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Wow i didn't realize that the last "vibrancy" video i posted was actually on New Year's Eve. Here's better ones of South Beach on a normal day. partytime
I am very familiar with South Beach. I used to live in Miami and still visit regularly as I have family in South Florida. You could have also mentioned the area around 23rd street and Collins Park that's got some cool clubs and hotels, the pocket northwest of Lincoln with lots of great restaurants and the whole area south of 5th. So yeah - South Beach packs a super punch. I think it's infinitely preferable to Atlanta. It would be inaccurate, however, to suggest that all of SB in its entirety is one never-ending, crazy party. Not all of it (in fact, not even most of it) looks like Ocean Drive or Lincoln Road and not every night there is a Saturday night. That might be the impression of a tourist that's in town on the New Years or Spring break week and never ventures more than two blocks from the beach, but it's not even close to reality. And if you live in Miami you should know that.
NYC is no doubt the city that never sleeps, but after Las Vegas and Miami there is a huge drop off in late night vibrancy in the U.S. The U.S. nightlife is pretty lacking compared to the rest of the world. I never said it was a never ending party but when only comparing U.S. cities to South Beach I would argue that it actually does feel like a never ending party compared to most of the country for a lot of people. They have one of the latest last calls in the entire U.S. The latin culture is known for it's high late night energy and there are jet lagged global tourists everywhere whose sleep schedules are messed up and are just waiting to get into the mix. The party doesn't stop when it gets cold either and is going on year round.
How could you say that every night isn't Saturday in South Beach when it's like that all over the U.S., even NYC. Why penalize South Beach for that factor when speaking relatively. It might not be as busy as the weekend but it doesn't come anywhere close to dying out on the weekdays. There are parties going on, clubs, restraunts and bars open super late every single day of the year, many 24/7. If you wanted to actually have a never ending party South Beach is one of the best places in the world to do it, being in a first world country and all. The roads are also busier late at night than almost all other major cities, except NYC. I've seen many threads on this forum of the most 24/7 cities and NYC, South Beach and Vegas are the only ones mentioned. For someone going there from places like Kentucky or Iowa it absolutely does feel like a never ending party compared to back home, and is why it has that stereotype. And places like that are a pretty big part of the U.S.
The video's i posted speak for themselves. That is a normal day and nothing special was going on. If you are not amazed by the amount of nightime pedestrians in the first video of Lincoln Road than you must be the nightlife grand master, because it really is an unbelievable amount for a U.S. city. I would say it beats any other single street at the amount of dense nighttime pedestrians in the entire U.S., outside of NYC and maaybeee Vegas. I'll post the video once again below. Have a look, it really is quite remarkable. That is just a normal day by the way, and always looks like that Friday and Saturday.
If anyone has any videos to disprove my claim, feel free to post them. It probably was filmed on the weekend but I have been there countless times and i would argue that even on the weekdays South Beach still beats all other U.S. cities weekend nightime vibrancy, except NYC, Vegas and maybe LA (parties). If anyone has any videos of awesome nightlife and dense pedestrian activity at night I would love to see how it compares. To be considered above LA in nightlife is quite a feat for an area much smaller. Does anyone have any videos of LA, DC or Chicago's nightlife and nighttime pedestrian activity?
Seems the general consensus is that Miami is more walable than Atlanta (if for Miami Beach as much as Miami proper). Would people say it also tops the new urban cities (SD, Portland, Denver) and the old school urban cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh in terms of vibrancy/pedestrian activity?
My inclination is that it probably does top them in an LA polycentric way. Although, Baltimore (and others) are much more "walk able" from a built environment standpoint.
Dallas and Houston above Denver? Thanks for the laugh.
Agreed! Denver is relatively flat, has lots of sidewalks, and has weather conducive to walking year round, minus a few, and I emphasize few, very cold days in December/Jan. Usually sunny, too and low humidity.
Atlanta's MSA population was 5.6 million in 2015 when that GDP was taken. Miami was over 6 million.
And if you're going to compare city limits, then don't add Miami Beach.
Atlanta's inner 36 square miles which was it's older urban core pre-1950 is probably around 9.5k ppsm. Not as dense as Miami's, but not nearly as large of a difference when you're comparing the two's larger city limits. Naturally a metro area that can't sprawl into the Everglades will be denser than a city that can sprawl everywhere. It's not like Miami's city limits is made up of a collection of dense urban neighborhoods. It's not. I've been there plenty of times.
I don't doubt that Atlanta has walkable parts and I do like Atlanta. However, even by your count of 9.5k ppsm in the denser parts of Atlanta, that's still a fair distance from Miami's 12.6 ppsm. Meanwhile, there's little in municipalities or census tracts outside of Atlanta that would do comparably well to those outside of Miami proper. If you tried to draw an equivalent to the 133 square miles of Atlanta for Miami, you'd actually end up with a very much larger population than Atlanta proper for the equivalent area. It's simply really difficult to draw a comparison for a dense and walkable Atlanta area to the Miami area. Things can change greatly when we're playing with such small margins, but it's unlikely in the near future that the Atlanta area is going to do much to catch up to the Miami area in this respect. Maybe in the longer term once rising tide lines become a larger issue. It does make sense to compare outside city limits for Miami versus Atlanta in regards to population density as Atlanta covers a far larger area. Even if you take the much smaller total area of Miami+Miami Beach+Hialeh+Coral Gables+South Miami (rounding down, 441K / 35 sq mile, 92K / 7 sq mile, 51K / 13 sq mile, 12K / 2 sq mile, 237K / 19 sq mile) would get you to 833K over 77 square miles versus 463K over the still larger 133 square miles. Where from Altanta's area were you going to try to add to make up that massive difference? How much further does Atlanta need to balloon out to get that comparable population?
