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The line between city and suburb is density.
In the history of mankind suburbs didn't exist until the 1850's, as a response to industrialization. prior to that every human who didn't live on a farm lived in a city.
City=density. I'm not praising anything, it's the truth.
I fail to see your point.
Listen you brought the Inner Loop up...the point of the forum is to debate stuff like this.
Then every argument for Houston would have to be changed, seeing as how there is no city outside of I-610..right. You can't change the defintion of Houston to suit your argument.
Actually the inner loop has two cities with one of them running partly outside the loop.
The line between city and suburb is density.
In the history of mankind suburbs didn't exist until the 1850's, as a response to industrialization. prior to that every human who didn't live on a farm lived in a city.
City=density. I'm not praising anything, it's the truth.
I fail to see your point.
Listen you brought the Inner Loop up...the point of the forum is to debate stuff like this.
Then every argument for Houston would have to be changed, seeing as how there is no city outside of I-610..right. You can't change the defintion of Houston to suit your argument.
No! employment and commuting is the line between city and suburb. before suburbs existed people just lived in the city or the farm like you said. Since there were no suburbs people live dense in the city and there were none or hardly any commuting.
No! employment and commuting is the line between city and suburb. before suburbs existed people just lived in the city or the farm like you said. Since there were no suburbs people live dense in the city and there were none or hardly any commuting.
Suburbs= commuter town
Are you gonna argue with me over the definition of suburb?
We're agreeing and disagreeing at the same time.
A city is denser than a suburb, which is what I said, and yes, suburbs are full of people who commute to a city.
I'm confused as to why you are making an argument outta this.
Suburbs were the invention of wealth city folks who wanted to escape the filth of the late 19th century city. I could go into the entire reason for their existance, since I have a Master's degree in it...but I'm tired.
Yea, I'm not quite getting it either. I definitely dislike the kind of sprawl and lack of planning Houston represents, and I do think it's something that'll bite the city later on if it doesn't take bigger steps to change things, but I'm not seeing why it would make the city less influential or important.
I was talking about the impossibility of a comprehensive public transit system in Houston because of the lack of population density.
This is extremely important considering we are facing an inevitable world energy crisis and are close to peak oil production. Suburban lifestyles are going to be drastically changed, and sprawling cities could be doomed.
Density and sprawl are also notable in terms of our earlier discusion about diversity, as sprawl by nature obscures the visibility of ethnic enclaves as well as the de-facto segregation socio-economic classes.
umm hello. its a joke. thats the point. the city is too sprawling. are you not following?
Yes, but you don't seem to be...
The point is that light rail and other options are being planned for the outlying areas so the traffic can be reduced.
And while we are on the subject of sprawl.... yes, Boston and SF are dense in the core, but the metro areas are very sprawled out. Boston suburbs sprawl out 40 miles in 3 directions and in the Bay area, it is nonstop from Santa Rosa all the way South to San Jose and the East Bay is sprawled past Pittsburg and Antioch.
BART serves a long range of the Bay Area for as many miles as could be done here in Houston
Houston's short comings are well known. But, Boston isn't a sustainable model either. Yes, it's cleaned up and yuppie, but MA ranks as one of the top states for neg migration.
In a growing country, Boston's "growth with out growth" model isn't workable. The city is urban/dense because it develeoped before cars. Not because of the enlightend views of the current pop. Smart growth/density is fought tooth and nail.
Bos has seen some infill development, but it's a niche. Most of the MSAs growth has been sprawl. The inner suburbs have largly zoned new housing out of existence. Boston's no growth policies are creating sprawl across the country, as people leave for more affordable areas (i.e. Houston).
Boston is one of my favorite cities, and I prefer it over Houston. But the pedistal (some) Boston posters put their city on can be a bit much. Boston faces its own challanges.
All that being said, I agree with the posters who have said that none of this debate has anything to do with which city is more important. I would go with SF for #5. I would put Bos at 6th. But its hold is gradually waning.
Houston's short comings are well known. But, Boston isn't a sustainable model either. Yes, it's cleaned up and yuppie, but MA ranks as one of the top states for neg migration.
In a growing country, Boston's "growth with out growth" model isn't workable. The city is urban/dense because it develeoped before cars. Not because of the enlightend views of the current pop. Smart growth/density is fought tooth and nail.
Bos has seen some infill development, but it's a niche. Most of the MSAs growth has been sprawl. The inner suburbs have largly zoned new housing out of existence. Boston's no growth policies are creating sprawl across the country, as people leave for more affordable areas (i.e. Houston).
Boston is one of my favorite cities, and I prefer it over Houston. But the pedistal (some) Boston posters put their city on can be a bit much. Boston faces its own challanges.
All that being said, I agree with the posters who have said that none of this debate has anything to do with which city is more important. I would go with SF for #5. I would put Bos at 6th. But its hold is gradually waning.
I agree with you on this one. Boston's established neighborhoods fight change & development like crazy...they claim it's in order to preserve historical neighborhoods, but it's more aimed towards keeping out the riff-raff. Unfortunately, I think a great deal of residents would actually be for a bit of development in appropriate areas. However the only people that have the time to show up at the neighborhood review meetings are old people who have retired and spend their time in their South End townhouses, more than happy with their neighborhood. They don't care about the future of the city, because they've already got theirs.
However, you're incorrect in saying that new housing in the inner-burbs has been zoned out of existence. There are multi-billion dollar developments proposed for both Quincy and Cambridge. Obviously not 100% of those developments are residential, but I do believe they're about 50/50 (I think the Quincy dev is about 50% commercial; Cambridge dev is 50% biotech).
Also, Boston still has the massive Fan Pier development and Seaport Square developments on the South Boston Waterfront in the works. Fan Pier has one building built so far, but both Fan Pier and Seaport Sq have hit a roadblock in the form of the economic crisis.
I wouldn't argue that Boston's inner-suburbs have made new housing "all but impossible", but many of the inner-neighborhoods like Beacon Hill, Back Bay and the South End have. I will agree with you that Boston is farfrom perfect though.
How in the world did this thread devolve into another argument about density & urbanity? I have a feeling some of my fellow Bostonians are the culprits. It's easy to pick on Houston and other Sunbelt cities for this, but in all honesty it does absolutely nothing in terms of lessening their power.
As Oy and others have said earlier, it's pretty clear cut that San Francisco is the #6 city. Maybe we should create a new poll with Boston, Houston, and Philadelphia? With maybe Atlanta and Dallas in for good measure?
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