Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I would agree Oakland/Berkeley are "functionally the same urban system" as SF but disagree that they're "part of the SF urban core".
Newark is 8 miles from Times Square; Oakland is 10 miles from Market Street. Berkeley is further still.
And the NYC area is obviously vastly bigger and more urban, so relative distances aren't the same. You can get more urbanity 15 miles out in Paterson or Passaic than you get walking distance to downtown SF. 10 miles from downtown SF is more or less the equivalent of 25 miles from core Manhattan, adjusting for size and urbanity.
No one in NYC would say that Newark is an extension of Manhattan or an extension of the regional core. Adjacent areas of Brooklyn, Queens, and waterfront Jersey, perhaps, but not Newark. Similarly, no one in Boston would say that Everett or Quincy are extensions of downtown SF, but Cambridge, possibly yes. In DC, no one would say Bethesda is in the regional core, but Arlington, maybe. I don't see how Oakland/Berkeley could reasonably be seen as a natural extension of downtown SF.
I'd say it can almost work in reverse. With so much city in between in a place like NYC, getting through 5-10 miles can take a while and make the place you're going seem so far away. In Oakland, it's two subway stops on a high speed heavy rail. It's a breeze.
But different perspectives. Some people may feel that the water is more of a mental geographic barrier. Others may feel that a contiguous 5-10 miles of 30K+ density and even with some water in between is a huge mental geographic barrier. I had a friend visit recently and we went from Pac Heights to the Mission, and he thought it felt so far, he was completely disoriented, because to him, from where he was coming from, that was so much city all along the way (cab ride). To me, I actually walk that distance all the time and it's not far. But when I go to New York, even Midtown and Lower Manhattan can feel worlds apart, based on perceived distance based on the sheer amount of city in between.
So for me at least, Oakland doesn't feel further than Newark, at all. I've sat on trains between Newark and Manhattan and it's seemed to take foreverrrrr before. God forbid a BART I am on gets stuck in the tube, but it's a breeze to me getting from SF to Oakland or Berkeley.
Population density and highly walkable aren't the same thing. Georgetown is not very dense from a population standpoint, but it is a highly walkable urban environment, and people come from all over the region to walk around there. Its population density is not suggestive of the actual pedestrian volume one observes there.
But DC residents aren't parking and riding. You should go back and look at the transit/walk/bike rates I put together for Columbia Heights, Koreatown and Bed-Stuy.
I generally agree with you. I'm just saying that population density and number of pedestrians are generally correlated, though yes there are some exceptions. And no, DC residents aren't parking and riding but MoCo and NoVA residents are. Thus transit ridership rates are higher in many inner DC suburbs than around other cities. I wouldn't say that a lot of residents driving to a P&R to ride Metro makes Greenbelt any more urban than a similar suburb of Atlanta with little transit usage.
I'm not saying density is a better indicator of urbanity than transit, just that neither is perfect. Both generally correlate with urbanity, but neither always does.
^^^That's why I think wealth is an important metric. If you have wealthy people in a high density area with strong walk/transit stats, that takes the ballgame out of the "poor court". And if you have census tracts that aren't extremely affluent, but are obviously filled with people making 6 figures (not necessarily millionaires living in doormen buildings, but young professionals living in decent apartments and filling tables at good restaurants), then you can assume they are choosing to ride/walk, and the poor argument goes out the door.
However, that's complicated by parking costs, which go up dramatically in very structurally dense areas. LA's density on paper is high, but it doesn't have that structural density that makes providing parking so difficult. Its neighbor to the north has parking spots that sell for 6 figures, easy, and rent even miles and miles outside of the core for $300+/mo. Whereas I believe in LA the situation is a bit different. In the so-called Top 5 cities and even DC, so many young professionals are actually priced out of parking/owning a car with the choice between expensive rental in a better location or having a car. In LA, it's never really a choice - do you want a decent apartment or to have a car? It's a combo deal.
Lots of variables when it comes to urbanity. I always look at size and prominence of city/region, too. Something to be said for "punching above or below weight". That's why cities like NOLA and Charleston impress me. Cities like LA have grown on me, but for me it's not about the "urbanity" in LA, it's about the lifestyle I want that you can't get anywhere else (like in WeHo, or Venice, or Malibu). In many ways, I think LA is like Jacksonville FL, which will *always* have a hard time redeveloping its urban core when it competes with its own beach communities. People don't move to Jacksonville FL (much at all) for urban living/downtown, they move for a whole bunch of reasons, and people young and old want to live as close to the beach as possible. Thus, the southside of that town is really the epicenter, like the westside is for LA.
