand the Chicago area listed above to match with the physical area of Boston (48 sq miles). Here we will add:
* West Town - Population: 81,432 | Area: 4.57 sq miles
* Logan Square - Population: 73,595 | Area: 3.23 sq miles
* Portage Park - Population: 64,124 | Area: 3.98 sq miles
* Irving Park - Population: 53,359 | Area: 3.23 sq miles
* Belmont Cragin - Population: 78,743 | Area: 3.94 sq miles
* Hermosa - Population: 25,010 | Area: 1.17 sq miles
* Near South Side - Population: 51,542 | Area: 1.93 sq miles
Total Population: 1,046,378
Total Area: 48.77 sq miles
SO basically, in about the same area that is the size of the entire city of Boston, in the same area above for Chicago on the North/NW, part of the West sides of Chicago, there are over 400,000 more people living in about the same physical area.
P.S. If you do this for San Fran instead of Boston, Chicago is more urban than it and has 100,000-200,000 more people in the same area.
Last edited by marothisu; 04-22-2013 at 12:25 AM..
The north side plus some of the west side and NW is more urban than Boston (and San Fran). Chicago in area is a lot bigger though so it really depends on where you're talking about. The above statement is true, but there are definitely neighborhoods on the south side that are much less urban (they used to be a lot more urban back in the day though).
So the north side is more urban than any of these places?
The north side plus some of the west side and NW is more urban than Boston (and San Fran). Chicago in area is a lot bigger though so it really depends on where you're talking about. The above statement of mine is true, but there are definitely neighborhoods on the south side that are much less urban (they used to be a lot more urban back in the day though).
I see a lot of people talking about the "wide roads of Chicago" and this is mainly untrue. The areas where it is wider than Boston are the main roads. If you actually get into the real residential sections of Chicago say in Lincoln Park or Lakeview, the roads are not very wide. We are not talking about European style here, but we aren't talking about wide avenues either. They are usually one land with available parking on the side (tightish slow driving). From my experiences with most of Boston..it's really not terribly different. There are plenty of wide avenues in Boston too and there are plenty of half way narrow residential streets.
Just for people unfamiliar with Chicago, I am going to list a bunch of community areas (basically neighborhoods) of Chicago that form one continuous geographical area just to show you the density of the north/part of west/NW sides of town. Keep in mind that Boston has 625,087 people for an area of 48.43 sq miles.
* Loop - Population: 29,283 | Area: 1.58 sq miles
* Near North Side - Population: 80,484 | Area: 2.72 sq miles
* Lincoln Park - Population: 64,116 | Area: 3.19 sq miles
* Lake View - Population: 94,368 | Area: 3.16 sq miles
* Avondale - Population: 39,262 | Area: 2 sq miles
* North Center - Population: 31,867 | Area: 2.07 sq miles
* Uptown - Population: 56,326 | Area: 2.35 sq miles
* Lincoln Square - Population: 39,493 | Area: 2.57 sq miles
* Edgewater - Population: 56,521 | Area: 1.71 sq miles
* Rogers Park - Population: 54,911 | Area: 1.85 sq miles
* West Ridge - Population: 71,942 | Area: 3.53 sq miles
Total Population: 618,573
Total Area: 26.72
Basically, around the same population of the entire Boston city is located within these 11 community areas (neighborhoods) of Chicago, but in 21.71 fewer square miles. Since it's 6500 less people in the area above, it might be closer to say 21 sq miles, not 21.71 sq miles fewer.
For fun, let's expand the Chicago area listed above to match with the physical area of Boston (48 sq miles). Here we will add:
* West Town - Population: 81,432 | Area: 4.57 sq miles
* Logan Square - Population: 73,595 | Area: 3.23 sq miles
* Portage Park - Population: 64,124 | Area: 3.98 sq miles
* Irving Park - Population: 53,359 | Area: 3.23 sq miles
* Belmont Cragin - Population: 78,743 | Area: 3.94 sq miles
* Hermosa - Population: 25,010 | Area: 1.17 sq miles
* Near South Side - Population: 51,542 | Area: 1.93 sq miles
Total Population: 1,046,378
Total Area: 48.77 sq miles
SO basically, in about the same area that is the size of the entire city of Boston, in the same area above for Chicago on the North/NW, part of the West sides of Chicago, there are over 400,000 more people living in about the same physical area.
P.S. If you do this for San Fran instead of Boston, Chicago is more urban than it and has 100,000-200,000 more people in the same area.
Exactly. It is so funny when people compare these puny cities to Chicago. People love stats on this site, but seem to have a very difficult time with application. If you took out the Chicago's northside and replaced it with Boston, Chicago would be LESS dense than it is now.
Boston doesn't have that kind of overwhelming urban feel that Chicago has because it is much smaller and less vertical despite having a more older and narrow streetscape. An example would be that Chicago has way more urban highrise residents and buildings than all of Massachusetts and New England combined. Only NYC beats Chicago in terms of dense vertical urban living. If you were to place Chicago in Massachusetts the urban city development would actually cover more of the state. The city would extend beyond Cambridge. You would have more development and less trees out by I-95 (I-294)and I-495 (I-355/I-88). O'Hare would be near Bedford past the I95 beltway where the CTA Blue Line trains would connect to. Route 4 would be lined with lots of buildings. The MBTA would need to be the size of Metra and CTA to serve a larger population twice it's size. Row houses aren't the only urban characteristics of a city as you would have to look at the bigger picture to take into account "everything" urban. Chicago is a bigger city so it will have more over all (good and bad). It may not be so much the size of urban quantity of a city but the urban style that matters most to some. However, that is subjective. The urban look and feel of both cities are different but Chicago is more of the you're still in the city environment that extends beyond Boston's city limits with less of the smaller community town type environments in the surrounding area you find common in New England.
Photo credit notice: this was shot by me
Last edited by urbanologist; 04-22-2013 at 02:08 AM..
Isn't Boston arguably more urban than Chicago? I mean, couldn't you reverse the question?
Now Chicago, unquestionably, has FAR, FAR more highrises and is much bigger, but Boston has more narrow streets, rowhouses, pedestrian scale, and underground rail, and Chicago has more parking garages, wide streets, freeways, and auto-oriented infrastructure (drive-through banks and fast food right off Michigan Ave., for example). Boston has higher transit share and lower proportion of residents owning cars. It's small but tightly built, and the urbanity doesn't get much better in the U.S. (excepting NYC).
Boston is more European-style urban, and Chicago is more American-style urban. I think an argument can be made for either city regarding relative urbanity.
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