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Vibrancy already has a definition, but there's obviously no consensus on how it should be applied here.
We can argue opinions until this thread his 100 pages long, but if you're going to contend a point made with facts, you need to have some facts of your own.
Did I miss in your reply where you answered my question?
The question was: Is a garden-variety skyscraper housing project in a garden-variety American urban core more vibrant than Pasadena, by virtue of greater population density?
That question can be answered with a "yes" or a "no".
May I hear your objective reason for disagreeing with my list? The other two posters failed to provide one.
"Vibrancy", as it pertains to cities, is a pretty relative term, so it's nearly impossible to rank all of these cities fairly. As far as I can tell, everyone else is just making guesses.
Are you asking why your ranking of vibrancy by simply listing density of UA's is silly?
For starters, when comparing density, if you are not using similar sized area, it is completely irrelevant. NYC is many times larger than San Fran Bay Area, there are probably more people in the 22 sq miles of Manhattan on any given day, than San Fran and San Jose Combined; and that the ~400 sq miles of NYC is about the same population as the entire Bay Area CSA; they are at just different scales.
So comparing land area of the Bay Area UA vs. the NYC UA is silly, since they are not even close to the same size in land area.
An analogy would be, if I proclaimed McDonalds to be a more expensive place to eat than Per Se in NYC; because I ordered 10,000 burgers from McDonalds, and that was more expensive than my dinner for two at Per Se, it is not an apples to apples comparison, and completely meaningless.
Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunion Powder
May I hear your objective reason for disagreeing with my list? The other two posters failed to provide one.
They gave you some man.... You did not include NYC and ALL place it #1 (spare us you forgot after this many post mentioning NYC to you). You place Portland and San Diego above Chicago..... another told you.
Then I WILL ADD YOU PLACE HOUSTON ABOVE PHILLY AND BOSTON......
Now don't say you got no objective reasons to disagree..... You claim suburbs using WHOLE METROS are why. But even Philly has MANY VERY VIBRANT Suburbs and Boston has Suburbs that have HIGH SPIKES IN DENSITY.
Or as you said YOU BASE YOUR LIST ON DENSITY???
CHARTS SHOWING DENSITY MAPS SOMEONE MADE.... HOUSTON HAS SOME OF THE LOWERST SPIKES IN DENSITY....THESE ARE METROS TOO....
Boston -- http://www.city-data.com/forum/membe...ensity-map.png
I agree about the suburbs of Chicago not being nearly as vibrant. Anyone who has been more than 5 miles out of the core knows you could be "Anywhere, Midwest" really. Shopping malls scattered along highways and sleepy neighborhoods. Some of the older "Main Street" type downtowns are charming as hell, but lack excitement. Every single one just feels like the same formula of a couple dive bars, kitschy gift shops, a bakery. Outside of these little downtowns is nothing but quiet neighborhoods.
Same goes for ANYWHERE suburbia USA, dude. And there are several Chicagoland suburbs with live, active, hopping downtowns that shine (Naperville comes to mind). Dont generalize so much.
Ughhhh I live in DTLA for part of year. It really isn't that vibrant at night, aside from 6th street and spring but especially compared to other cities central core it lacks true vibrancy. I agree with unwilling and would say Hollywood, even Santa Monica is more vibrant and downtown LA 24/7.
Did I ever say it was? For you to list Santa Monica more vibrant than the core 24/7 warrants a permanent ignore list
First of all, you've confused me with someone else. I haven't said anything about Hollywood. I agree with you. Hollywood has a lot more life than other parts of the L.A. area.
Second, I guess we'll have to respectfully disagree about downtown L.A. You are right about one thing: I didn't see nobody walking downtown, literally. I wrote that way for effect, hoping that anyone who read it would understand that I meant very few people. I guess you missed my point.
I think I'm going to have to reread James Joyce. The first sentence of The Dead is, "Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet." I always thought that she was probably just standing there, tired. But now you've shown me that she was, literally, run off her feet and knocked down on the ground somewhere. You can't ever assume poetic license. Thank you! I'm always up for learning something new!
So let me explain what I meant without any literary license. If I were lost in Manhattan, and had to wait for an hour on a streetcorner, any streetcorner, I would be entertained by the numerous pedestrians and the life of the city around me, the city's vibrancy, if you will. I am talking about any streetcorner at all, not a streetcorner specifically chosen by a New York booster to convince me of this, that, or the other. In L.A., on the other hand, forced to wait an hour downtown on a random streetcorner, I might think about slashing my wrists, despite the occasional eccentric rambling by me on the sidewalk every five minutes or so. Is that clear?
