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^^You mean early 19th century? If so, which neighborhoods because I'd actually like to visit them. Every time I've seen St. Louis homes, they are generally the older stone or brick homes separated by small alleyways with a few row houses mixed every once in awhile. Nearly the entire city proper of Chicago is filled with this kind of housing stock, so I'm wandering what makes St. Louis's more Eastern? What makes a neighborhood like Lafayette Square more East Coast than say Armitage, Prairie Ave, or the rowhouses of the Gold Coast?
St. Louis was larger than Chicago up until the Civil War when the city was blocked from trading on the Mississippi River and the railroads chose Chicago as the next logical choice to move goods from the East Coast. Up until that time the culture and architecture was heavily influenced by Eastern businessmen, specifically from Baltimore and Philadelphia. St. Louis was set to be the capital city for the Midwest, but then the Civil War started and it changed everything.
I was simply trying to disabuse michi of his notion that the bungalows are somehow suburban. Although they are detached, they rest on very tight narrow lots. If I had added some other, slightly less dense bungalow suburbs like Oak Lawn, Bridgeview etc, could have added up to more than St. Louis' population, all denser.
Cicero and Berwyn, totally dominated by bungalow housing are denser than Chicago itself, as well as denser than places like DC and Boston. They do NOT represent a typical form of suburban housing in the least.
many parts of the bungalow belt have mixed housing types as well, such as here where two-flats stand next to bungalows...all bungalow neighborhoods are very dense and walkable.
Argh...your inclination to (subconciously) bring down Chicago rises again. The bungalow belt is actually very urban...nothing suburban about it.
Again, I'm going to disagree. And bungalows are hardly unique to Chicago, so not sure how a reference to bungalows is a reference only to Chicago. They're more common in LA, to take one example.
Bungalows are not "very urban". Central Paris is "very urban". Hong Kong is "very urban". 50-floor highrises with no parking are "very urban".
Cicero and Berwyn do not have particularly high density, BTW. The density they do have is for the same reason much of Southern California has moderately high density in a suburban format- Mexican immigrants, who live with extended families.
Bungalows are automobile-age suburban-style housing built for the expanding 20th century middle class. Not sure why you would classify bungalows as "very urban". They have yards, garages, low density, and the like. Yes, sometimes they are stuffed with immigrants.
Obviously you are not aware that St. Louis has lost half a million people in the last 60 yrs. Also Chicago is a metropolitan area of 10 million people, in comparison to St. Louis having 3 million. Not really a fair comparison of scale. There are neighborhoods in the city of St. Louis that dense though and they were built to be substantially denser.
That poster knows all this. Notice there was no response to the actual topic (St. Louis' architectural, planning, and historical similarities to Eastern cities), so then the poster veers off to an irrelevant density argument.
That poster knows all this. Notice there was no response to the actual topic (St. Louis' architectural, planning, and historical similarities to Eastern cities), so then the poster veers off to an irrelevant density argument.
Ugh, you are insufferable....Berwyn has its fair share of yuppies, and is solidly middle class, not some overcrowded barrio. Just wanted to point out that somehow magically suburban bungalow belt areas near Chicago are denser than the city itself as well as places like DC, and Boston. Very very "suburban"....
and if you've never spent time in the back yard of a bungalow, trust me, they are no grander than the garden of a London rowhouse.
That poster knows all this. Notice there was no response to the actual topic (St. Louis' architectural, planning, and historical similarities to Eastern cities), so then the poster veers off to an irrelevant density argument.
and as a reminder, this thread is supposedly about New York and Chicago, not St. Louis's bruised and battered ego.
I disagree with your descriptions of both Chicago and St. Louis.
First, for Chicago, you claim that "nearly the entire city proper of Chicago" is filled with stone and brick row homes. Huh?
