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.
Except that neighborhood in Los Angeles is definitely what I'd call a "streetcar suburb": mostly single-family homes and apartments, just a bit off the old Wilshire line.
Except that neighborhood in Los Angeles is definitely what I'd call a "streetcar suburb": mostly single-family homes and apartments, just a bit off the old Wilshire line.
Really? That's in Koreatown and while a mix of single family and apartments, the large majority of people there live in multi-family housing. According to the LA Times that neighborhood has 125,000 people in 2.7 square miles for 42,000 per square mile. I'd say that's fairly typical of what passes for urban in LA, although more densely populated and with more apartments.
I'll post some that are somewhat borderline in Toronto.
St Jamestown, this was largely built in the tower-in-the-park style and replaced a quite nice middle class neighbourhood. While I don't tower-in-the-park design very urban, this neighbourhood of 15,000 people has a density of close to 170,000 ppsm, is close to a subway line and has a few ammenities like a school and a library, as well as two grocery stores and other retail in the base of the towers (and more outside of the immediate area). It's also quite close to downtown, or even in downtown depending on how you define it. Rose Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Google Maps
This is Midtown Toronto, still a fair bit of towers-in-the-park, although they're often relatively close (but not right up to) the street, and they're mixed in with rowhouses and older dense detached housing. The neighbourhood is also close to the subway and has lots of retail and employment along the major streets (Yonge, Eglinton, Mt Pleasant). It's not as dense (60,000ppsm) and further from downtown than St Jamestown, but I would still consider it urban. 174 Redpath Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Google Maps
This is Cooksville in Mississauga. Lots of parking lots and big arterials, with big towers in the park(ing lot?) and mixed in with strip malls and early postwar single family homes. There are also some businesses that come up to the street, a commuter rail station, two very frequent bus routes and a density of about 30,000ppsm, but overall I would still consider it suburban. That might change with the Hurontario (and Dundas?) LRT and further intensification though. Cooksville, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - Google Maps
Scarborough Town Centre, it's centered around a shopping mall, but also has office buildings, 30 storey condos, civic buildings, woodlots and an elevated rapid transit line... overall though, I don't consider it urban. Mississauga City Centre is very similar, but bigger and with only bus transit. Scarborough Town Centre: Scarborough Town Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Google Maps
North York Centre is in a former suburb just like Scarborough TC, however, compared to Scarborough TC or Cooksville, it is denser (50-100,000ppsm), has a bit more ammenities, the main arterial doesn't feel as overwhelming, the main square is surrounded by buildings, the shopping mall is in the base of a pair of condos instead of surrounded by parking lots and the buildings mostly have little to no setback, so I consider it urban. It also has 3 subway stations and is just North of the intersection of two subway lines. North York Centre: North York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Google Maps
Avenue Road in Nortown/Bedford Park area of North York, I would consider this urban. A lot of the early postwar bungalows here were replaced by 2-3 storey neoecclectics, especially between Yonge and Avenue Road (just check out any residential street) as with much of the homes in North Toronto: Avenue Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Google Maps
Hmm. I didn't realize Staten Island was that dense and urban looking. I've only seen southern Staten Island, which didn't seem much different from the denser parts of Long Island.
I met a number of people from southern Brooklyn in college. Most were Russian (many were Russian Jewish as well). And they went to city public schools (though a lot graduated from Stuy)!
Hmm. I didn't realize Staten Island was that dense and urban looking. I've only seen southern Staten Island, which didn't seem much different from the denser parts of Long Island.
I met a number of people from southern Brooklyn in college. Most were Russian (many were Russian Jewish as well). And they went to city public schools (though a lot graduated from Stuy)!
Well, that's why I said that it's only suburban by NYC standards. SI has a population density of 8K psm, but there are entire swaths of undeveloped land on the West Shore (industry in the Bloomfield area, the former Fresh Kills landfill, and the Greenbelt) that bring down the average density. The average residential neighborhood is probably around 12K-15K psm, with most areas on the North Shore being closer to 20K.
