Best downtown riverfronts in the US? (living, restaurants, costs)
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Which or the most attractive, and most vibrant riverfronts located in or around downtowns in the US? Are any riverfront redevelopments currently in process particularly interesting?
Following this! St. Louis is working on it's Riverfront but I would NOT say it was the best in the U.S. I think there is a lot of untapped potential there, but it's got a long way to go, even with the improvements currently being made to the Arch Grounds.
I think it would be hard for any city to beat Chicago.
San Antonio certainly has nothing on it.
Chicago is a disappointment in this matter. They have a perfect lake front but politicians has built a 10 lane heavily traffic road from Edgewater down to E. 100 Street. For me it didn’t matter because I visited in late fall but it clearly destroys a beautiful view. They could have a lot of restaurants fronting the lake – but Chicago is of course good in the sense that is a very large city and at least they have left some room for pedestrians with parks, promenades and beaches. New York has pretty much the same problem. A smart person would have built tunnels to spare the water-fronts. Pittsburgh ha also destroyed their river-fronts with high-ways or large roads just as New York. A lot of cities have done so to save costs but doing so you destroy pedestrian life by water-fronts. It is much better in Europe were cities actually have preserved their water-fronts to lower the dissonance between pedestrians and trafficked roads. One of the nicest cities when it comes to this matter is Prague. They have protected their river fronts with tunnels and two lane-roads instead of large roads and high-ways by the water-front. Others are Athens, Stockholm (Sort of), Paris, Copenhagen, Rome, Marseille, Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona, Nice, Cannes, Geneva, Zurich (Sort of) Porto and others. One of the most beautiful cities I have been too has actually been in Southern France. Americans should travel around Europe, at least now when the Euro is in the toilet. I would get to Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. It is just a “short drive” between these countries. It takes about 18-20 hours to drive from Porto in Portugal to Genoa in Italy. In United States I think Annapolis has a nice small-town water-front feeling.
Last edited by Sconesforme; 06-02-2014 at 10:11 AM..
I love living here in Pittsburgh, but I wouldn't say the downtown riverfront is tremendous. Within the Golden Triangle proper you really don't have good access to the river except for Point State Park and a landing down by the Convention Center. The remaining areas are basically under highways or near highways, and pretty unfriendly to recreation. Trust me, I ride my bike down there pretty frequently.
The North Shore, just on the other side of the Allegheny, has been redone rather nicely. But this isn't part of Downtown.
Chicago is a disappointment in this matter. They have a perfect lake front but politicians has built a 10 lane heavily traffic road from Edgewater down to E. 100 Street. For me it didn’t matter because I visited in late fall but it clearly destroys a beautiful view. They could have a lot of restaurants fronting the lake. New York has pretty much the same problem. A smart person would have built tunnels to spare the water-fronts. Pittsburgh ha also destroyed their river-fronts with high-ways or large roads just as New York. A lot of cities have done so to save costs but doing so you destroy city-life by water-fronts. It is much better in Europe were cities actually have preserved their water-fronts but even in many cities the roads by water-fronts has created a dissonance between pedestrians and trafficked roads. One of the nicest cities when it comes to this matter is Prague. They have protected their river fronts with tunnels and two lane-roads instead of large roads and high-ways by the water-front.
The Riverwalk area is pretty spectacular IMO
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