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Based on your definition, you'd consider LA to be more urban than places like San Francisco and Chicago, yes? It is "consistently urban" over a larger area than the other two.
Overall and beyond just the core? Yeah.
New York, followed by Los Angeles, followed by Chicago, followed by San Francisco. Beyond that point, I don't know and honestly don't care as it is.
When you say "most Central American cities cant hold a handle to Boston", speak for yourself. I've been to Boston several times in the last two years, and love going there, as it's a great city for the United States but a large AND urban one it is not (by global standards). It has a pretty fine core (for America, anyways) but just when you think things are getting good, the city ends, abruptly, in the most small town manner there is. The drop off of density in Greater Boston, when I drove there from Washington (through the suicidal traffic corridor that is Connecticut) is stark drop off. It never ceases to leave me with the impression "what the (expletive), where the heck did the city go? Am I on the set of Amityville Horror in the woods!?".
Sounds like you are penalizing Boston for having suburbs. Would Boston be more urban in your eyes if instead of transitioning into low density suburbia it transitioned immediately into empty fields (as cities tend to do in less suburbanized parts of the world)?
I guess the question is are we rating the City of Boston or Greater Boston? Of course if we assess Greater Boston as a whole, with all its low density suburbs, it's not a particularly urban place. The City of Boston is.
Boston is nowhere near top 12 in NA, feels small and gets rural real quick, Seattle gives Boston a run for its money and that's not saying much.
That's comparison not true at all though...Seattle is mostly fairly quiet single-family neighborhoods once you get a couple miles from the core. Boston has more of an urban feel even in some of it's suburbs.
That's comparison not true at all though...Seattle is mostly fairly quiet single-family neighborhoods once you get a couple miles from the core. Boston has more of an urban feel even in some of it's suburbs.
While they may look like single family homes, those are not single family home but 2-3 family homes. Both are about 6 miles from downtown. Go much further and it does get patchier, but that small area holds more people than Seattle does.
I guess the question is are we rating the City of Boston or Greater Boston?
I always just assume that in these threads we are always looking at the greater area as a whole. I cant speak for everyone but speaking for myself, city limits are pretty meaningless overall. Some cities like Miami are 35 square miles while others are over 400 square miles. Some on paper have densities above 11,000 people per square mile over an area of 225 square miles while others bring in 13,000 people per square mile for only an area of 46 square miles.
Here is my very first post in this thread, I've bolded my intentions from the start.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Don't know what order but would imagine these would be the tops in North America when taking Mexico City and New York out of the picture. I'm doing by the configuration of urban area / metropolis rather than just the city proper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fitzrovian
Sounds like you are penalizing Boston for having suburbs. Would Boston be more urban in your eyes if instead of transitioning into low density suburbia it transitioned immediately into empty fields (as cities tend to do in less suburbanized parts of the world)?
Yes, Greater Boston would be more urban in my eyes if it transitioned exactly the way you described it.
Boston the city is good, it's compact, it's small, and for all intents and purposes, one of the fewer places in the country where you can enjoy some very urban areas with good levels of density. This is also the case for immediate suburbs like Cambridge. Beyond that inner ring though, is some scattershot sort of development, I believe New England has a term for it (NECTA). In this development, small towns have these "town centers" (which are very tiny) that were established before the age of the automobile but between them to the next small town is some of the leafiest and lowest density suburbia on the planet, with some of the largest plot estates and isn't on a grid so they are even more scattershot than they should be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fitzrovian
Of course if we assess Greater Boston as a whole, with all its low density suburbs, it's not a particularly urban place. The City of Boston is.
This right here (your post), would perfectly summarize what I think.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed, which uses the same standard for every city on the planet, for places above 3 million people, Greater Boston is stopped only by Greater Atlanta and exceeded in low density suburbia. Both lead the planet, as numbers one and two, in low density. Difference is, Boston the city has an urban core, a dense, tightly-knit, and structurally dense with adequate transit and indrastructure, whereas Atlanta does not.
The reason I penalized Greater Boston is not because it has suburbs but because Greater Boston's suburbs are the lowest of densities and that's something that the other American cities I listed don't share to the same degree as Greater Boston. Here is the weighted density chart from the year 2000, I know it's outdated but that doesn't matter to Greater Boston as it's growth in the last 14 years hasn't been much to change it as it is. Even if it did, every city in the country actually became less dense in terms of weighted density by 2010.
A few things from it, Chicago has a weighted density that exceeds 10,000 people per square mile and has nearly twice the population and twice the "standard density" of Greater Boston. This is why I gave Chicagoland a pass. In theory, Greater Boston's weighted density is on the level of that of only the city proper of Los Angeles and similar in population too (even with it's mountain range going through it).
Greater Boston does not have the size going for it, in my opinion. It does not have the density going for it, in my opinion. It does not have the consistency in structural density going for it, even to a small degree, in my opinion.
This is why I wont give Greater Boston a pass and add it to the list of potential candidates for top ten in North America. It's weighted density and population is closer to that of Greater Miami than it is to Greater Chicago, which adequately punches in as it was expected for a large city and metropolis, in terms of urbanity for both.
I also didn't give my city, Washington, a pass either. While the core is dense, walkable, and structurally built up with really good infrastructure and transit, the overall Greater Washington has similar inconsistencies in density (albeit higher than Greater Boston) and it too doesn't really bring size or any other advantages to be in any sort of top ten for North America (assuming North America is more than just Canada, United States, and Mexico but the entirety of it).
Hmm... is continuous urbanity a criteria at all? Because I'm not sure if a puny CBD and then a countless array of suburban neighborhoods with single family homes, motel look alike apartment, strip malls, parking lots etc and some 50K vibrant neighborhoods in between them all over the place exactly serves the purpose.
Again, can only speak for myself. I have two standards.
A) Developed world and first world
B) Second world, third world, and developing world
For the first world (developed world/high-income world); it would be this, this, and this. The cities in the pictures are New York, Tokyo, and Paris.
Here I'll go through the check box with you;
1. Structurally dense expanse: CHECK
2. Incredibly dense human density: CHECK
3. First rate infrastructure and transit: CHECK
4. Geographic continuation of both structural density and population density well beyond "city proper": CHECK
5. Roadways and arterial blended seamlessly into the urban fabric: CHECK
6. Active livable centers with immense amenity density: CHECK
7. Advocation and use of urban friendly personalized vehicles: CHECK
8. Greenbelts and public squares/urban parks built around intensely with staggering density and commercial amenities: CHECK
9. Block-by-block of zero breaks (not barring geography) in built form: CHECK
As for the second world, third world, and developing world, like I said before, I am not going to discriminate a socioeconomically disadvantaged place for quite frankly molesting the living hell out of most American cities in urbanity. It is what it is but these cities are a different sort of urban than what you'll see in the high-income world (Hong Kong, Singapore, United States, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Western Europe, Australia, and Canada). So take that for what you will.
Boston is nowhere near top 12 in NA, feels small and gets rural real quick, Seattle gives Boston a run for its money and that's not saying much.
Bwahahaha
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Overall and beyond just the core? Yeah.
New York, followed by Los Angeles, followed by Chicago, followed by San Francisco. Beyond that point, I don't know and honestly don't care as it is.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. Personally, I wouldn't take a place like LA or Managua or Phoenix or San Jose to be more urban than San Fran or Boston. When talking about urbanity, smaller areas of hyper-density are more important to me than massive areas of "consistent" density.
You are welcome to your opinion.
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