Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > General U.S.
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 11-13-2008, 12:56 AM
 
5,816 posts, read 15,846,562 times
Reputation: 4734

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by GF72 View Post
Atlanta city limits population is 519,000 now according to Census Bureau.
source

You're right about Atlanta's rate of growth. Atlanta added almost a million people since 2000, more sheer quantity than any other metro in America. Considering that high rate, with the fact that the suburbs have finally reached the point where they are not really expanding outwards any more, the new people are going to slowly make it denser. And Atlanta city limits itself has been getting more and more residential population, especially in Midtown and Buckhead. Downtown on the other hand... during the day, crawling with students, suits, tourists, and panhandlers, sun goes down and boom. Crackhead infested ghost town.
Density makes a real difference in how much activity there seems to be on the streets. In Boston, there is little activity in the center of the downtown financial district at night. I once walked through the downtown retail district at about 7:30 in the evening, shortly after the stores had closed. It was during the winter, so it was dark at that hour, and I got a little nervous, because the area was empty except for a few questionable-looking characters just kind of hanging around the street. This is fairly typical of retail and financial districts in many cities. The difference between a new-style sprawling city and an old-style dense city is that in the newer cities those deserted areas may spread over a wide area. In Boston, I could walk two blocks in any direction from the empty, closed-for-the-night commercial zones and find plenty of activity.

 
Old 11-13-2008, 09:45 PM
 
5,816 posts, read 15,846,562 times
Reputation: 4734
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veridian View Post
Since this thread is about what "feels" bigger, it's obviously subjective. My subjective opinion is that density wins in determining what "feels" bigger. The detached housing and suburb-like layout of Atlanta doesn't "feel" big or urban, regardless of population figures or square footage of the urban area. Aside from when you are in a high place, you can't see how far out the city sprawls. The vast majority of Atlanta feels like a suburb, and from street-level I think most people would have a hard time knowing they were in a true city had they been brought there blind-folded. Cities like Boston with their density, row-houses, lamentable lack of private green space, "feel" much bigger to me.

I'm another member of the density feels bigger camp. Interesting point about being unable to tell how far a city sprawls except from a high vantage point. It's also true that wide sprawl can be appreciated by driving across a city or metro area. I've heard people say that they were impressed by the size of some sprawling metros because they drove and drove and drove and drove before reaching the first semi-rural landscape. Again, though, you can't tell about this when you are on the streets of a city.

I'm guessing that some of this may involve a perception of how widely a city spreads, based on how much territory you have to cover to reach various places within the city where people are likely to travel. According to stats in the Wiki articles about these two cities, Atlanta's land area is approx. 132 square miles, while Boston covers roughly 49 square miles of land. This makes Atlanta roughly 2.7 times the size of Boston in land area, substantially larger, but not on the order of ten times the size. However, moving around between downtown, midtown, and Buckhead in Atlanta gives people the sense of having to cover a good distance to sample the city's attractions.

Boston is an extreme example of the concentration found in older cities. Boston's major amenities are heavily concentrated in a small landscape in and around downtown, which probably covers less than one fifth of the city's total land area. As you make quick trips around this concentrated area, rarely doing more than passing through most other sections of Boston, it's easy to forget how much city there is out there beyond the central city area which holds most of the attractions. This makes Boston seem especially small to those whose perception leans toward sprawl as the basis for a feeling of bigness in a city. Conversely, for those who perceive density as the mark of a big city, downtown Boston's extreme density will seem especially impressive. It's apples and oranges, with this thread giving some good indication that there is a real disparity in personal perception about which of the two stands out.

Last edited by ogre; 11-13-2008 at 10:37 PM..
 
Old 11-13-2008, 09:49 PM
 
5,816 posts, read 15,846,562 times
Reputation: 4734
Lots of photos of Atlanta in the last few pages. Here are some links to pics of Boston, for some visual comparison between sprawling new cities and densely packed old cities.

