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Why is the first pic Philly for comaprative purposes? Actually I have personally stated that DT LA and CC Philly have some similarities but not sure waht you are getting at. DT LA reminds me a bit of CC Philly in the 90's actually and there are areas where the grit looks similar esp Philly from 20 years ago
I understand the OP (as in CaliSon) and I agree with him to an extent. I don't agree with him on "something only New Yorkers will understand" (New Yorkers will never understand the high density of the LA region, ever), I just spent 11 days in the BosWash corridor and flew into NYC, next BosWash city I visited was through a rental car heading south to Phily, then Baltimore, then finally DC, and then a drive back up to NYC. I then drove to Boston from NYC, took a flight back to NYC and flew back to the bay after a short layover in NYC. NYC only feels like a huge city in the areas of the city and the areas in North NJ bordering the Hudson. It gets exurban feeling quick with patchy developments but its intriguing because that exurban style development goes from New Brunswick straight to the Hartsford, Connecticut area it was one very continuously built up stretch but it was no where close to as dense as LA to either San Bernardino or Riverside. LA feels like a far denser expanse and its not even close, so by core NYC feels like a massive city but once you leave that small 45 mile core of Manhattan, riverside areas of Brooklyn, and riverside areas of NJ, it does not feel like a city as expansive and large as LA. I was actually impressed by how much NYC sprawls into New England, nearly all of Connecticut has been absorbed by NYC sprawl and its much more developed and denser than the sprawl it has going south which has a breaking point in the area between Trenton to Princeton and then again from Princeton to New Brunswick. The NYC region strongly bleeds into the Birdgeport and New Haven areas and it strongly and thickly bleeds into the Hartford area which bleeds into the Springfield, Massachusetts area and then there's a massive rural gap of nothing and then Worcester starts the Boston area.
Now for Chicago, the relationship LA and NYC share is similar to the one I would imagine the bay and Chicagoworld to share. To be fair, Chicago does easily feel like the third largest city by a very good amount but the bay is on its heels as far as the entire region goes. San Francisco's hurt by the water being on 3 of its 4 sides and the only developable area it can go is south which is a very narrow strip to grow on because of the much jagged mountains in San Mateo county otherwise it would feel like just as large a city as Chicago no doubt. In the core it already does and at region level it feels like the next largest place both in terms of density and development. I recently saw DC for the first time and the size of the region was underwhelming, it in no way, shape, nor form feels like a region of nearly 9M. In fact the area between DC and Baltimore was a forest and at one point a random 14 story skyscraper sticking out from the middle of no where in the forest next to the highway!
I'll go more into it later when I get a Flikr account made and my pictures uploaded. The entire BosWash corridor was under my observation microscope in my stay there, I took thousands of pictures, many from my airplane window of an aerial of the greater NYC and Boston regions.
Common is the ****. I feel like I'm the only fan out here in L.A.
Different beats can be universal depending on your state of mind. You just gotta notice things other people don't notice about their surroundings.
not only are CHI/DC/SF are not alike (if anyone has been to all 3, yeah, please) ...LA and NYC (again, LA and NYC are really not that alike besides being large cities) aren't that alike either. What kind of thread is this?
Aside from the LA poster who constantly wishes LA was like NYC, a lot native Angelenos (like myself) actually dislike the fact that LA has gotten so crowded and overgrown simply because infrastructure has not had enough time to catch up to the growth. I mean, I take transit to work (which I suspect isn't like many LA CD boosters), and every time I take the red and orange lines at 5 PM, they are not only full of people, but a huge chunk of people can't even make the train. Unlike in NYC, this usually means a 10 minute wait for the next Red Line train, or a 5 minute wait for the next Orange Line bus. If you really have somewhere to be (which I do), it becomes really frustrating. During peak hours in NYC, this is not really the case, since trains and buses run way more frequently. This has to do with planning and infrastructure more than anything else, which LA is in the process of making.
In addition, this thread assumes that millions upon millions of people, in vastly different cities, all have something in common with each other due to "size", which is a very loose concept in itself. Yeah, take a random group of 20 people and tell me how much they all have in common. Tell me the "mindset' of the group, unless its a cult. However, most city residents aren't living there for being part of the "cult of the city", but rather to live and work there.
In short, what?
Sincerely,
Someone who's lived in LA, NYC, and SF Bay.
