why have i heard people saying Seattle is sprawled out/low density? (houses, neighborhoods)

[scottyr]

Ive seen people on city-data posting about how seattle is low density and sprawled, yet from the pictures i've seen, seattle seems to be very urban and not broken up by so many freeways and parking lots like houston or Atlanta.

Seattle seems to have alot of dense urban neighborhoods that are connected to downtown...how is this sprawled? Also i doubt such a progressive/left-leaning city like Seattle could be so auto-centric and bulldozer-happy when it comes to old walkable neighborhoods

[evergraystate]

You should come to Seattle and decide for yourself.

[texastrigirl]

How many people? One person as in the article referenced below?

Is Seattle a "vast suburb" by Bay Area standards?

Seattle is not a sprawled out city. Inside city limits, it is very, very dense. You have three bodies of water to contend with and cross, as well as hills to climb. Just take a look at a satellite view on Google maps and you can decide for yourself.

satellite view seattle - Google Maps

[Ira500]

Compared to a New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc, Seattle is less dense. It does have some very dense neighborhoods fairly close to downtown, but it's also a physically large city, 91 square miles or so. So sure, there are some far flung neighborhoods that are still within the city limits. They don't exactly feel like suburbs, but they don't feel like the big city either.

[texastrigirl]

I moved here from Austin TX and as of 2010, that city occupies a total area of 271.8 square miles. It all depends on what you are comparing it to OP. Still pretty dense IMO.

[Hemlock140]

Outside of the downtown core it is very much suburban, especially the north
end. Areas like Magnolia, Ballard, Ravenna, Maple Leaf, and Wallingford all have their commercial strips, but then have a lot of single family homes on 4,000-5,000+ square foot lots just like the suburban towns and cities.

That's a good thing. You can find whatever density you want to live in there.

[noexcuseforignorance]

Standalone houses are not high density. The city is made of many walkable neighborhoods, but dense it is not. High density means high rise residential housing. You really don't see any of that outside of downtown. You really don't see much of any kind of dense housing in most of the city.

[Vinylly]

Originally Posted by noexcuseforignorance

Standalone houses are not high density. The city is made of many walkable neighborhoods, but dense it is not. High density means high rise residential housing. You really don't see any of that outside of downtown. You really don't see much of any kind of dense housing in most of the city.

Ahh, but we're getting there. You should just see all the high-rise new construction going on here, it's everywhere. We are getting denser by the day.: eek:

[evergraystate]

Right there between Detroit and Dallas. Seattle is NOT dense by any stretch of the imagination.

Austin Contrarian: Density calculations for U.S. urbanized areas, weighted by census tract

[Luke9686]

Originally Posted by evergraystate

Right there between Detroit and Dallas. Seattle is NOT dense by any stretch of the imagination.

Austin Contrarian: Density calculations for U.S. urbanized areas, weighted by census tract

This is way off. It uses the entire Seattle metro for its calculation. Seattle is pretty dense, the suburbs are not. Seattle has 83.9 square land miles, with a density of 7360/square mile. That's not super high, but is a lot more dense than most cities.