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The only way a vote for Miami would make sense is if we were doing an averaging of the two cities by their physical legal boundaries, but that would be silly.
Why would that be silly? The desert? I don't think any reasonable person would include deserts.
LA was much more built up than Miami prior to WW2. By 1930, LA had well over a million residents while Miami had about 100k, so the built form of LA's core is much more traditionally urban than Miami's.
^^This...LA's urban fabric has great bones due to the fact that its Central and Midtown areas of the city were primarily built pre-depression and were connected via streetcars. It was actually built similarly to outlying parts of Chicago or Detroit, and other Midwestern cities that have an industrial presence. So there is a much more urban aesthetic to build on and the renaissance of public transportation in the city makes it far more urban than Miami, much of which was built in the last 50 years and reflects the good and the bad of the postwar era. It's the outlying parts of Los Angeles such as the Valley and the Hollywood Hills that make it seem less dense than it really is, but even many parts of the Valley have increased in density over the years.
Right now, LA is increasing in density and urbanity because its a desirable area for people and increasing in population. The retail strips along corridors such as Melrose and the increasing density along Wilshire Blvd are evidence of LA's Urbanity. However, there are a lot of strip malls with bad setbacks and other elements of bad design that still somewhat hinder LA's increasing urbanity.
Like Los Angeles, Miami is dense and "urban" due to land constraints, and it also seems to embrace high-rise living a lot more than LA in general, but much of it seems disconnected from the urban fabric. Also, although LA's downtown is undergoing a renaissance, Downtown Miami is as well and it seems as if it has better potential for urbanity due to the tight blocks. Much of DT LA has to grapple with the Superblock concept and other well-intended moves for urban renewal that ultimately failed.
The comparison favors Los Angeles by a sizeable margin. It's significantly more dense by any metric, it has a more classically urban downtown, better transit, and more pedestrian activity overall. Density aside, these categories tend to hurt LA when compared to cities like Boston and San Francisco, but against Miami they're considered strengths.
I don't see what's so shocking about the result at all.
Like Los Angeles, Miami is dense and "urban" due to land constraints, and it also seems to embrace high-rise living a lot more than LA in general, but much of it seems disconnected from the urban fabric.
I'm a little confused by this statement. Can you explain what you mean by the high-rise development being "disconnected from the urban fabric"? To me this seems a nebulous concept.
I'm a little confused by this statement. Can you explain what you mean by the high-rise development being "disconnected from the urban fabric"? To me this seems a nebulous concept.
They feel somewhat sealed off and insulated from the streetscape. Miami is built more like a traditional Latin American city in that sense than a traditional North American Urban place. Los Angeles has better bones to be a walkable urban place.
I think people are severely underestimating how urban Miami is.
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