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Old, new what difference does it make? Old rowhouses lined up with no grocery stores or urban amenities is not what I call urban. An example is downtown Baltimore. It's look or 'urban fabric' is old but once you're actually in the thick of things, it's a dud. Downtown Seattle is definitely newer but it is a place I'd rather live than dt Baltimore. It's walkable, has great shopping, nightlife, tons of restaurants, cultural amenities. And it's not just downtown, but Capitol Hill, Ballard, the UDistrict, Madison Park and a few others. When I was in Baltimore last year I was thoroughly disappointed. I see positive changes but it has a lot of work to do.
What was downtown Baltimore lacking in your opinion?
I agree with eschaton's post only I'd switch Miami and New Orleans. The French Quarter has better walkability/vibrancy than anywhere in Miami proper, but it is a tiny area of the city, and that one walkable neighborhood doesn't compensate for relatively low population density and lackluster walkability outside of the core.
The Metrorail running through Brickell and Downtown also adds a more urban feel that NO completely lacks. New Orleans feels more "boutique" urban in some ways more along the lines of Charleston and Savannah.
I agree with eschaton's post only I'd switch Miami and New Orleans. The French Quarter has better walkability/vibrancy than anywhere in Miami proper, but it is a tiny area of the city, and that one walkable neighborhood doesn't compensate for relatively low population density and lackluster walkability outside of the core.
The Metrorail running through Brickell and Downtown also adds a more urban feel that NO completely lacks. New Orleans feels more "boutique" urban in some ways more along the lines of Charleston and Savannah.
I think The Garden District, Uptown and Mid-city are fairly walkable.
This is how it should be ranked, well in my opinion; I feel like people are really sleeping on Pittsburgh and New Orlean's fabric. Personally, my favorite would be Seattle tho...
This is how it should be ranked, well in my opinion; I feel like people are really sleeping on Pittsburgh and New Orlean's fabric. Personally, my favorite would be Seattle tho...
I agree that Pittsburgh is being overlooked in this thread. It is a very urban city, but due to topography, has scattered pockets of urbanity.
I agree with eschaton's post only I'd switch Miami and New Orleans. The French Quarter has better walkability/vibrancy than anywhere in Miami proper, but it is a tiny area of the city, and that one walkable neighborhood doesn't compensate for relatively low population density and lackluster walkability outside of the core.
The Metrorail running through Brickell and Downtown also adds a more urban feel that NO completely lacks. New Orleans feels more "boutique" urban in some ways more along the lines of Charleston and Savannah.
I get what you mean about New Orleans, but the issue isn't a lack of walkability. Outside of Downtown/French Quarter, there are five other neighborhoods with 90+ walkscores, and 12 with 89-80. Unlike in Southern California or South Florida, these high walkscore areas tend to have very good walkable business districts too - narrow streets, storefronts right up to the sidewalk, not too many gaps in the street wall, etc.
The problem is more the lack of intensity on the back streets outside of the French Quarter. New Orleans is mostly one-story shotgun housing. It's built in a dense fashion, and much of it is quite old, but there's only so much "urban vibe" this can provide. As a result, it feels like a series of historic small towns smooshed together rather than deeply urban.
It depends on how you define Downtown. The more constrained definition of Downtown is the West Edge and the Retail Core (see map below which shows a portion of Seattle's urban core), but others define it more broadly as anything West of I-5, South of Denny, and North of I-90. First Hill, South Lake Union, Cascade, Capitol Hill (Pike/Pine and Broadway), and Lower Queen Anne are all part of the contiguous urban core but are 100% not part of Downtown.
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AJNEOA
The OP's scope wasn't clear, which is not surprising in CvC. However, I think the concept looks something like this:
Build: Can be urban, suburban or somewhere in between. The build encourages activity and uses, but can't dictate quality or safety. This includes zoning, urban planning concepts, street use, etc.
City Health: Uses the built environment and the zoning to drive activity. Things like safety, socioeconomics, etc. Density: An environment can have high density, but depending on the build, the uses (drive vs. PT, amenities nearby?), a place may not be vibrant. Vibrancy: The number of people on the streets, walking, biking, using transit for any number of reasons. Heavily influenced by density, build and city health.
Applying the concepts:
Baltimore: Urban build, mediocre city health, medium density, and medium vibrancy
Miami: Semi-Urban to Suburban build, good city health, higher density, medium vibrancy.
Again, I think the OP wanted to focus on build.
I can get behind this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gladhands
I don't see how "desirability" or city health impact urbanity. NYC wasn't any less urban in the 70s.
Oh yes, yes it was, when it lost nearly a million people, and tons of properties were abandoned or decayed. Its existing infrastructure, aside from a few bright spots like the old World Trade Center complex (built to help recover the city), was also in shambles (see Central Park, the subways, the piers, Times Square, etc.). Compared to where it was previously and where it is now, that time was definitely a nadir. The Bronx is definitely physically more urban now then it was before. When a place has enough urban decay and population loss, it ceases to be as urban as it was before. See below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AJNEOA
Not sure if this is targeted at me, but I don't think that it necessarily does, unless a place is so undesirable that properties fall apart, burn down, and are razed.
Which is exactly what I'm getting at. Even a city's urban build is dependent on the health of a city and its populace. Baltimore is objectively less urban in build in many measures now then it was even 15 years ago, much less thirty. When properties become vacant due to low desireability and businesses leave, they crumble. If they're razed but nothing is built on them, then they become vacant, overgrown lots. Never mind the socioeconomic/psychological effects, they physically effect the built urban form, part of the urbanity of a city itself. Urban "bones" are great, but you also need urban "meat". Is the city proper of Buffalo, New York still more urban than Saint Paul, Minnesota?
New York City was the first major American city to rebound from white flight, disinvestment and the crime/drug/social issues that plagued the country from the '50s onto the '80s because it has the largest population and financial base in the country, by far. As much as President Ford was willing to let a nearly bankrupt and decrepit NYC drop dead (saying no to a federal bailout), it truly was/is too big to fail. Still the only city proper (not including annexation) in the Northeast/Midwest that declined that has sailed past its high population mark set earlier in the 20th century.
The rest of the Rust Belt/manufacturing Northern cities, considered our most traditionally urban cities save for San Francisco, are recovering in different stages. Boston proper's recovering/booming, DC proper's recovering/booming, Philly proper is now on its way, Chicago proper is stagnant/declining after moderate recovery, Detroit's still declining, etc. Desireability has a huge impact on urbanity, urban form included. Our city propers in the Northeast/Midwest, viewed as undesireable to live for decades, have been propped up by their suburbs for over half-a-century now, which has led to some positive things for urban form (skyscrapers--though many view this as a negative/neutral, commuter rail/rapid transit expansion, recent green belt movements) and a lot of negatives (interstates/highways destroying neighborhoods and walkability, segregation, sprawl, congestion, etc.). Desireability absolutely has an impact on urban form and urbanity.
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