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Easily LA. There's plenty of walkable urban neighborhoods. The sheer size of the city makes it harder to get around the area but you could definitely live in Koreatown, Hollywood, Westlake, Fairfax, etc and be just fine on foot.
I wouldn't live in LA without a car. PT needs to be a major concentration for all of socal for the next decade.
Easily top 10. The lowest I would put Baltimore is 6th, but I definitely think it would take the #5 spot after NYC, SF, Boston, Philly; I would have it tied with DC or slightly ahead of it.
Easily top 10. The lowest I would put Baltimore is 6th, but I definitely think it would take the #5 spot after NYC, SF, Boston, Philly; I would have it tied with DC or slightly ahead of it.
Maybe a decade ago Baltimore would have tied DC, but things have changed rapidly and I don't see how Baltimore would take a top 5 spot since your list is missing Chicago.
I agree with it being easily top 10 for the US though.
Think the question is what makes a city feel "urban". I'd say there are three key factors: household density, a decent size city, and lots of office space.
Household density - In SoCal, it's common to have places with high pop. density but also modest household density due to large households. Having lots of people in suburban style housing puts a lot of cars in neighborhood streets, but doesn't feel urban. Seattle has caught up to LA in pop density, at just around 8,000, but it's household density is nearly 4,000 per sq mi compared to 3,000 per sq mi in LA due to much smaller avg household size.
Next, city size. Charleston and Savannah are quaint and walkable, but obviously not big downtowns, so I'd say at least 400,000 people within city limits.
And importantly, office space. Miami has over 400,000 people and 4,000 households per square mile, but a very modest 20 million sq ft of downtown office space. Miami Beach and Santa Monica are both walkable, but with many shoppers and beach goers. Shouldn't an elite urban area mix homes, retail, and offices?
And a decent share of that office space should be class A. Cornerstone employers aren't going to lease a lot of downtown Class B, which tend to pull in a lot of basic services like dentists offices or nail places.
So if you take 400,000 people, 4,000 households per sq mi, and at least 40 million sq of office space, you get 7 cities - Bos, NY, Philly, DC, Chicago, Seattle, and SF.
DT LA has less office space, Class A and total, than DT Seattle. 1/2 of all DT class A in the West is in SF and Seattle.
In the midwest, Chicago has nearly 1/2 of all the DT Class A, with Minneapolis a distant 2nd. Minneapolis also has a fairly high household density of 3,500 per sq mi, so probably reasonable to put it in the 2nd tier.
DT Baltimore has less Class A than Stamford, CT. At 3,000 homes per sq mi, might squeeze into the 2nd tier, but really is a blip economically. Another factor with Baltimore is that any ranking is likely to slip due to the fact that unlike most of these other cities, it's not growing.
Portland and Denver have weird densities due to topography and Denver extending to the airport, but enough class A to put both into the 2nd tier. Same is true of Oakland.
The South + Texas doesn't really have any top urban places. No city in the region outside Miami has 400,000 people and 4,000 households/sq mi. In fact, few even have 4,000 people per sq mi. Moreover, there's very little DT office space. DFW is booming as a metro, and has more regional jobs than any other metro besides NY, LA, and CHI. But DT Dallas has a very modest 20 million sq ft of Class A. And in spite of being the largest region of the country in terms of population, South + Texas has less downtown office space than the West. But at the same time, it has about 70% more suburban Class A...and that's if you put the massive Northern VA market into the Northeast.
According to the Collier's Data I'm referencing on office space, over 60% of the nation's Class A downtown space is in NY, Chi, SF, DC, Bos, Philly, and Seattle.
So I'd say based on the data
Tier 1: NY, Chicago, SF, Bos, DC, Philly, Seattle
Tier 2: Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Miami, Oakland, Baltimore
Potential within 10 years, but not there yet: LA
Potential within 20 years: Austin, San Diego
Think the question is what makes a city feel "urban". I'd say there are three key factors: household density, a decent size city, and lots of office space.
Household density - In SoCal, it's common to have places with high pop. density but also modest household density due to large households. Having lots of people in suburban style housing puts a lot of cars in neighborhood streets, but doesn't feel urban. Seattle has caught up to LA in pop density, at just around 8,000, but it's household density is nearly 4,000 per sq mi compared to 3,000 per sq mi in LA due to much smaller avg household size.
Next, city size. Charleston and Savannah are quaint and walkable, but obviously not big downtowns, so I'd say at least 400,000 people within city limits.
And importantly, office space. Miami has over 400,000 people and 4,000 households per square mile, but a very modest 20 million sq ft of downtown office space. Miami Beach and Santa Monica are both walkable, but with many shoppers and beach goers. Shouldn't an elite urban area mix homes, retail, and offices?
And a decent share of that office space should be class A. Cornerstone employers aren't going to lease a lot of downtown Class B, which tend to pull in a lot of basic services like dentists offices or nail places.
So if you take 400,000 people, 4,000 households per sq mi, and at least 40 million sq of office space, you get 7 cities - Bos, NY, Philly, DC, Chicago, Seattle, and SF.
DT LA has less office space, Class A and total, than DT Seattle. 1/2 of all DT class A in the West is in SF and Seattle.
In the midwest, Chicago has nearly 1/2 of all the DT Class A, with Minneapolis a distant 2nd. Minneapolis also has a fairly high household density of 3,500 per sq mi, so probably reasonable to put it in the 2nd tier.
DT Baltimore has less Class A than Stamford, CT. At 3,000 homes per sq mi, might squeeze into the 2nd tier, but really is a blip economically. Another factor with Baltimore is that any ranking is likely to slip due to the fact that unlike most of these other cities, it's not growing.
Portland and Denver have weird densities due to topography and Denver extending to the airport, but enough class A to put both into the 2nd tier. Same is true of Oakland.
The South + Texas doesn't really have any top urban places. No city in the region outside Miami has 400,000 people and 4,000 households/sq mi. In fact, few even have 4,000 people per sq mi. Moreover, there's very little DT office space. DFW is booming as a metro, and has more regional jobs than any other metro besides NY, LA, and CHI. But DT Dallas has a very modest 20 million sq ft of Class A. And in spite of being the largest region of the country in terms of population, South + Texas has less downtown office space than the West. But at the same time, it has about 70% more suburban Class A...and that's if you put the massive Northern VA market into the Northeast.
According to the Collier's Data I'm referencing on office space, over 60% of the nation's Class A downtown space is in NY, Chi, SF, DC, Bos, Philly, and Seattle.
So I'd say based on the data
Tier 1: NY, Chicago, SF, Bos, DC, Philly, Seattle
Tier 2: Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Miami, Oakland, Baltimore
Potential within 10 years, but not there yet: LA
Potential within 20 years: Austin, San Diego
Where did you come up with this garbage?
Let me enlighten you a little bit with these 2 links:
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