I mean, we have a lot of apartment buildings in the St. George area (by the ferry), and we have public housing complexes in some areas, mostly on the North Shore (though they usually aren't as tall as you'd find in the other boroughs. Our tallest is 7-stories, compared to the 20-story ones you find in the other boroughs).
A lot of SI neighborhoods have that same mix of housing styles that my neighborhood has, but areas on the Far North Shore have fewer McMansions (not that there are a whole lot in my area. They're just concentrated on a couple of blocks) and more areas with this type of housing: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=216+Charles+Avenue,+New+York,+United+ States&tab=wl (this is the area by my school. It sort of looks like one of those urban areas in Cleveland)
And yeah, that area was Brighton Beach, which is known for its Russian population (its nickname is "Little Odessa"). Actually, my paternal grandmother is a Russian Jew (not a Russian immigrant, but she's "of Russian descent" as she likes to say), though I'm mixed (Peruvian on my mother's side and Austrian on my paternal grandfather's side). And that nice combination of genes probably resulted in me being pretty smart (I qualified for Stuy, but I decided it wasn't worth the travel time and just went to my local school)
Really? That's in Koreatown and while a mix of single family and apartments, the large majority of people there live in multi-family housing. According to the LA Times that neighborhood has 125,000 people in 2.7 square miles for 42,000 per square mile. I'd say that's fairly typical of what passes for urban in LA, although more densely populated and with more apartments.
42,000 people per square mile is about 65 people per acre, or about 25-30 dwelling units per acre (assuming 2-3 people in each dwelling), which is definitely in the "streetcar suburb" range, in fact kind of in the lower end of that range that you find more in West Coast cities, where streetcar suburbs were more often detached homes and small free-standing apartment buildings (vs. the earlier "horsecar" suburbs that tended towards row houses and apartment buildings with shared walls and zero lot lines.) Those tend to be even denser.
Think about the canonical Los Angeles "dingbat" apartment building--two stories tall, on maybe a 40x160 foot lot, with 8-12 apartments on it. The effective density is 56-84 units per acre, maybe 175 people per acre, or 112,000 people per square mile! Mix those up with mostly 1-2 story houses and a few mid-rise apartment buildings and 42,000 people per square mile isn't hard to reach even in a neighborhood that looks at first glance like it's mostly single-family homes.
Keep in mind that while Manhattan's overall population density is 70,000 people per square mile, how much of Manhattan consists of office buildings, parks, and other places that are vacant at night--the functional density of Manhattan's residential (technically, mixed-use, but separate from strictly commercial buildings and other non-residential functions) neighborhoods is probably more like 100,000-200,000 per square mile, if not more!
Well that's what this thread is about. We all have different opinions. Personally I don't disqualify a neighborhood from being urban if it doesn't have the same density as Manhattan. I think that Koreatown, East Hollywood, etc are examples of what is generally considered urban in LA even though they have lots of single family homes. The large majority of people in that neighborhood (95%?) don't live in single family homes. And iinm the neighborhood preceded streetcars.
Well that's what this thread is about. We all have different opinions. Personally I don't disqualify a neighborhood from being urban if it doesn't have the same density as Manhattan. I think that Koreatown, East Hollywood, etc are examples of what is generally considered urban in LA even though they have lots of single family homes. The large majority of people in that neighborhood (95%?) don't live in single family homes. And iinm the neighborhood preceded streetcars.
Neither do I. Suburban neighborhoods are a variety of urban form. I live in a "streetcar suburb" neighborhood, but my neighborhood is part of an urban downtown and functions as such.
I don't think Mid-Wilshire preceded streetcars--it was primarily farmland and some oil fields until the 1890s, and there were already streetcars by then, although I don't know if Los Angeles' original cable car system went that far.
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.
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.
(I qualified for Stuy, but I decided it wasn't worth the travel time and just went to my local school)