L.A. has a much larger land area to fill than any of the other cities. Downtown LA is surrounded by land where people can live for miles in each direction. That is why L.A. is designed so different. It's makeup allowed for it to promote the car when other cities could not do so because of land constraints. L.A. is sprawling which has been it's advantage in the construction of the city.
I generally agree with you. I'm just saying that population density and number of pedestrians are generally correlated, though yes there are some exceptions. And no, DC residents aren't parking and riding but MoCo and NoVA residents are. Thus transit ridership rates are higher in many inner DC suburbs than around other cities. I wouldn't say that a lot of residents driving to a P&R to ride Metro makes Greenbelt any more urban than a similar suburb of Atlanta with little transit usage.
I'm not saying density is a better indicator of urbanity than transit, just that neither is perfect. Both generally correlate with urbanity, but neither always does.
How would you define best practices for urban design and structural density?
I generally agree with you. I'm just saying that population density and number of pedestrians are generally correlated, though yes there are some exceptions. And no, DC residents aren't parking and riding but MoCo and NoVA residents are. Thus transit ridership rates are higher in many inner DC suburbs than around other cities. I wouldn't say that a lot of residents driving to a P&R to ride Metro makes Greenbelt any more urban than a similar suburb of Atlanta with little transit usage.
But nobody's been talking about MoCo, Nova or any other suburban area for that matter. We've been strictly focused on urban cores. And in urban cores, transit riders are pedestrians 99.99% of the time. And walking commuters are pedestrians 100% of the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JMBX
I'm not saying density is a better indicator of urbanity than transit, just that neither is perfect. Both generally correlate with urbanity, but neither always does.
I'm saying that there's almost an exclusive focus on one thing: density. The implication being that other things are negligible.
I would agree Oakland/Berkeley are "functionally the same urban system" as SF but disagree that they're "part of the SF urban core".
Newark is 8 miles from Times Square; Oakland is 10 miles from Market Street. Berkeley is further still.
And the NYC area is obviously vastly bigger and more urban, so relative distances aren't the same. You can get more urbanity 15 miles out in Paterson or Passaic than you get walking distance to downtown SF. 10 miles from downtown SF is more or less the equivalent of 25 miles from core Manhattan, adjusting for size and urbanity.
No one in NYC would say that Newark is an extension of Manhattan or an extension of the regional core. Adjacent areas of Brooklyn, Queens, and waterfront Jersey, perhaps, but not Newark. Similarly, no one in Boston would say that Everett or Quincy are extensions of downtown, but Cambridge, possibly yes. In DC, no one would say Bethesda is in the regional core, but Arlington, maybe. I don't see how Oakland/Berkeley could reasonably be seen as a natural extension of downtown SF.
Having lived in a number of these cities, Oakland doesn't feel farther than Cambridge or Brooklyn (or even western SF) in terms of travel into to the city. BART from West Oakland to Embarcadero is 7 minutes. Even 12th Street to Montgomery (downtown to downtown) is only 13 minutes. Compare Marcy Street in Brooklyn to 4th in the Village, which is 13 minutes. Oakland and SF do feel a little less contiguous because of the width of the bay, but I don't know whether there is any substance to that impression? What percentage of people travel between Oakland & SF any given day v. Manhattan/Brooklyn. Also, with SF being so built up and expensive, urban development has nowhere to go but Oakland, so the urban core will become more cohesive over time IMO.
Having lived in a number of these cities, Oakland doesn't feel farther than Cambridge or Brooklyn (or even western SF) in terms of travel into to the city.
The fact is that is it further; your subjective response that you "feel" otherwise isn't really much of a counter-argument. I don't get the "minutes in transit" reasoning; you can take public transit from Philly to Manhattan in the same time it takes to go from one end of SF to the other, that doesn't mean that Philly and NYC are the same thing; it's just a function of the relative speed of a given mode of transit.
And you're comparing to Brooklyn, which is even sillier. Oakland is further from SF than even Newark is from Manhattan; Brooklyn is right next to Manhattan and not remotely comparable to Newark (or Oakland).
Oakland is it's own thing. It has it's own stuff. When the Warriors won the NBA title, the parade was in Oakland. When something happens in Oakland, no one confuses it with SF. They're fairly far apart physically and in terms of relative inter-connectivity, at least compared to the other given examples.
Should transit count separately? If somehow, there's as many pedestrians in two neighborhoods but out of neighborhood trips are done mostly by car in one and a mix of car and transit in the other, should transit still matter? Or is transit really just a factor that correlates well with pedestrian activity and that's the only reason we're interested in it.
