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I lived on third and constitution right by The Supreme Court. The area gets extremely quiet at night, understandably, and Pennsylvania ave SE has almost a main street USA feel to me. It's a walkable drag with pubs, storefronts, dry cleaners etc. Overall Capitol Hill is a quiet residential neighborhood with tree lined streets and cute rowhomes. Besides Pennsylvania ave there is not a ton of pedestrian traffic and you would never guess you were in the most politically important city in the western world if you didn't venture by the capitol building or other government landmarks. I'm not saying it's suburban but it's far from a concrete jungle.
If people don't agree that's fine, it's just my opinion.
I used to live around 7 blocks east of Union Station in Capitol Hill NE, and I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I just don't agree that doesn't make it highly urban. New York has plenty of quiet, residential areas as well, such as Park Slope. They're still urban however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freddy K
La has tons of walkable commercial strips. It was a street car city until 1950 or so, and many of its older neigborhoods reflect that.
Even newer areas like west hollywood, beverly hills, brentwood, westwood, studio city, santa monica, etc etc
Have walkable commercial areas.
This forum just loves to downplay it cause it doesnt resemble the ne cities.
And most of them are addimg alot of infill too. It might lack a historic feel, but it provides more amenties. Ill take the amenties.
As was noted upthread, LA has a nice density, but tends to fall flat on mixed use. I just haven't seen many of the multi-story apartment buildings with retail on the first floor there - either historic or modern infill. It's getting better, but even in some of the densest parts of Westlake or Koreatown, you have totally residential blocks packed with apartment buildings, with nary a storefront in site. Then the commercial strip is virtually a strip mall fronting on a high-traffic multi-lane road. It's like they left in place the streetcar suburb business district despite upzoning the residential and knocking down the old single-family housing.
All the neighborhoods I mentioned don't have an extremity urban feel to me regardless of height.
This is true, but also true in cities in DC's "weight class". There are analogous areas in Chicago, Philly, Boston and SF.
There are suburban-style single family homes, with yards and driveways, just north of the downtown core, in Old Town and Lincoln Park. But that doesn't mean that Chicago isn't urban.
I used to live around 7 blocks east of Union Station in Capitol Hill NE, and I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I just don't agree that doesn't make it highly urban. New York has plenty of quiet, residential areas as well, such as Park Slope. They're still urban however.
As was noted upthread, LA has a nice density, but tends to fall flat on mixed use. I just haven't seen many of the multi-story apartment buildings with retail on the first floor there - either historic or modern infill. It's getting better, but even in some of the densest parts of Westlake or Koreatown, you have totally residential blocks packed with apartment buildings, with nary a storefront in site. Then the commercial strip is virtually a strip mall fronting on a high-traffic multi-lane road. It's like they left in place the streetcar suburb business district despite upzoning the residential and knocking down the old single-family housing.
Wilshire,
alvarardo
6th
vermont
8th
olympic
3rd
pico
Western
beverly
Parts of 7th st
In koretown/westlake sre all close to each other and pscked with storefronts, especially compared to residrntial dc hoods.
ite not nyc, but outside of that....
Koreatown actually has thr denest concentration of restsurants in america according to cnn.
Most of the storefronts are built to the street.
the strip mall thing is overblown on this forum. There are some there, but its not strip mall after strip mall. Some of them have little parking and 2-3 stories of businesses.
Again, this stuff wouldn't be terrible if Koreatown was still full of charming bungelows. But it's pretty sad considering it's one of the most dense neighborhoods in LA. Santa Monica has a better pedestrian shopping experience than most of what I've seen in even the most urban portions of LA proper.
Again, this stuff wouldn't be terrible if Koreatown was still full of charming bungelows. But it's pretty sad considering it's one of the most dense neighborhoods in LA. Santa Monica has a better pedestrian shopping experience than most of what I've seen in even the most urban portions of LA proper.
Again, most of 6th street retail faces the street. As is the case of most of la, really. You can nitpick all you want, i lived there.
wilshire is more of a office street. But many of the buildings do have storefronts.
Western, pico, vermont ollympic, third are the main commerciap strips.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckeye614
I lived on third and constitution right by The Supreme Court. The area gets extremely quiet at night, understandably, and Pennsylvania ave SE has almost a main street USA feel to me. It's a walkable drag with pubs, storefronts, dry cleaners etc. Overall Capitol Hill is a quiet residential neighborhood with tree lined streets and cute rowhomes. Besides Pennsylvania ave there is not a ton of pedestrian traffic and you would never guess you were in the most politically important city in the western world if you didn't venture by the capitol building or other government landmarks. I'm not saying it's suburban but it's far from a concrete jungle.
If people don't agree that's fine, it's just my opinion.
I understand that, but this thread is not about noise level in a neighborhood. Your prior post was saying that DC is not more urban than most American cities. Which is one of the most factually incorrect things I've heard about DC. Then you referenced Capitol Hill, and urban/walkable neighborhood with wall to wall row homes as your example. That just didn't add up for me. There are quiet neighborhoods in many major urban cities.
We can compare/contrast the gradient of neighborhoods all day and all night for their urbanity, can't we?. Capitol Hill is still an urban, walkable neighborhood.
I never said it wasn't urban, I only said that I could see his point about it not having an "extremity urban feel."
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