If anyone wants to try to do a better Miami comparison, I'd say add up the population and area bordering Miami to Miami's total as well anything enclaved by that and any community that Metrorail serves outside of that and you'd probably hit something close to Atlanta's area and it'd span a range of urban to suburban to rural parts and would probably add up to more than a million people to Atlanta's 463K. The math on that just doesn't work out and, coincidentally, the street level experience doesn't either.
The basic premise is that you can try to draw any contiguous dense blocks of area within the two cities/metros and Miami will always be significantly denser than Atlanta and that will correlate, not perfectly but generally, to being more walkable and this is before you add the vast difference in visitors and seasonal residents in Miami who don't just add people and general density year round but also support a higher concentration of various commercial shops.
However, I do think Atlanta will pull ahead of Miami on this metric in the coming few decades as both continue to infill with the Miami area doing better in the short term on this metric, but losing out on the long term. Atlanta has a broader and stronger economic base and isn't as directly threatened by global climate change. That's not now though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
Agreed! Denver is relatively flat, has lots of sidewalks, and has weather conducive to walking year round, minus a few, and I emphasize few, very cold days in December/Jan. Usually sunny, too and low humidity.
Yea! Denver is way underrated.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 02-26-2017 at 09:19 PM..
NYC is no doubt the city that never sleeps, but after Las Vegas and Miami there is a huge drop off in late night vibrancy in the U.S. The U.S. nightlife is pretty lacking compared to the rest of the world. I never said it was a never ending party but when only comparing U.S. cities to South Beach I would argue that it actually does feel like a never ending party compared to most of the country for a lot of people. They have one of the latest last calls in the entire U.S. The latin culture is known for it's high late night energy and there are jet lagged global tourists everywhere whose sleep schedules are messed up and are just waiting to get into the mix. The party doesn't stop when it gets cold either and is going on year round.
How could you say that every night isn't Saturday in South Beach when it's like that all over the U.S., even NYC. Why penalize South Beach for that factor when speaking relatively. It might not be as busy as the weekend but it doesn't come anywhere close to dying out on the weekdays. There are parties going on, clubs, restraunts and bars open super late every single day of the year, many 24/7. If you wanted to actually have a never ending party South Beach is one of the best places in the world to do it, being in a first world country and all. The roads are also busier late at night than almost all other major cities, except NYC. I've seen many threads on this forum of the most 24/7 cities and NYC, South Beach and Vegas are the only ones mentioned. For someone going there from places like Kentucky or Iowa it absolutely does feel like a never ending party compared to back home, and is why it has that stereotype. And places like that are a pretty big part of the U.S.
The video's i posted speak for themselves. That is a normal day and nothing special was going on. If you are not amazed by the amount of nightime pedestrians in the first video of Lincoln Road than you must be the nightlife grand master, because it really is an unbelievable amount for a U.S. city. I would say it beats any other single street at the amount of dense nighttime pedestrians in the entire U.S., outside of NYC and maaybeee Vegas. I'll post the video once again below. Have a look, it really is quite remarkable. That is just a normal day by the way, and always looks like that Friday and Saturday.
If anyone has any videos to disprove my claim, feel free to post them. It probably was filmed on the weekend but I have been there countless times and i would argue that even on the weekdays South Beach still beats all other U.S. cities weekend nightime vibrancy, except NYC, Vegas and maybe LA (parties). If anyone has any videos of awesome nightlife and dense pedestrian activity at night I would love to see how it compares. To be considered above LA in nightlife is quite a feat for an area much smaller. Does anyone have any videos of LA, DC or Chicago's nightlife and nighttime pedestrian activity?
That's a good summary of the details, though the maybe LA should be maybe Chicago during the summer. Really late nightlife in Los Angeles only occurs in very small bits of house parties within Los Angeles. Koreatown used to get strong crowds really late night, and while they're still there, they are noticeably smaller and more spread out. My feeling is that if the areas around Chicago, including out-of-state, enacted decent gun control laws, then Chicago's nightlife would probably head towards a massive boom.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 02-26-2017 at 09:37 PM..
Seems the general consensus is that Miami is more walable than Atlanta (if for Miami Beach as much as Miami proper). Would people say it also tops the new urban cities (SD, Portland, Denver) and the old school urban cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh in terms of vibrancy/pedestrian activity?
My inclination is that it probably does top them in an LA polycentric way. Although, Baltimore (and others) are much more "walk able" from a built environment standpoint.
Miami definitely wins if we are talking about the metro area. It is a tie on the city by city level.
