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Which U.S. cities? New York? That's always been a huge outlier in this country (see nei's density charts). Chicago as dense as Paris? Never. Philadelphia as dense as Barcelona? No. San Francisco as dense as Madrid? No. Boston as dense as Rome? No. DC as dense as Amsterdam? No. What you're saying doesn't make any sense.
Prove it. Go look up 1940-1950s historical densities for those pairs before these policies started. I'll get you started:
San Francisco 1940: 13,500 ppsm. Madrid: 6,437ppsm (That is giving you the benefit of the doubt since I am calculating 1940 metro population into the current city limits since I could not find historical areas covered).
Amsterdam in 1940: ~9,400 ppsm. DC 1940: 10,693 ppsm
Sounds pretty comparable to me. Even Atlanta had 6,000+ ppsm before these policies started.
(Note: I also made sure there were no radical population changes compared to the surrounding decades due to WWII of Spanish civil war)
Quote:
Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge
If you go back and compare the US and European countries before those policies, then the density simply isn't comparable. And that makes a difference because we are talking about national policies. The relative size of European nations, along with the population density and population size (as a percentage of the national population) all play a role in determining whether transit issues are local, regional or national issues. And local issues simply aren't addressed on a national level.
Do you guys seriously believe that American cities were already sprawled out and significantly less dense than their European counterparts before these policies came into place? Sorry but I am just not seeing the evidence. American cities diverged from the rest of the world and started to rapidly lose density after WWII. Again, density is not the cause. It is one of the effects.
Prove it. Go look up 1940-1950s historical densities for those pairs before these policies started. I'll get you started:
San Francisco 1940: 13,500 ppsm. Madrid: 6,437ppsm (That is giving you the benefit of the doubt since I am calculating 1940 metro population into the current city limits since I could not find historical areas covered).
Amsterdam in 1940: ~9,400 ppsm. DC 1940: 10,693 ppsm
Sounds pretty comparable to me. Even Atlanta had 6,000+ ppsm before these policies started.
(Note: I also made sure there were no radical population changes compared to the surrounding decades due to WWII of Spanish civil war)
I enjoy your posts very much. I just love the way you compare apples to cantaloupes.
The line in Washington DC was built in the middle of an highway in the 1980's.
The line in Paris was built in the 1840's.
There is a difference.
If the line in Paris was in the middle of an suburban highway and built in the 70's-80's (outside an Edge city) like in Washington DC video, the development pattern around the line would have been different than in the Paris video here.
The difference isn't the development pattern. The difference is that in 1840's Paris there was a need for that transit ALREADY. In DC, there wasn't.
Cities have a tendency to develop around waterways, because they need a way to get goods in and out of the city. Before roads and rail, waterways were the way. A development clustered around waterways, especially where two rivers met, and around natural ports. Rail track was laid down to connect already developed areas. The fact that development grew in the spaces in between simply is an extension of the way development grew along waterways. Roads were connections between places. And when the roads were built, then the space between the two places that were now connected grew as well. The fact is that density will develop along transportation routes. But you don't put down transportation routes that don't connect dense development that ALREADY exists. The dense developments come first.
Do you guys seriously believe that American cities were already sprawled out and significantly less dense than their European counterparts before these policies came into place? Sorry but I am just not seeing the evidence. American cities diverged from the rest of the world and started to rapidly lose density after WWII. Again, density is not the cause. It is one of the effects.
YOU are talking city planning here.
This thread is about the NATION of the UNITED STATES as compared to EUROPE.
Read the thread title.
Moreover, all the major US cities you are talking about have public transit systems. Cities develop public transit systems when the population density is sufficient to support a public transit system. Even before it can support a public transit system, and the system still requires subsidies. And that's why public transit is a LOCAL issue, not a NATIONAL issue.
The UNITED STATES as a country cannot build and support a public transit system, because the population density is not there to make it a NATIONAL need.
Same time of development as the previous video.
Subway was built overground recently (by recently I means not over a century ago) where there were the space to built it and where it was the less inconvenient.
It means that in denser area or more build up area, the subway was built underground. If New York City had to build new subway in Queens, nowaday, it could not build those elevated line in the middle of an Avenue, so the overground section of the subway would be in less dense area or inside green line or along a freeway.
The exception is when the subway was built along an old railway line, here development is denser.
The Red line between DC and Silver Spring.
The Red line from Twinbrook to Shady Grove.
The Blue and Yellow line in Alexandria
Those would be more comparable with the video of Paris than the outer edge of the subway along an highway or built where there was room in the 1970's-80's.
In those kind of areas, you will not see dense and pedestrian friendly area.
