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I don't know how a neighborhood with 60k people per square mile could be considered anything else. That's Manhattan and Paris density.
The area inside Alton Towers Circle in Scarborough has a density of 70,000 ppsm. I personally consider it suburban, although I can understand if some people don't. You have to admit though, it looks a lot different from Manhattan or Paris: Alton Towers Circle, Toronto - Google Maps
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.
It's not surprising that the densest neighborhood in Los Angeles was a streetcar suburb. In 1900, there were 100,000 people, so what is now the urban core might have been on the edge of the city at the time.
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)
It does look a bit like I seen from views of Cleveland or at least differently from NYC-ish single family homes I've seen in other boroughs (mainly Queens).
The person I knew (and visited) from southern Staten Island was in Stuy till 11th grade. His overprotective mother removed him after Sep 11 and he finished in his local public school. Makes no sense, couldn't be any less safe afterwards. From I heard, the school said absolutely nothing about what was going on (though the students must have noticed from the window?!) and then just told everyone that the school was being evacuated.
It's not surprising that the densest neighborhood in Los Angeles was a streetcar suburb. In 1900, there were 100,000 people, so what is now the urban core might have been on the edge of the city at the time.
I think at a certain point, Western Ave. in LA was the furthest west development went. The area that is currently 40k ppsm was probably almost all single family homes in the early 20th century. In twenty years it might (or might not) double or "1.5" in density. Though there were still "other" cities like Hollywood and Santa Monica that were attached by streetcars. LA is an urban model unlike any other IMO, which is why it is so hard to compare and contrast; it is a weird combo of traditional streetcar urban planning and the newer "sun belt" model.
BTW this is a great thread and full of incredibly informative info, I love it.
It does look a bit like I seen from views of Cleveland or at least differently from NYC-ish single family homes I've seen in other boroughs (mainly Queens).
The person I knew (and visited) from southern Staten Island was in Stuy till 11th grade. His overprotective mother removed him after Sep 11 and he finished in his local public school. Makes no sense, couldn't be any less safe afterwards. From I heard, the school said absolutely nothing about what was going on (though the students must have noticed from the window?!) and then just told everyone that the school was being evacuated.
I wonder why his mother didn't transfer him to SI Tech. Maybe there's rules forbidding transferring between specialized high schools.
And there are areas on the southern part of SI that have fairly high-density areas: 34 Hammock Lane, New York, United States - Google Maps (this is an area called Arden Heights. The other one could be considered either Graniteville or Bulls Head, depending on who you ask)
The thing that you notice is that even though the housing style is the same, the walkability is different. In the South Shore neighborhood, you zoom out and it's townhouses on cul-de-sac streets, whereas on the North Shore, it's townhouses on gridded streets.
Now if you go a little bit further east into areas like Eltingville and Great Kills, you might have a few areas with townhouses on a natural street grid, but not as many as on the North Shore.
I think at a certain point, Western Ave. in LA was the furthest west development went. The area that is currently 40k ppsm was probably almost all single family homes in the early 20th century. In twenty years it might (or might not) double or "1.5" in density. Though there were still "other" cities like Hollywood and Santa Monica that were attached by streetcars. LA is an urban model unlike any other IMO, which is why it is so hard to compare and contrast; it is a weird combo of traditional streetcar urban planning and the newer "sun belt" model.
BTW this is a great thread and full of incredibly informative info, I love it.
Yea, LA has a rather unusual layout and density combination. Most other places at Mid-Wilshire Density (older sections of San Francisco, rowhouse neighborhoods in old northeastern cities and even British ones) looked like they were laid out to be the density they are now. They're mostly composed of all old row houses or similar looking housing (usually 3-4 stories) with almost no spacing in between and all built nearly together around the same time.
Mid-Wilshire from what I can tell from streetview has some single family with real lots and then apartment buildings scattered around, that probably have replaced the old single family homes as the city got denser and larger. It's an odd probably a bit unique mix.
I think at a certain point, Western Ave. in LA was the furthest west development went. The area that is currently 40k ppsm was probably almost all single family homes in the early 20th century. In twenty years it might (or might not) double or "1.5" in density. Though there were still "other" cities like Hollywood and Santa Monica that were attached by streetcars. LA is an urban model unlike any other IMO, which is why it is so hard to compare and contrast; it is a weird combo of traditional streetcar urban planning and the newer "sun belt" model.
BTW this is a great thread and full of incredibly informative info, I love it.
The urban development in L.A., curiously, was always inland. Beaches were not the attractive settlements. Santa Monica, even just 40 years ago, was not considered the most prime real estate at all. Rather, it was looked upon much like Long Beach generally has been, a remote outpost community; San Pedro and Wilmington would be LB's Venice Beach, without the boardwalk.
Places evolve. And pretty rapidly too, without rail infrastructure in the case of Santa Monica. I swear, it's almost like playing the stock market. You can never really predict or plan human migration, just react to it.
On the west coast, San Francisco is the perennial exception--Los Angeles is the model for the Western metropolis, not the older schools of American city building exemplified in cities like New York and Chicago.
And who says Santa Monica didn't have rail infrastructure?
Biggest, most extensive interurban rail system in the nation--and this map doesn't even show the Los Angeles Railway city streetcar network! The greater Los Angeles region wasn't random or unpredictable--it was, in fact, quite deliberately planned, for the most part by a guy who just happened to own an electric railroad, an electric utility, and a real estate development company.
Los Angeles' land booms were all related to railroads, too: the first one in the late 1870s when the Central Pacific first reached Los Angeles with a railroad, followed in the 1880s by the arrival of a second railroad, the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, setting off a rate war that created a real estate bubble and turned Los Angeles from a sleepy cattle ranching town to a city that rivaled San Francisco in population. Then the early 20th century parade of streetcar suburbs and cheap electric power made Los Angeles into a metropolis that dwarfed San Francisco and shifted the balance of power and population southward after centuries of domination by northern California--which had itself been built largely by railroad power a half-century earlier.
So, you can predict or plan human migration--although it helps if you have experience running a railroad company that encouraged mass human migrations, and marry the extremely wealthy widow of the guy who built that railroad!
This isn't really anything noticeable, but I notice that on some parts of the North Shore of SI, some houses remind me of shotgun houses you'll find in the South. Here's an obvious example:
There are a lot of other homes in the area that are built with a similar idea: With narrow frontage and the rest of the house extending very far back.
The North Shore is the oldest section of SI. A lot of the original development was due to a rail line which is now abandoned. You can see it in the amount of older housing stock in the area, and also the narrow streets in some parts. For instance, this street is pretty narrow (It feels narrower in person than on Google Maps): 306 Netherland Avenue, New York, United States - Google Maps
And look: Another shotgun house!
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(I qualified for Stuy, but I decided it wasn't worth the travel time and just went to my local school)