Could you expand on that? What exactly do you mean by "comfortable".
I lived in the metro area for 16 years and never felt uncomfortable walking around.
Streets with multiple lanes, lack of retail/shop density, no consistent street layout, large city blocks, few urban parks, few street parking, few street benches etc. basically not enough density.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant131531
Downtown Atlanta feels far more comfortable to walk than Downtown Miami for sure.
Downtown? oh for sure. I'm personally not a fan of DT Miami, or Brickell. But Miami's core feels more comfortable to walk through than Atlanta's core.
That's a good summary of the details, though the maybe LA should be maybe Chicago during the summer. Really late nightlife in Los Angeles only occurs in very small bits of house parties within Los Angeles. Koreatown used to get strong crowds really late night, and while they're still there, they are noticeably smaller and more spread out. My feeling is that if the areas around Chicago, including out-of-state, enacted decent gun control laws, then Chicago's nightlife would probably head towards a massive boom.
I would say that is pretty close but the 4th ranked city for nightlife in my opinion is still LA year round. I just don't like dealing with with cold weather when I'm trying to have nightlife fun, especially at night when it gets colder every second. NYC is first, Miami ranks second and Las Vegas third. I'm just not into gambling and clubs as some people. I also like having the beach and all the sexiness that goes with that close by. It seems to make a lot of nights, and days for that matter, more interesting..
I'm just really big on the idea that the year round accessibility of nightlife is super important, which is why I ranked LA fourth, even though they have a 2.a.m. last call. I also value night time vibrancy more than daytime vibrancy for many reasons. I find more things that I prefer doing I do when it's dark. That could be just because when i get off work i spend most of my time doing things i enjoy more than in the daytime.
Just the fact that we are talking about super new cities relatively speaking and considering them at the top of only a couple of dense nightlife spots in the U.S. is actually quite amazing. They were built with cars in mind and are pretty young, yet have the greatest pedestrian numbers at night in the U.S. by far, except NYC. Usually around the world most older cities have the best nightlife.
I prefer to go a little too crazy on the nightlife factor almost exclusively in the U.S. I just find it safer as I know the areas better and there are rarely any language barriers if things go wrong. Since there are only a couple of high density nightlife areas in the U.S. i naturally had to pick South Florida. NYC gets a little to cold for me and i can't afford to be a NYC/Miami snowbird. I already said the reasons why I prefer Miami to Vegas earlier, but there are many more reasons.
If i didn't like South Florida as much I wouldn't spend as much time there but I really do find it super unique to the U.S. Heck, it's even unique to the entire world. There are only two or three major first world cities in a tropical setting throughout the entire world, and it has a unique combination of a bunch of factors I prefer, great nightlife being near the top. South Beach gets compared to NYC nightlife for certain things. Imagine how dense those things must be since the entire area is just a few long streets, and NYC is in beast mode.
Even though they have a 2.a.m. last call, the scale of LA is massive and there is always something going on somewhere. It's just hard to find it sometimes. The entertainment district in South Beach actually has no last call time at all and is huge factor in things going later into the night. It just adds a whole energy to the area if you know what I mean and i think you do.
I would say that is pretty close but the 4th ranked city for nighlife in my opinion of course is still LA year round. I just don't like dealing with with cold weather when I'm trying to have nighlife fun. NYC is first, Miami ranks second and Las Vegas third. I'm just not into gambling and clubs as some people. I also like having the beach and all the sexiness that goes with that close by. It seems to make a lot of nights, and days for that matter, more interesting..
I'm just really big on the idea that the year round accessibility of nightlife is super important, which is why I ranked LA fourth, even though they have a 2.a.m. lasr call. I also value night time vibrancy more than daytime vibrancy for many reasons. I find more things that I prefer doing I do when it's dark. That could be just because when i get off work i spend most of my time doing things i enjoy more than in the daytime.
Just the fact that we are talking about super new cities relatively speaking and considering them at the top couple of nightlife spots is actually quite amazing. The were built with cars in mind yet have the greatest pedestrian numbers at night in the U.S. Usually around the world older cities have the best nightlife. I prefer to go a little too crazy on the nightlife factor almost exclusively in the U.S. I just find it safer as I know the areas better and there are rarely language barriers if things go wrong. Since there are very high density nighlife areas in the U.S.
Even though they have a 2.a.m. last call, the scale of LA is massive and there is always something going on somewhere. It's just hard to find it sometimes. The entertainment district in South Beach actually has no last call time at all and is huge factor in things going later into the night. It just adds a whole energy to the area if you know what I mean and i think you do.
LA's nightlife scene is really not that great for the size of the city. Its last call is fairly early and the venues are somewhat few and spread out. Koreatown was for a while the closest to a 24 hour district in LA, and while the neighborhood has gotten a lot more vibrant and bustling overall, the nightlife scene seems to not go as late or actively flout last call as it used to. The 24 hour spas are still there and great though! Chicago in pretty much any season that's not winter beats it pretty handedly in the nightlife department.
Anyhow, both are part of the top 8 the OP listed and I think we're agreed that Miami is a good top contender for what follows that top 8.
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