Now, I'll repeat, lest you think that I'm an L.A. basher, L.A. is a wonderful city with lots of cool stuff, and the right choice for many, many people. The outdoor opportunities especially, the ethnic mix, Hollywood, all of that makes L.A. a world-class, super-interesting, awesome city. But the streets of L.A. are deserted compared to the streets of other large American cities with similar amenities. I can't believe we're arguing this. It's a fact, that's apparent to anyone familiar with the centers of L.A. and say, N.Y., Boston, and Chicago, for starters. Best.
Yes I do know that LA's core is not as vibrant as New York City, did I ever say otherwise? The only cities that I can truly say are much more vibrant in the core is SF and NYC, Chicago to a lesser extent, what does all this have to do with my earlier post Your point would be valid if you pointed to which part of the city, Pacoima? Yes, Northridge? Yes, Hollywood? No, Central Los Angeles? No, not even close.
I agree that LA is more vibrant than Chicago overall, but I think you're exaggerating the differences. Long Beach is not very vibrant, Anaheim is basically old sprawl with Disney, Newport/Irvine are just nice, sprawly areas, not that different from equivalents in suburban Chicago.
Hollywood, Venice and Santa Monica aren't really suburban. And only Hollywood is really super-vibrant in a big city way.
Probably exaggerating. My memories and experiences in greater Chicago (I routinely return, but never leave the city) consist of winter weddings, white Christmases, playing in the 2-3 acre yard of my uncle's, going shopping in Highland Park, Northbrook, trips into the city, etc. The suburbs never seemed super exciting - in fact to me they had almost a more serene feel to them. Graceful leafy neighborhoods everywhere. I'm not even talking too far out of the city where we used to be pulled around on sleds on a tractor. That to me is Chicago, and I find it appealing. I don't see that happening in CA cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Justabystander
Ho c
As an Ex-LA guy in Chicago, it is clear you have no idea about what vibrancy the suburbs of Chicago have, home to 6 million people. Schaumburg, Oakbrook/Lombard, Rosemont, Orland Park, Skokie, the O'Hare area, are all substantial office/shopping areas that are congested and vibrant. Evanston and Oak Park are also vibrant, and you forget areas outside of downtown in Chicago such as Lincoln Park and Lakeview, which are comparable to the congestion of Hollywood only nicer. One thing LA lacks for the most part that Chicago suburbs have is a good overall train network connecting different areas, areas far more substantial than areas of "cutesy' shopping which many areas do have in their core downtown areas. You can visit all you want in the past your dead or moved away relatives, but your knowledge is sadly missing here.
Schaumburg - boring (surface lots, car dealerships, malls, big box stores, and 1-2 lone high rise/mid-rise office towers)
Oakbrook - boring (surface lots, malls, big box stores, and 1-2 lone high rise/mid-rise office towers)
I don't know the other suburbs, but while two above you chose are "big" suburbs in Chicago, their equivalents in LA (Irvine, Newport, Glendale, Burbank, etc) are MUCH larger and while also suburban, just more active overall. There is absolutely nothing vibrant about Schaumburg. St. Charles, IL is more vibrant than that, while smaller.
Lincoln Park and Lakeview are still "city". They are neighborhoods. I put them in that dense stretch of 14 miles to Evanston. LA has a denser stretch of 16 miles miles to Santa Monica. Any of the top cities listed (NYC, LA, SF, Philly, DC, Boston) have equivalents for Lincoln Park and Lakeview. If we were ranking just cities, the vibrancy of these neighborhoods would come more into play.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101
This is kind of a ridiculous response. Yes, 90% of Chicagoland is just bland Midwest sprawl. But 90% of LA is just bland Sunbelt sprawl. Not that different.
Sprawly metros don't necessarily have more exciting suburbs. You don't build "excitement" in the periphery by weakening the core. There isn't really one "exciting" place in Orange County, and we're talking 3 million people. There isn't one downtown in that county that is particularly thriving or noteworthy.
And Schaumburg is a boring sprawly wasteland, while Santa Monica isn't even a suburb, really (and honestly isn't that exciting in the greater scheme of things; it's a few blocks of vibrancy). You're basically comparing one of the most vibrant LA "suburbs" with one of the worst sprawly Chicago suburbs. It would be like comparing Evanston to Irvine.
Agreed. Irvine is better compared to Schaumburg. As are Glendale, Burbank, Newport, and probably a good few more (City of Orange?). Evanston and Santa Monica are better comps.
To me, all of those LA cities mentioned are more virbant than their comps in greater Chicago.
I just think with close to 20 million people (or more?) feeding greater LA, its suburbs, etc, you're going to have more metro vibrancy than an area fed by less than 10 million people. Bad argument on form, but should still be pointed out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sav858
I wouldn't quite say that, if you were to compare cities and towns outside of each city proper you're likely going end up with a longer list of interesting/vibrant places in Greater LA than Chicagoland. But this thread is about metro areas as a whole and certainly the city of Chicago easily gives the city of LA a run for it's money and on most aspects surpasses it as far as vibrancy/urban energy. So overall it's probably pretty close but suburb wise I think few, if any, areas can compete with LA in that aspect.