Half of Chicago consists of suburban bungalows, and the more urban half consists of a mix of usually small courtyard apartment buildings and detached older homes (usually early 20th century). There are no real rowhouse neighborhoods in Chicago, so not sure how you came to the conclusion that they comprise the entire cityscape.
I'm pretty sure it was illegal to build attached homes following the Great Fire, so I don't even think this would be possible. Even in the most historic neighborhoods, like Lincoln Park, and Old Town, the vast majority of homes are detached.
What are you talking about? I never said Chicago was filled with row homes. I said it was filled with "older stone or brick homes separated by small alleyways with a few row houses mixed every once in awhile." Obviously Chicago has the bungalow belt, but it has a vast supply of dense older neighborhoods from the late 19th century.
And I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that Chicago has no row house neighborhoods. What about Pullman? They may not be abundant, but they are there.
This is totally subjective and anecdotal, but I'd venture to say that no native New Yorkers would ever think people in Chicago "are basically the same." There is a very palpable difference in the pace, energy, diversity and scale of these two cities. New York is an enigma and has no peer in the United States and that status is reflected in virtually every component of the city.
I agree with goat314-- Chicago's aesthetic and urban design is decidedly Midwestern/Prairie-style and would never be mistaken for an East Coast city. I also agree that both St. Louis and Cincinnati have older, more Eastern-inspired influences in terms of their built environment compared to Chicago.
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Thanks for your response...
Can you please elaborate further ..
I Agree that New Yorkers would never think they are the same kind of people... NYC is a bigger, more important city (number 1 global city in the world) , therefore there ego would never allow this, nor admit it .... Just like a Chicagoan would never admit that they are similar to people in Milwaukee or st Louis ..... This is human Nature
There is a very Palpable difference in
- Pace
- Energy
- Diversity
Yes ... True NYC is more
- Pace - More crowded, but pace seems same
- Energy - I agree ... There definitely is more energy .... Maybe because it is a bigger city
- Diversity - Maybe (I know NYC is more diverse) but walking on 5th Ave vs State street ... not so obvious... It is more obvious when you get into the neighborhoods
So what you are saying is that Chicagoan are more like midwesterns, meaning from small town mindset (Naive, Friendly, knowing everyone else business, prideful, not exposed to things)
While New Yorkers have big City mindset (Cold heart, well exposed, Mind there own business, Savy, busy) + feel like rulers of the world.....
???? Is this correct ? Is this what you are saying (through my interpretation)?
Im just trying to break it down further ... not wanting to put words in your mouth
So what you are saying is that Chicagoan are more like midwesterns, meaning from small town mindset (Naive, Friendly, knowing everyone else business, prideful, not exposed to things)
While New Yorkers have big City mindset (Cold heart, well exposed, Mind there own business, Savy, busy) + feel like rulers of the world.....
No. I don't think Midwest = small town mindset. The Northeast has small towns. They don't feel midwestern. The Midwest has big cities. That doesn't necessarily make them Northeastern, even Chicago.
The scale of Chicago is drastically different from any other Midwestern city, though. Architecture and culture may be similar to other parts of the Midwest, but by size and amount of dense neighborhoods, Chicago is on a completely different level than any other Midwestern city. The gap between Boston or Philly and NYC is also huge, but also Boston or Philly feel much more urban than any Midwestern city not Chicago.
I was simply trying to disabuse michi of his notion that the bungalows are somehow suburban. Although they are detached, they rest on very tight narrow lots. If I had added some other, slightly less dense bungalow suburbs like Oak Lawn, Bridgeview etc, could have added up to more than St. Louis' population, all denser.
Cicero and Berwyn, totally dominated by bungalow housing are denser than Chicago itself, as well as denser than places like DC and Boston. They do NOT represent a typical form of suburban housing in the least.
many parts of the bungalow belt have mixed housing types as well, such as here where two-flats stand next to bungalows...all bungalow neighborhoods are very dense and walkable.
You can't compare areas as small as Cicero to the whole cities. They are not denser than neighborhoods in those cities.
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