Here are two skyline pictures of downtown. The range is too close to capture the entire skyline, but these shots do offer a good view of the density of the downtown buildings. Especially apparent is the density of structures in spaces between the skyscrapers:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv6277.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc43136.php

Some shots of downtown at street level:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc25156.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv8609.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc21991.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv11071.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc21993.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc22008.php



Views of some Boston neighborhoods outside downtown provide a good example of the density found in cities of the old style. Notice how these neighborhoods contrast with the low- or medium-density green spaces filling the areas between the groups of skyscrapers in Atlanta. Here are some shots of the North End, a neighborhood immediately north of, but distinct from, downtown:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc33740.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc22764.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc22755.php



Charlestown, the next neighborhood north of the North End, separated from the North End by the Charles River:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc7994.php

Image:BunkerHillBoats.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image:Charlestown massachusetts and bunker hill between 1890 and 1910.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Wiki says this one dates back approx. 100 years, give or take. Old pic, but it shows the character of construction in this neighborhood.)



East Boston, east of downtown, separated from downtown by an arm of the harbor:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv17231.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc12481.php
(Past the left edge of the picture are residential and commercial neighborhoods in East Boston. The buildings at top right are in the town of Winthrop, not part of Boston. Still, notice the density of settlement so close to the airport. The Eastie neighborhoods out of view on the left are more densely settled than Winthrop.)



Beacon Hill, immediately northwest of downtown:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv5277.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc7751.php



Back Bay, which extends about two miles, maybe a bit more, from the western edge of downtown. The first picture shows the closest thing Boston has to those secondary downtowns in Atlanta, like Buckhead and Midtown. This view is from approximately the west:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc22047.php

The photo at the top of the collage below shows roughly the same area as the last shot, viewed more from the north or northwest. These two pictures give some idea how deceptive skyline shots can be. The second photo shows how spread out the buildings are that appear to be clustered together in the first shot. Still, notice how many large buildings there are here in a section of the city away from downtown. Also, notice the general density of construction in this area:

Image:Boston11 10 2008.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some panoramic shots of Back Bay, showing the overall density of this section of the city:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc44381.php
(Part of Back Bay is in the foreground. The city of Cambridge is in the background, across the river.)

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv18258.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc11972.php

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv27332.php
(incorrectly labeled as downtown; this shot is in Back Bay)

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc17445.php
(western edge of Back Bay, looking west beyond Back Bay)

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv30519.php



A view from Mission Hill, a neighborhood in the city's Roxbury section, looking northeast toward Back Bay. Mission Hill is separated from downtown by Back Bay, and an area known as the South End, so here in the foreground is a view of an area that is beginning to be some distance from downtown, maybe three miles or so:

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv8369.php



A residential street in Jamaica Plain. This architecture and this level of building density is typical of areas about midway between downtown and the city limits:

Image:Three deckers.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Two pictures of housing in the Mattapan section. This area is in Boston’s far southeastern corner. As the photos show, here in the vicinity of the city limits you begin to find single-family houses with about the same density seen in some of the photos of residential neighborhoods in the heart of Atlanta, yet even out here at the edge of Boston there is also some of Boston’s mid-city level of density, similar to that seen in the Jamaica Plain shot:

Database of Greenspaces and Neighborhoods in the heart of Boston. (http://ksgaccman.harvard.edu/hotc/displayplace.asp?id=11452 - broken link)



In the photo below, the background shows apartment houses along a street in Brighton, the westernmost section of Boston. This scene is fairly high-density for Brighton, which also has some areas similar to Jamaica Plain and other mid-city neighborhoods, as well as the dense single-family housing seen in the top Mattapan photo:

Image:Brighton.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



West Roxbury, in the city’s far southwestern corner. This is the one section of Boston with a suburban character. The top photo shows a typical suburban commercial district. The second picture shows a residential street in West Roxbury, which reveals that even here, about eight or nine miles from downtown, in the city’s only section with a suburban feel, it’s not extremely low-density suburban:

Image:Centre Street.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/03sewer/...bury_rehab.pdf

Last edited by ogre; 11-13-2008 at 11:16 PM..
 
Old 11-14-2008, 01:04 PM
 
294 posts, read 778,964 times
Reputation: 245
Atalnta also feels bigger to me because it is taller and it's urbanscape stretched out further than Boston's. It's wide highways also makes it seem bigger. But no doubt Boston is more urban but in a smaller footprint. I think there is a difference between a city being urban and feeling or appearing large.
 
