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Baltimore and Washington DC have a clear ring of inner suburbs that grew up around each city and in recent years the in between has been filled with less consistent development. Both have clearly Baltimore suburbs and DC suburbs and then a ring that's more ambiguous. I don't know enough to Forth Worth and Dallas to say, but my guess is they're less distinct. Fort Worth and Dallas almost touch each other, DC and Baltimore don't.
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Originally Posted by nei
Baltimore and Washington DC have a clear ring of inner suburbs that grew up around each city and in recent years the in between has been filled with less consistent development. Both have clearly Baltimore suburbs and DC suburbs and then a ring that's more ambiguous. I don't know enough to Forth Worth and Dallas to say, but my guess is they're less distinct. Fort Worth and Dallas almost touch each other, DC and Baltimore don't.
Less consistent development only in certain areas, namely the B/W parkway which is by design supposed to have green space around the highway in route to both cities. Along route 1 though it is a different story, and it's not so much the point of the inner ring suburbs touching. Because the "outer" ring suburbs do either touch or are shared i.e. Columbia, Laurel, Ft. Meade, even areas like Annapolis although more isolated is shared to an extent. Some of these are neither inner ring suburbs of either city but they are kind of "leafy suburbs" that exist inbetween inner ring suburbs of both cities. Crofton and Odenton MD are both a part of Baltimore MSA but are MUCH more intertwined and closer with Bowie and Laurel "DC suburbs."
Less consistent development only in certain areas, namely the B/W parkway which is by design supposed to have green space around the highway in route to both cities. Along route 1 though it is a different story, and it's not so much the point of the inner ring suburbs touching. Because the "outer" ring suburbs do either touch or are shared i.e. Columbia, Laurel, Ft. Meade, even areas like Annapolis although more isolated is shared to an extent. Some of these are neither inner ring suburbs of either city but they are kind of "leafy suburbs" that exist inbetween inner ring suburbs of both cities. Crofton and Odenton MD are both a part of Baltimore MSA but are MUCH more intertwined and closer with Bowie and Laurel "DC suburbs."
just because places grew together doesnt make them one - Philly and NYC have basically a similar connected space yet are by no means connected. DC and Baltimore shre more corssover as they are closer. I personally see DFW as more or less one area from time. DC and Baltimore is not the same, its more two distinct metros that have significant crossover due to proximity and job centers
Most of what I am going to say has already been covered but here are my thoughts:
- While Dallas and Fort Worth are quite different, they are not as different as Washington and Baltimore. Fort Worth does have an identity to its own, but it just does not stand alone as much as Baltimore.
- Commuting patterns around the DFW metroplex are a bit more interconnected than the Washington-Baltimore corridor. While both corridors are fairly built up, the DFW corridor feels more built up and just feels more like one large connected city. Once you get more than about 5 miles away from I-95, there really are some pretty large areas of low density and under developed areas in the Washington-Baltimore corridor. That's not really the case in Dallas-Fort Worth, even a bit more than 5 miles away from Interstate 30.
- Dallas and Fort Worth share more things that you identify with big cities than Washington and Baltimore. Pro sports teams, an airport, and TV market being three of the biggest. I know BWI is named Baltimore-Washington International, but for all intents and purposes, that is a Baltimore airport while Dulles and Reagan are Washington airports.
With all that being said, If Washington and Baltimore's metro areas continue to grow... and there is no reason that they won't... I could certainly see the area merged into a single MSA in the next 20-30 years.
I live right where the two "spheres of influence" for DC and Baltimore meet. I get both DC and Baltimore TV stations on my cable service package. However, when I had DirecTV, I only received Baltimore stations. That said, this boundary zone has had significant development over the past few decades, with an area of mid-density development around the Rest Area on I-95 between the two beltways, while many 1970s-80s-90s era developments remains generally untouched. Konterra is the latest development (definitely in the DC spehere of influence being in PG county though) that continues to fill these gaps, with MD 200 an importnant link across DC's northern suburbs in MD. MARC's Camden and Penn Lines have improved weekday service and provide direct connections between the cities. I've never been to DFW though, so I can't say the same for them, but since those cities developed during the automobile era, they were built with a greater distance in mind apart from them as opposed to some streetcar-era suburbs in DC (Bethesda, Silver Spring, Hyattsville, Takoma Park, College Park, New Carrolton/Landover, Capitol Heights) and Baltimore (Catonsville, Glen Burnie, Towson, Dundalk, Essex, Perryville, Overlea, Pikesville) which have a more pronounced inner-ring suburban influence with each other and most have some walkable areas. Arlington, Plano, Grand Prairie, Irving, Mesquite, Garland, Richardson, Grapevine, Carrollton, and a few other Dallas Suburbs have some degree of a hint of planning and central zone development, but never to the degree of the DC/Baltimore suburbs. Main Street in Garland is basically an auto-oriented strip of auto-type businesses for example. Forth Worth never had any real streetcar-era suburbs.
I like FW but I think the comment was on the relative size compared to Baltimore, while the population of the county is larger for FW the city itself feels significantly smaller
Here's the quote again:
Quote:
To be fair, Baltimore actually feels like a big city on it's own, where as Forth Worth, not so much...
It was the "on its own" part that we were addressing...
And the misspelling of FORT Worth is really annoying.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,568,606 times
Reputation: 5786
Quote:
Originally Posted by kidphilly
just because places grew together doesnt make them one - Philly and NYC have basically a similar connected space yet are by no means connected. DC and Baltimore shre more corssover as they are closer. I personally see DFW as more or less one area from time. DC and Baltimore is not the same, its more two distinct metros that have significant crossover due to proximity and job centers
Has nothing to do with anything I said nor does it disputed the facts of what I stated.
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