I understand the OP (as in CaliSon) and I agree with him to an extent. I don't agree with him on "something only New Yorkers will understand" (New Yorkers will never understand the high density of the LA region, ever), I just spent 11 days in the BosWash corridor and flew into NYC, next BosWash city I visited was through a rental car heading south to Phily, then Baltimore, then finally DC, and then a drive back up to NYC. I then drove to Boston from NYC, took a flight back to NYC and flew back to the bay after a short layover in NYC. NYC only feels like a huge city in the areas of the city and the areas in North NJ bordering the Hudson. It gets exurban feeling quick with patchy developments but its intriguing because that exurban style development goes from New Brunswick straight to the Hartsford, Connecticut area it was one very continuously built up stretch but it was no where close to as dense as LA to either San Bernardino or Riverside. LA feels like a far denser expanse and its not even close, so by core NYC feels like a massive city but once you leave that small 45 mile core of Manhattan, riverside areas of Brooklyn, and riverside areas of NJ, it does not feel like a city as expansive and large as LA. I was actually impressed by how much NYC sprawls into New England, nearly all of Connecticut has been absorbed by NYC sprawl and its much more developed and denser than the sprawl it has going south which has a breaking point in the area between Trenton to Princeton and then again from Princeton to New Brunswick. The NYC region strongly bleeds into the Birdgeport and New Haven areas and it strongly and thickly bleeds into the Hartford area which bleeds into the Springfield, Massachusetts area and then there's a massive rural gap of nothing and then Worcester starts the Boston area.
Now for Chicago, the relationship LA and NYC share is similar to the one I would imagine the bay and Chicagoworld to share. To be fair, Chicago does easily feel like the third largest city by a very good amount but the bay is on its heels as far as the entire region goes. San Francisco's hurt by the water being on 3 of its 4 sides and the only developable area it can go is south which is a very narrow strip to grow on because of the much jagged mountains in San Mateo county otherwise it would feel like just as large a city as Chicago no doubt. In the core it already does and at region level it feels like the next largest place both in terms of density and development. I recently saw DC for the first time and the size of the region was underwhelming, it in no way, shape, nor form feels like a region of nearly 9M. In fact the area between DC and Baltimore was a forest and at one point a random 14 story skyscraper sticking out from the middle of no where in the forest next to the highway!
I'll go more into it later when I get a Flikr account made and my pictures uploaded. The entire BosWash corridor was under my observation microscope in my stay there, I took thousands of pictures, many from my airplane window of an aerial of the greater NYC and Boston regions.
I am just curious - do you like the development style in Riverside etc?
There are pros and cons to all things but to me personally that like 6-8K density is awful. Not really city not really any space.
Also I agree LA feels more continuously expansive (but again see the question above, though that is personal choice, to me I like very urban or nearly rural but more small townish with open space around, I personally hate the middle, riverside and the OC are just not my cup of tea, nor a place like burligame which is really right outside of SF to begin with. Though all that is preference and none are bad places to live so to speak) - NYC like all NE cities drops density at some point. But remember that dense part in NYC has like 12-14 million people (almost all of the LA CSA population would fit inside an area not too much biggger than LA proper itself, well you get the point). They are built diffferently though.
Also on the Bay, having lived there and east coast I dont feel the massiveness quite honestly. I can tell you even the 10K urban footprint is smaller in SF than even Philly let alone chicago. SF to me feels much closer in size to Philly; especially when you get know both areas. Chicago is more massive to either in footprint , and to me they are not that close
I agree with you on DC as well, I also dont think SF feels anything like 8 million, It feels like the core parts that are like 5-6 million same as DC or Philly in this regard
On this topic Lifeshawdower probably has made the best points in the thread
Last edited by kidphilly; 08-21-2012 at 11:16 PM..
I am just curious - do you like the development style in Riverside etc?
Yes compared to that patchy development style in the northeast I do by all measures. I cant stand rural areas especially if they're ugly topographically meaning flat, meaning flatter than the west. Rural areas make sense to me when there are majestic mountains or canyons but the development from the stretch of Hartford into NYC is awful. I'm a big city guy, I can handle suburbs fine but once it gets rural it makes me twitch. I got a first hand view from the air on the way back from Boston to NYC and its a neighborhood with 32 homes, large yards, narrow sidewalks, then a forest, then another neighborhood, then a forest, then another neighborhood, then a forest. What is this?
