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Agree with Malloric; doesn't exist. Certainly not Pittsburgh, there's suburban development all around the city and also following the rivers and highways.
As for "30 minutes to nature", depends on how natural your nature has to be. There's parks along the Hudson and "wilderness areas" in southern New York, but there's no true wilderness anywhere on the East Coast or near San Francisco for that matter.
Do you consider Long Island "wildland" or "natural"? There is a national seashore there as you well know.
Not as much as the Bay Area. The National Seashore isn't on Long Island itself but a barrier island to the south (Fire Island). A 7 mile stretch is designated Federal Wilderness, so I'd say its wildland, dunno if it's true wilderness but it's rather untouched and just isolated. Most of the Long Island I'm familiar with has scattered parkland, more natural than city parks but nothing contigously large. Further east by the Pine Barrens might count, but it's far, not 30 minutes from my where I grew up let alone NYC (maybe 60 miles?).
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As for "30 minutes to nature", depends on how natural your nature has to be. There's parks along the Hudson and "wilderness areas" in southern New York, but there's no true wilderness anywhere on the East Coast or near San Francisco for that matter.
Not as much as the Bay Area. The National Seashore isn't on Long Island itself but a barrier island to the south (Fire Island). A 7 mile stretch is designated Federal Wilderness, so I'd say its wildland, dunno if it's true wilderness but it's rather untouched and just isolated. Most of the Long Island I'm familiar with has scattered parkland, more natural than city parks but nothing contigously large. Further east by the Pine Barrens might count, but it's far, not 30 minutes from my where I grew up let alone NYC (maybe 60 miles?).
No. I didn't say that. I was talking about how fast you can leave the city to be out of development, thought I was clear.
But you're quoting my post responding to your question on Long Island
It also has a paragraph about San Francisco. And a nature preserve in the midst of a huge MSA is not exactly "out of development" which has been MY point all along.
It also has a paragraph about San Francisco. And a nature preserve in the midst of a huge MSA is not exactly "out of development" which has been MY point all along.
Well it sounded like you were curious about Long Island! Paragraph, was just a link to photos, didn't they look out of development? My examples were outside (and earlier), not in the midst of the urban area (MSA is county lines so technically still in the midst of a MSA). I'm not talking about a city park. I'm not sure what's hard to get
gray is developed area. most of the green is preserved land, it's not in the midst of a big MSA, it's outside. Distance from light gray to green is short in most of the Bay Area
There's a lot of the green area close by, if you don't go in the developed direction you wouldn't notice the "endless sprawl". If you go out of Boston, it's suburbia in all directions for a long time. [Boston's another case of small city limits, but inner suburbs developed similar to the city]. Anyway, I said I didn't feel like San Francisco is sprawly as I mostly didn't go in those other directions (did you go in those directions when visiting?). Also being surrounded by water gives the illusion the city just ends. This is 14 miles by air, 23 miles or so by road
notice in between the city and from the view the right half is nearly undeveloped. It's more outside the metro area rather than in the midst. Not quite wilderness, but doesn't really feel less wild, than say, Mt. Greylock in the Berkshires. Looking north is even emptier
south but looking closer to the ocean
Spoiler
east Oakland there's a 10 mile wide stretch of preserved land before a few outer suburbs (Walnut Creek) Maybe midst of urban area, but it's large
Portland literally has a belt of forested hills on the south and west side of its downtown:
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