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SF feels denser than LA. The most dense part of LA is the Wilshire corrider from Downtown to Santa Monica. Otherwise, the majority of LA is just strip malls and single family homes and feels less dense than Haight Astbury, Nob Hill, Mission District ext.
SF feels denser than LA. The most dense part of LA is the Wilshire corrider from Downtown to Santa Monica. Otherwise, the majority of LA is just strip malls and single family homes and feels less dense than Haight Astbury, Nob Hill, Mission District ext.
True but that Wilshire Corridor is about as large as San Francisco. That being said I can see where people come from with San Francisco being more densely populated. There's a whole lot less "filler", that's for sure (not to imply you are filler, Winnetka!).
Let's start with the walkscores. San Francisco is 2nd among the 50 largest cities in the United States with a walkscore of 85. The city of Los Angeles comes in 13th, with a respectable but distinctly lower 66. Some parts of LA are great for walking in, but other parts not so much, while almost the whole of San Francisco is good for walking in.
The city of San Francisco is more densely populated, more than twice as dense, as the city of Los Angeles. But as noted repeatedly above, the Los Angeles urbanized area as a whole is more dense. San Francisco has a more traditional form, with a high density core that drops off to low density suburbs (though denser than many East Coast suburbs). Los Angeles' center isn't that dense, but the region maintains that density a long way out.
San Francisco has been called "the finest East Coast city ever built." San Francisco's form was heavily shaped in the 19th Century. For Los Angeles (and Oakland) the early 20th Century, the streetcar suburb era, was decisive. San Jose was smaller than Berkeley until after World War 2, so it is really a product of the latter 20th Century, more comparable to some parts of Orange County.
I often think of Oakland, in terms of urban form, as a 1/10 scale model of Los Angeles. Oakland is even more like Long Beach, similar in size, in having a large port, multiracial populations, modest downtowns.
The inner Bay Area (the San Francisco-Oakland urbanized area, not San Jose) transit system has more service and gets used more now. Muni, in San Francisco, is one of the most heavily used transit systems in the country. Los Angeles is expanding and improving its system more quickly, they've really done wonders. The system is in fact very good in the core area. Because Los Angeles is so polycentric, and the rail system is basically radial, some of the major corridors between centers are going to have to be served by buses. The task is to make bus service better on these corridors. Metro is now considering whether BRT or light rail is more appropriate for the Van Nuys-Sepulveda Boulevard corridor in the Valley, having eliminated streetcars.
Downtown Los Angeles is constantly improving, but there's still more going on in Downtown San Francisco. OTOH, the Bay Area has no neighborhoods analogous to Hollywood or Santa Monica.
I find urbanity in San Francisco, Oakland, sometimes in Berkeley, a bit in San Jose, and definitely in Los Angeles (and West Hollywood and Santa Monica and Pasadena), I don't want to compare.
SF is more urban. Every block in SF is like a world of its own. One of block, you might be in the projects around a bunch of shady people loitering around getting drunk all day and doing drugs, but less than fifty feet away is $700K+ houses and somehow those two worlds rarely ever meet.
It's all abour geography SF is almost a tiny island surrounded by water on three fronts
nowhere else to grow, so it became prety dense, LA is just an urban monster
SF has the classic city limit urban. but Sausilito, Berkely are minimally urban. LA is just silly
like long island with palm trees
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