Old 11-14-2008, 07:04 PM
 
Location: Atlanta, GA
135 posts, read 784,192 times
Reputation: 151
The buildings in Boston are short
 
Old 11-14-2008, 07:22 PM
 
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
505 posts, read 1,380,169 times
Reputation: 238
Quote:
Originally Posted by willrusso View Post
The buildings in Boston are short
They definitely are. The city has failed to grow vertically and lacks anything that can be called "supertall."

I read that part of the reason is that the city has a law that says that no building can cast a shadow on Boston Common. Also, there have been efforts recently to build new skyscrapers (see Trans National Place), but Logan Airport is so close to the city's downtown that the FAA has raised concerns about the height of new buildings, preventing anything very tall from being constructed, at least for now.
 
Old 11-14-2008, 07:33 PM
 
Location: Dorchester
2,605 posts, read 4,825,873 times
Reputation: 1090
Quote:
Originally Posted by willrusso View Post
The buildings in Boston are short
The shorter buildings that you see are in the financial district. The financial district is about 1 mile across the harbor from Logan International Airport.
The FAA has helped to put in height restrictions on this section of the city. That being said, those "short" buildings are still in the 400 to 600 foot range.
 
Old 11-16-2008, 02:13 AM
 
Location: Augusta GA
880 posts, read 2,850,005 times
Reputation: 368
Boston feels much larger. Atlanta feels like one big sprawling suburbs surrounding a rather small partially abandonded dowtown. Boston has much more in the way of culture as well.
 
Old 11-16-2008, 10:09 PM
 
Location: Techified Blue (Collar)-Rooted Bastion-by-the-Sea
663 posts, read 1,856,394 times
Reputation: 599
I am originally from the Boston area. I've been residing in the heart of Atlanta for a few years now. I visit Boston and other "real cities" such as NY and SF fairly often as well. There is no comparison in terms of urbanity, vibe, cultural offerings, sophistication, energy, and cosmopolitan feel between Boston and Atlanta. ZERO. Boston city along with Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Winthrop feels like a larger, urban and important city than Atlanta. I always find myself yawning while walking down a street in Midtown or Downtown Atlanta.

You can show all of the photos of skycrapers of Atlanta you want but here is the thing - When I am pulling out of that little Chick-fil-A (near the McD's)full of suburbanites onto Howell Mill Rd. (a suburban strip stretch), I am a few miles from that downtown cluster of buildings. What sort of a "city" is that??? Or If I drive down Ponce de Leon just 1.5 miles from the tallest building in Atlanta (the Pointed BofA tower) I am on a suburban stretch of strip malls and can just pull into a large suburban chinese restaurant with a huge lot???? You would only find such places 10 miles outside of Back Bay. How about the DMV in Atlanta south of downtown, near the Turner Field. I felt like I was in Birmingham. What a small city. And Buckhead feels quite tranquil to me - cars whizzing by feels like an suburban area - Overland Park, Kansas or Clayton, MO come to mind.

FYI, the Greater Boston area has two beltways, 128 and 495 with scores of office parks along them. It has edge city developments in Framingham/Natick, Lowell/Chelmsford and the Nashua,NH areas.
 
Old 11-16-2008, 10:56 PM
 
5,816 posts, read 15,846,562 times
Reputation: 4734
Default Just wondering

Quote:
Originally Posted by gladt View Post
Atalnta also feels bigger to me because it is taller and it's urbanscape stretched out further than Boston's. It's wide highways also makes it seem bigger. But no doubt Boston is more urban but in a smaller footprint. I think there is a difference between a city being urban and feeling or appearing large.
I'm wondering what the OP's reason was for starting this thread. Maybe he had an interest in these cities in particular, but I've looked back over the early posts on the thread, and the OP does make some additional posts which pose questions about what makes a city feel big. This leads me to speculate that maybe his reason for starting the thread was to get into that question by comparing two cities of opposite character--one sprawling and one dense--with similar populations. The reason I quoted GladT's post is the thought that wide roads add to a sense of bigness. The OP posed the question of whether this would be the case, so GladT's post addresses an issue raised early in the thread. The OP's last post was almost seven months ago, however. I'm kind of curious now about the reason for starting the thread. Brri, if you're still around, I'd be interested in some enlightenment on that question, and your thoughts on ideas offered more recently on this thread.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Closed Thread


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > General U.S.

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top