Are you asking why your ranking of vibrancy by simply listing density of UA's is silly?
For starters, when comparing density, if you are not using similar sized area, it is completely irrelevant. NYC is many times larger than San Fran Bay Area, there are probably more people in the 22 sq miles of Manhattan on any given day, than San Fran and San Jose Combined; and that the ~400 sq miles of NYC is about the same population as the entire Bay Area CSA; they are at just different scales.
So comparing land area of the Bay Area UA vs. the NYC UA is silly, since they are not even close to the same size in land area.
An analogy would be, if I proclaimed McDonalds to be a more expensive place to eat than Per Se in NYC; because I ordered 10,000 burgers from McDonalds, and that was more expensive than my dinner for two at Per Se, it is not an apples to apples comparison, and completely meaningless.
That's a given. I thought it was clear that I was ranking them relative to their sizes. I'm not saying that the Bay Area actually has a larger amount of vibrancy than the New York area.
Here would be my same UAD rankings, grouped by similar size (increments of 5M):
New York
Los Angeles
Miami
Chicago
Philadelphia
San Francisco
San Diego
Denver
Portland
Seattle
DC
Houston
Boston
Did I ever say it was? For you to list Santa Monica more vibrant than the core 24/7 warrants a permanent ignore list
I mean it really would depend... SaMo and DTLA are pretty comparable vibrancy wise. Nobody lived in DTLA 10 years ago so at this point in time. The fact that people are comparing the two is pretty remarkable.
I don't think anybody will say LA is Manhattan or anything like that. LA is almost the opposite of most East Coast cities. The metro area LA is though, very vibrant compared to most cities and it really is in the top 5. We keep talking about places like SaMo and Hollywood but what about all the other LA neighborhoods? Have you ever been to mariachi square in Boyle Heights? Most people have never heard of it--especially transplants and it's as vibrant as DTLA or SaMo.
It's especially difficult to gage LA because without an expansion of the metro most people are not going to see the whole metro area. I've lived in LA and a couple other cities in the US is I lived in Paris for two summers. LA is very vibrant but to compare it to places that are much more centralized is a pretty hard thing to do.
First of all, you've confused me with someone else. I haven't said anything about Hollywood. I agree with you. Hollywood has a lot more life than other parts of the L.A. area.
Second, I guess we'll have to respectfully disagree about downtown L.A. You are right about one thing: I didn't see nobody walking downtown, literally. I wrote that way for effect, hoping that anyone who read it would understand that I meant very few people. I guess you missed my point.
I think I'm going to have to reread James Joyce. The first sentence of The Dead is, "Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet." I always thought that she was probably just standing there, tired. But now you've shown me that she was, literally, run off her feet and knocked down on the ground somewhere. You can't ever assume poetic license. Thank you! I'm always up for learning something new!
So let me explain what I meant without any literary license. If I were lost in Manhattan, and had to wait for an hour on a streetcorner, any streetcorner, I would be entertained by the numerous pedestrians and the life of the city around me, the city's vibrancy, if you will. I am talking about any streetcorner at all, not a streetcorner specifically chosen by a New York booster to convince me of this, that, or the other. In L.A., on the other hand, forced to wait an hour downtown on a random streetcorner, I might think about slashing my wrists, despite the occasional eccentric rambling by me on the sidewalk every five minutes or so. Is that clear?
Now, I'll repeat, lest you think that I'm an L.A. basher, L.A. is a wonderful city with lots of cool stuff, and the right choice for many, many people. The outdoor opportunities especially, the ethnic mix, Hollywood, all of that makes L.A. a world-class, super-interesting, awesome city. But the streets of L.A. are deserted compared to the streets of other large American cities with similar amenities. I can't believe we're arguing this. It's a fact, that's apparent to anyone familiar with the centers of L.A. and say, N.Y., Boston, and Chicago, for starters. Best.
I think this is mostly accurate. But does the emboldened not help contribute to a unique type of vibrancy, accessible within an urban environment not as readily available other places? It's very common for locals to divide a Saturday along the lines of: hiking Santa Monicas in the morning, visiting LACMA in the afternoon, taking in any form of entertainment imaginable at night, with at least one meal/drink stop somewhere along the way. During each of those experiences, one will encounter many different ambulating humans, from all walks of life, all in very different contexts. Together, it's vibrant. But you need to engage the place on its own terms and be willing to temporarily put aside your pre-conception of "vibrancy". Again, I agree with most of your premises, but what I described above leaves one energized, and experienced within an undeniable, albeit unconventional, urban setting.
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Your point would be valid if you pointed to which part of the city, Pacoima? Yes, Northridge? Yes, Hollywood? No, Central Los Angeles? No, not even close.
