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This whole percentage thing is a bit flawed IMO, first of all people need to understand that nearly half of LA's population lies in the San Fernando Valley which really knocks down the percentage of what most of us consider LA.
Not really true. The SFV, despite the suburban reputation, isn't that different from most LA neighborhoods on the other side of the mountains.
In fact, Ventura Boulevard is very similar to Wilshire Boulevard, with a similar "dense but not really fully pedestrian-oriented" feel.
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Originally Posted by dispo4
Cities more intertwined with the "real LA" like Santa Monica, West Hollywood, and even east like Huntington Park and South Gate feel more LA than anything out in the valley.
These are independent cities, and not really any more closely related to LA than suburbs of other cities. Some have similar levels of density or urbanity as LA proper, but that's true for some suburbs in almost all metro areas.
I thought Koreatown had more residents. I had it at 115,700.
How are an of those cohesive except DTLA/PicoUnion/Chinatown? Not going to give LA a pass just because...When I am dinging other cities for a few blocks of undeveloped areas much less entire swaths and entire neighborhoods. Entire city of Chicago is cohesive by those standards. So is the entire city of San Francisco.
Nobody would make such strange boundaries and throw out so many areas either. That's called patchwork. If you can't walk in a straight line from an area in point a to an area in point b without going through breaks and suburban style neighborhoods the area isn't cohesive.
Yeah, Walk score has different neighborhood boundaries than Mapping LA--East Hollywood on your map is part of Hollywood, for example. Mid-Wilshire (that large gap between Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire) has 39k residents and an 81 score. Westlake has an 86 score. Central LA (46 sq miles, minus the Hollywood Hills) probably has a score in the low 80s. Just a guess.
Meh. Boston and LA are far closer to each other in walkability than either is to London, and Boston approximating the pedestrian friendliness of London for a few sq miles hardly puts it two tiers above Los Angeles.
There isn't one neighborhood in LA that approximates the more walkable parts of Boston and London. Obviously Boston and London, which have many neighborhoods with similar levels of walkability, are more comparable from a street level perspective.
At least in the U.S., Boston and Philly have the closest street-level feel to London.
Yeah, Walk score has different neighborhood boundaries than Mapping LA--East Hollywood on your map is part of Hollywood, for example. Mid-Wilshire (that large gap between Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire) has 39k residents and an 81 score. Westlake has an 86 score.
OK gotcha, makes a bit more sense, but still seems disjointed. I could certainly make a curving map of Chicago also for example leaving out the industrial deadzones.
I mean you could do from about 2400 South Michigan then cut to Clark when it ends and go all the way into Evanston with a while in a few places of patch, virtually a constant street wall surrounded by very walkable neighborhoods on both sides.
I was talking specifically about their cores. I'm not talking about Jamaica Plain. The core of Boston is more similar to London than it is to the core of Los Angeles. I didn't think there would be much debate on this, but oh well.
But...I mean, we could pose this question to the L.A. forum. That hasn't worked out too well for you guys the last couple of times though.
Why is it that your estimation of Los Angeles and its urbanity/walkability differs so drastically from the majority of people in the L.A. forum? Is it because they simply don't know the core the way LA posters in the CvC forum do?
The core of Boston is more walkable than the core of LA, for sure (though the downtowns themselves are about on the same level, Boston's being more upscale). However outside of that 2 mile radius it is Los Angeles in a landslide. Of course that would put Boston ahead of LA as far as the OP goes, something we have seen just about every LA poster do when making a list on this thread. Seems like there are a couple of posters on this site who just love to talk about Los Angeles, yet seem very averse to actually visiting it.
And actually in your stupid poll on the LA forum, a whole lot of the posters you are arguing with in this thread voted for Miami. So much for that unabashed homerism theory, eh?
Last edited by munchitup; 02-27-2014 at 06:07 PM..
How are an of those cohesive except DTLA/PicoUnion/Chinatown?
These areas are not cohesive. The downtown LA apologists on this thread will all say otherwise, but they just aren't. There's a gap between all these areas, where parking lots and dead space dominates.
And it doesn't really matter. No one walks around Pico-Union unless they live there and are poor and have no other choice. LA Chinatown is dense but very auto-oriented and strip-mallish. Downtown LA has some good parts but small in area, and kind of isolated from one another.
OK gotcha, makes a bit more sense, but still seems disjointed. I could certainly make a curving map of Chicago also for example leaving out the industrial deadzones.
I mean you could do from about 2400 South Michigan then cut to Clark when it ends and go all the way into Evanston with a while in a few places of patch, virtually a constant street wall surrounded by very walkable neighborhoods on both sides.
Understood, I don't even necessarily disagree. But it obviously isn't Orlando or even the San Fernando Valley in terms of walkability. As I said, Central LA (46 sq miles, minus the Hollywood Hills) probably has a score in the low 80s. That's a nice little chunk of city right there.
Not really true. The SFV, despite the suburban reputation, isn't that different from most LA neighborhoods on the other side of the mountains.
In fact, Ventura Boulevard is very similar to Wilshire Boulevard, with a similar "dense but not really fully pedestrian-oriented" feel.
These are independent cities, and not really any more closely related to LA than suburbs of other cities. Some have similar levels of density or urbanity as LA proper, but that's true for some suburbs in almost all metro areas.
They may look similar but the layout is different. In the basin side, commercial streets run every 1/4 mile to a 1/2 mile while in the Valley they run closer to a mile apart, sometimes more like 2 miles apart. So that makes a huge difference in the walkability of a neighborhood, even if the urban appearance is similar (though I see some huge differences between the two areas). To me the biggest essence of walkability is proximity, so the distance between commercial corridors makes a world of a difference in how walkable an area is. In the Valley you will be within walking distance of 1, maybe 2 commercial areas while on the other side of the hill you are within walking distance of 3-4 commercial districts.
This distinction is very apparent in the Metro bus system overlay, the grid of bus lines in the SFV is much "looser" than the grid in the basin.
It is also pretty apparant from satellite views - keep in mind some of the thickly-developed arteries in the SFV have no commercial and are 100 percent residential, albeit dense development: https://www.google.com/maps?ll=34.11...28374&t=k&z=12
It's the same difference in the San Gabriel Valley between Pasadena and the rest of the cities - and Long Beach and the South Bay / Gateway Cities.
The "old downtown" part of LA has pretty good urbanity but still wide streets. It's still decayed in parts, but rapidly improving. This part has real potential, but nothing like a downtown Boston.
The "new downtown" part of LA (all the skyscrapers, the music center, Macys, etc.) has pretty awful urbanity (just try and walk down Figueroa or Flower; most blocks might as well be Century City).
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