I prefer suburbs to be continuously built up from one area to another, even with the sprawl its just much easier finding stores, roads, and offerings.
I drove through all of the northeast and it sucked driving from NYC to Boston. I enjoyed my stay though and have even started liking a lot of things about the BosWash and east in general but the driving was awful and the lack of consistent development played a big role in that. I want to feel like I'm in a city continuously, not a Shrek fairy tail to the land of far far away with patchy developments and then forest and then development then forest. Can you imagine the headache of adjusting from city mode to rural mode every 15 minutes?
Here's Baltimore. Look for that orange dotted line south of Baltimore before it gets into the DC area. There is nothing but trees and low density patchy single family homes with massive massive plots there! How in the name of Mayberry are they even considered one CSA? NYC to Hartford especially along the Connecticut coast feel more developed than that!! http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6015/5...a21b6baa_z.jpg
Yes compared to that patchy development style in the northeast I do by all measures. I cant stand rural areas especially if they're ugly topographically meaning flat, meaning flatter than the west. Rural areas make sense to me when there are majestic mountains or canyons but the development from the stretch of Hartford into NYC is awful. I'm a big city guy, I can handle suburbs fine but once it gets rural it makes me twitch. I got a first hand view from the air on the way back from Boston to NYC and its a neighborhood with 32 homes, large yards, narrow sidewalks, then a forest, then another neighborhood, then a forest, then another neighborhood, then a forest. What is this?
I prefer suburbs to be continuously built up from one area to another, even with the sprawl its just much easier finding stores, roads, and offerings.
I drove through all of the northeast and it sucked driving from NYC to Boston. I enjoyed my stay though and have even started liking a lot of things about the BosWash and east in general but the driving was awful and the lack of consistent development played a big role in that. I want to feel like I'm in a city continuously, not a Shrek fairy tail to the land of far far away with patchy developments and then forest and then development then forest. Can you imagine the headache of adjusting from city mode to rural mode every 15 minutes?
well I think you have NYC for continuous city, to me riverside doesnt feel like the city but I guess its all personal perspective
I dont mind small towns with nice countryside. Give me a New Hope or Doylestown or actually near DT SF over continuous dense burbs any day but again its what an individual likes. I personally didn't like living south of SF but do love SF itself and th Bay area in general, but the nabes there were ok, just not favorites. I mean I would chose an area like Dupont Circle or Harpers Ferry over nearly any continuously developed burb, but then again that may just be me.
Honestly driving south from DT LA into the OC is about about as monotonous as any trees to me, definately developed and expansive though. Monotny always seem to exist from a car to me though, driving up the Blvd in Philly past block after block of rowhomes is monotonous too
well I think you have NYC for continuous city, to me riverside doesnt feel like the city but I guess its all personal perspective
I dont mind small towns with nice countryside. Give me a New Hope or Doylestown or actually near DT SF over continuous dense burbs any day but again its what an individual likes. I personally didn't like living south of SF but do love SF itself and th Bay area in general, but the nabes there were ok, just not favorites. I mean I would chose an area like Dupont Circle or Harpers Ferry over nearly any continuously developed burb, but then again that may just be me.
Riverside was an exurb of LA, grew into a suburb and its continuously built up all the way to LA. I don't consider it a city, I consider it an area of the greater LA region specifically for lower cost in housing and that's it. I wouldn't live there if I had an option not to but I would still pick Riverside over somewhere between DC and Baltimore NYC and Boston, that place was a jungle man! I like to feel like I live in a populated place and rural is not my style unless we bring Marin county into the equation. On my drive back to NYC right before that underwater tunnel area before Baltimore, man that was scary, no lights, few stops, few of anything but trees trees trees trees! What's up with that? How is that a metro?
Makes San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland look like a super region in comparison. LOL I liked DC though but the area feels so underdeveloped compared to the rest of the BosWash corridor. Even in downtown DC, I saw nothing at all like Hanover Street or Prince Street that Boston has or streets like those backstreets off of 3rd and Market in Philly. Just feels so, small!
That's one "CSA" that's hyped on this forum that failed my sniff test as a continuous region, sorry to say but its NOT 4th behind Chicago in shape or form at all.
Last edited by scrantiX; 08-22-2012 at 12:12 AM..
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