I agree that DC suburbs are in average less dense and less pedestrian friendly than Paris but those videos compare two different things.
A railway line built in the 19th century (in empty land back then) that attracted development over time and a subway line built away from the dwellings to not disturb people.
Last edited by Minato ku; 02-20-2014 at 03:44 PM..
I gave calculations with Maine included and excluded because someone would eventually say, "No fair! Maine is largely uninhabited. Your calculation is biased in favor of these other countries!". I don't see why that really matters since France and Germany also have large forested areas and mountain ranges cutting through them. "Cherrypicking" is a common cry on the C-D forum. But if you combined Germany, the UK, France, and Italy, they would still have a considerably higher population density while being much larger in land area than the Northeast, and there ain't no "cherrypickin" about that.
They're not uninhabited to the same extent. Haven't been to France besides a very brief visit to Paris a long time ago, but from what I've gathered from streetview/photos/and other posters that France, and most of western Europe doesn't have the empty spaces that even the Northeast does. The Northeast Corridor is crowded, but places like the Adirondacks, northern Maine are basically uninhabited for western European standards, while some other spots in northern New England and upstate NY are also very lightly inhabited.
Of course what really matters for high speed rail is having lots of people clustered together, so the fact that most of the Northeast US population is clustered along the coast is a plus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
Ha, ha! "That's different"!
Really, it is what it is. Denver is 1/3 airport, with no one living on those 50 sq. mi.
Well, it is different (see above). Unless you think that I'm wrong, I can't find similar density maps. Not hotlinking to these since they're not really on topic for the thread:
Same time of development as the previous video.
Subway was built overground recently (by recently I means not over a century ago) where there were the space to built it and where it was the less inconvenient.
The exception is when the subway was built along an old railway line, here development is denser.
Same thing on the Orange Line from New Carrollton. That runs along the same track that the Acela runs on coming from New York.
I couldn't find anything on Center City's historical population. Wiki says its population in 2010 was 57,239. Let's assume that in 1920 that number was 150,000, which I think is a more than generous estimate.
I couldn't find anything on North Philadelphia either. Let's say that it was equally dense as South Philly. So that's another 375,000 people in 9.7 square miles.
That gives us a total of 900,000 people in 21.4 miles. That's a density of 42,056 ppsm given the most generous population estimates.
Go to socialexplorer.com's map, select 1940, then make a report and select the census tracts (you can draw some circles to cover the general swaths you're interested in, then tweak the boundaries census tract by census tract).
You can't really compare 1910 populations with 1950 though. Manhattan's lower East Side had a huge decrease in population during that time. It had 542,061 people in 1.54 square miles in 1910 to 209,237 in 1950. Who knows how much crowding changed in London and Philly during that period.
And I don't think it's fair to compare a city's core with the entirety of another city which will include suburban (by the standards of the time) and rural areas.
But I think these are mostly commercial buildings, and that was already largely the case a century ago. While Philadelphia's downtown is full of skyscrapers and 10s+ buildings and has been that way for close to a century, London just had mid rises until it started building mid rises quite recently.
Towards the West/Northwest of London you have a lot of rather tall townhouses that are typically 3-4s although the buildings can be up to 5-6s. Typically there's lots of parks, and often yards are bigger than in Philly. Being very wealthy, there's probably more space per capita than you'd expect. http://goo.gl/maps/E7Oi0 http://goo.gl/maps/IkEva
When you have yards that are more Philly-like is size, you usually don't have just these grand townhouses but also some smaller row houses that are more like those of Philly. http://goo.gl/maps/lsJa0
Overall I'd consider London to still have a higher built density than Philadelphia, but when you consider how much bigger London was historically, I'm not seeing how it reflects a culture of higher density.
They're not uninhabited to the same extent. Haven't been to France besides a very brief visit to Paris a long time ago, but from what I've gathered from streetview/photos/and other posters that France, and most of western Europe doesn't have the empty spaces that even the Northeast does. The Northeast Corridor is crowded, but places like the Adirondacks, northern Maine are basically uninhabited for western European standards, while some other spots in northern New England and upstate NY are also very lightly inhabited.
This is true. That's why I excluded Maine. I wanted to nip the whining in the bud.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Of course what really matters for high speed rail is having lots of people clustered together, so the fact that most of the Northeast US population is clustered along the coast is a plus.
I agree with DC to the Ridge's point that the approach towards transit is very different when you have a relatively small but dense country versus a large and sparsely populated country. There's a whole different psychology that comes with that.
Last edited by nei; 02-20-2014 at 04:07 PM..
Reason: quote
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