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View Poll Results: Do Americans Prefer to live in Traditional Legacy Cities or New Rising Cities
Traditional Legacy (Expensive) City (New York, Chicago, Boston ) 97 58.43%
New Rising (Cheaper) City ( Houston Atlanta Miami) 69 41.57%
Voters: 166. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 05-21-2017, 03:32 PM
 
Location: Washington D.C. By way of Texas
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Part of that criteria is laughable. You're going to say there isn't as much to do in Los Angeles as there is in Baltimore? Pfft. There are tons to do in non legacy cities. Even more than legacy cities.

Last edited by Spade; 05-21-2017 at 03:44 PM..
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Old 05-21-2017, 03:49 PM
 
2,639 posts, read 1,986,441 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by That_One_Guy View Post
I'm late to this convo but I voted for new suburban cities because I feel like that's what most Americans prefer, even though I strongly prefer the older traditional cities. It's clear when looking at which cities exploded in growth after the automobile/WW2, and which are the fastest-growing cities today.

I think this is changing with the younger generation, but idk how long it'll last. We only have a small handful of cities in The US that are built for transit, walking, and dense housing/environments. They're definitely making a comeback though after some serious decline over the last few decades.
Yeah, generalizing across the whole population, I think that far more prefer a suburban lifestyle than prefer urbanity.
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Old 05-21-2017, 03:56 PM
 
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Yes, polls say that.

But urbanity tends to do much better (though still not a majority) in areas where the core city is healthy and desirable.

Of course this shows in what people pay for housing. Some core cities average way more than their suburbs in home prices per square foot, a clear sign of high demand.
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Old 05-21-2017, 04:15 PM
 
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I suspect that there is a latent demand for urbanity that isn't satisfied.

You could probably divide the population into multiple groups:

1. Those who prefer a rural lifestyle-farmers and ranchers, for example.

2. Those who prefer small towns.

3. Those who prefer a suburban lifestyle.

4. A niche group who would like to live near city amenities, but aren't interested in urbanity as such.

5. Urbanphiles.

Last edited by Tim Randal Walker; 05-21-2017 at 04:23 PM..
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Old 05-21-2017, 04:24 PM
 
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Each type of place has people who live there for reasons other than liking to. Rural areas have people who "never got out," the suburbs have people who "drove til they qualified," urban places have residents who chose their homes based on convenience...

But definitely there's a pent-up demand for urbanity.

If 1% of a typical US metro lives basically "downtown," I bet several times that number want to live there. The current boom in most downtown residential populations is a sign of that.
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Old 05-21-2017, 04:35 PM
 
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Perhaps there would be sufficient demand for new urban neighborhoods
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Old 05-21-2017, 04:46 PM
 
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here's a factoid most don't know, around 1900, the largest city in the south was Galveston, Texas! However, the hurricane of 1903 killed 6,000 and the city never recovered its stature, with many survivors moving further inland to Houston, a huge change in the course of American history!
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Old 05-21-2017, 05:01 PM
 
Location: NYC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GatsbyGatz View Post
I personally think we should break it down another tier. In my mind, there are legacy cities, cities that emerged around 1880's-1920's, and then cities that really only started taking off post-WWI. That second tier captures all the cities that reached populations of around 100K and over pre-1900 (LA, SF, Seattle, etc.)
This makes sense but I wouldn't put SF in this category. SF was one of the largest cities in the country as early as 1870. It is absolutely a legacy city. I also think that 1920 is too late if your threshold is only 100k -- the auto age was already in full swing and many of the large sunbelt cities had already crossed the 100k mark by then.

I would put the following cities in this intermediate tier, all of which crossed the 100k mark between 1890 and 1910 and most of which still have some pre-auto urban bones remaining:

West - LA, Seattle, Portland, Denver
Midwest -- KC, Indianapolis, Columbus
South -- Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Richmond

You could probably create more finely-grained categories (including within "legacy cities" that the OP listed) but all of the above fit somewhere on the spectrum between traditional legacy cities and new rising cities that I think you had in mind.
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Old 05-21-2017, 05:32 PM
 
4,087 posts, read 3,222,494 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
here's a factoid most don't know, around 1900, the largest city in the south was Galveston, Texas! However, the hurricane of 1903 killed 6,000 and the city never recovered its stature, with many survivors moving further inland to Houston, a huge change in the course of American history!
Exactly. The core city center of the region was Galveston. It was as moving the new city inland was the solution. But some remained to continue a new but far lessor Galveston. Though the Oil boom fueled Houston quickly alone.

I'm not sure the point of whether the core of the region was along the coast in a Galveston outward or where Core Houston is today? Changes the topic of legacy vs New Rising cities? Would not change on which the region is seen as.

Perhaps the region would have been more like a Miami and Miami Beach as a true coastal city in built and appearances or even a Chicago if the Coast was embraced early rather then a taint that lasted all these decades.

It is understandable why the Texas coast from a devastating hurricane was feared and more avoided to grow from. But Florida despite its risk and hits did not to turn its back more on its coast.
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Old 05-21-2017, 06:00 PM
 
Location: NYC
2,546 posts, read 3,284,798 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962 View Post
here's a factoid most don't know, around 1900, the largest city in the south was Galveston, Texas! However, the hurricane of 1903 killed 6,000 and the city never recovered its stature, with many survivors moving further inland to Houston, a huge change in the course of American history!
Most probably don't know this factoid because it's not true. Galveston wasn't even the largest city in TX in 1900, let alone the whole South.
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