What's in bold. The number of people and percentage of people who ride transit, walk or bike to work will have a huge influence on how busy we perceive a neighborhood to be. And commuting rates matter a lot in this instance because rush hour is the one time of the day where nearly every is forced to leave home. This is typically when pedestrian volumes are at their highest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
The downside of looking at transit, IMO, is it often reflects the job distribution of the region rather than much local about the neighborhood. On the other hand, the existence of a well-used transit system encourages businesses to be less auto-oriented and maybe makes easier to be a "walking city".
The two are inter-related. Yes, job centralization will have a huge influence on commuting patterns. This is at least one reason why non-auto commuting rates in Bed-Stuy than they are in Koreatown depsite their similar population densities. Objectively, this is the greatest difference between these two neighborhoods. And I would suspect the two neighborhoods feel very different at ground level. It's not all about the number of people divided by land mass.
That being said, nobody bothered to provide a direct answer to my question (you simply posed a question to my question lol). What role do transit, walking, or biking rates play at all? And what of the built environment? You even said this yourself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
I went to Spain for a week in mid October. The pedestrian volume even in small cities is astounding. Granada (population half a million) felt like compare favorably to pedestrian volume in say, Brooklyn. In the evenings around 9 pm, the locals pour into the city center, many just to socialize or take a stroll. Seemed like a culture that likes "urbanity", it fits well.
Grenada doesn't seem to be nearly as dense as Brooklyn. I'm not sure if car ownership there is any lower. So obviously, there must be something about the built environment that produces such astounding pedestrian volumes. Contrary to C-D belief, the built environment *does* play some role here. There *is* a difference between walking next to tall streetwalls with stores and doors at the ground level and walking next to gas stations, parking lots and blank walls.
Having lived in a number of these cities, Oakland doesn't feel farther than Cambridge or Brooklyn (or even western SF) in terms of travel into to the city. BART from West Oakland to Embarcadero is 7 minutes. Even 12th Street to Montgomery (downtown to downtown) is only 13 minutes. Compare Marcy Street in Brooklyn to 4th in the Village, which is 13 minutes. Oakland and SF do feel a little less contiguous because of the width of the bay, but I don't know whether there is any substance to that impression? What percentage of people travel between Oakland & SF any given day v. Manhattan/Brooklyn. Also, with SF being so built up and expensive, urban development has nowhere to go but Oakland, so the urban core will become more cohesive over time IMO.
not sure if someone has the numbers, also would be curious on PATH NJ numbers to and from Manhattan from JC and Hoboken - I would imagine the BK to Manhattan is considerably higher on rail, also would think PATH may even beat BART on through traffic though most BART lines are east bay focused
mentally Oakland feels further removed than a BK or Cambridge, visually they connect and development is consistent
^^^That's why I think wealth is an important metric. If you have wealthy people in a high density area with strong walk/transit stats, that takes the ballgame out of the "poor court". And if you have census tracts that aren't extremely affluent, but are obviously filled with people making 6 figures (not necessarily millionaires living in doormen buildings, but young professionals living in decent apartments and filling tables at good restaurants), then you can assume they are choosing to ride/walk, and the poor argument goes out the door.
However, that's complicated by parking costs, which go up dramatically in very structurally dense areas. LA's density on paper is high, but it doesn't have that structural density that makes providing parking so difficult. Its neighbor to the north has parking spots that sell for 6 figures, easy, and rent even miles and miles outside of the core for $300+/mo. Whereas I believe in LA the situation is a bit different. In the so-called Top 5 cities and even DC, so many young professionals are actually priced out of parking/owning a car with the choice between expensive rental in a better location or having a car. In LA, it's never really a choice - do you want a decent apartment or to have a car? It's a combo deal.
Lots of variables when it comes to urbanity. I always look at size and prominence of city/region, too. Something to be said for "punching above or below weight". That's why cities like NOLA and Charleston impress me. Cities like LA have grown on me, but for me it's not about the "urbanity" in LA, it's about the lifestyle I want that you can't get anywhere else (like in WeHo, or Venice, or Malibu). In many ways, I think LA is like Jacksonville FL, which will *always* have a hard time redeveloping its urban core when it competes with its own beach communities. People don't move to Jacksonville FL (much at all) for urban living/downtown, they move for a whole bunch of reasons, and people young and old want to live as close to the beach as possible. Thus, the southside of that town is really the epicenter, like the westside is for LA.
I think Miami is a much, much, much better comparison.
And believe it or not, people do move to Silver Lake, Hollywood, Pasadena, Los Feliz, Koreatown, Downtown LA for the urban experience they offer. Perhaps in your eyes these are less of an "urban" experience, but these are destination neighborhoods and are far, far from the beach.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
