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Los Angeles has much larger city limits which incorporate suburban areas and forested mountain areas. In the core Los Angeles is dramatically more dense than Seattle, and for a much larger total land area. For example, Central Los Angeles, which is 58 square miles, has a population of 850,000 and a density of 14k. Seattle has 200,000 less residents in 84 square miles. Add in dense areas on the Westside (Santa Monica, Sawtelle, Palms), Eastside (Highland Park, Lincoln Heights, Pasadena, Boyle Heights), South Los Angeles (Inglewood, Long Beach, South Central) and the Valley (Van Nuys, Panorama City, North Hollywood, Glendale) and Los Angeles is easily a lot more densely populated than greater Seattle.
Last edited by munchitup; 03-26-2015 at 11:23 AM..
I've spent most of my years on the east coast and ALL of my US family is based between Boston and FL. The people of SF, the feel of SF, the layout of SF, the functionality of SF, and the history of SF share a lot more in common with New York than LA. At the end of the day, SF is completely unique. But it's a poll between LA and NY. SF actually doesn't have all that much in common with LA, which might explain residents' animosity towards that city (lol).
I think San Franciscans that have animosity towards Los Angeles just don't realize how similar the cities actually are and mostly "hate" Los Angeles to boost their own self-worth.
At this point it seems that a lot of the qualities that San Francisco held over Los Angeles have been flipped. Most consider LA to now be the funkier, weirder, something-for-everyone, live-and-let-live city while San Francisco has turned into a tech-driven gentrification nightmare. I think San Francisco is an awesome city and the Bay Area is one of the best metros in the nation, but the pretentiousness of some Northern Californians is incredibly off-putting.
Outside of some urban design elements SF is definitely more like LA imo. Culture, history, politics, attitudes, etc..are definitely Californian and more LA-esque than anything on the East Coast.
I agree with this. SF is far more similar to LA than ... anything on the east coast, and particularly unlike Manhattan.
Why do people think SF looks like Manhattan? Dense? it is a whole different level. Manhattan is smaller than SF yet has twice the population. Skyline? Night and day, SF"s petty skyline is no comparison. Urban form? SF after all is 90% lowrise homes on the west and south, while Manhattan has very few of those. Lifestyle? Does SF has a heavy subway/cab culture? I don't think so.
When you actually walk on the street of San Francisco, it feels a very typical west coast city. The buildings look very similar to those in Los Angeles.
SF appears "dense" and walkable only because it has a very small political boundary. LA being 10 times larger (many people don't realize that) of course looks less dense on paper. but if you look at denser part of continuous 50 sq mi, it is not that different from San Francisco.
There is nothing remotely similar to Manhattan.
Last edited by botticelli; 03-27-2015 at 06:23 AM..
Los Angeles has much larger city limits which incorporate suburban areas and forested mountain areas. In the core Los Angeles is dramatically more dense than Seattle, and for a much larger total land area. For example, Central Los Angeles, which is 58 square miles, has a population of 850,000 and a density of 14k. Seattle has 200,000 less residents in 84 square miles. Add in dense areas on the Westside (Santa Monica, Sawtelle, Palms), Eastside (Highland Park, Lincoln Heights, Pasadena, Boyle Heights), South Los Angeles (Inglewood, Long Beach, South Central) and the Valley (Van Nuys, Panorama City, North Hollywood, Glendale) and Los Angeles is easily a lot more densely populated than greater Seattle.
Exactly.
That's what many people don't account for - that LA is physically a very large city - 10 times the size of San Francisco. So comparing the density directly makes little sense, and doesn't represent the actually life experiences in both places.
Like you said, central Los Angeles, between say Hollywood Blvd, Doheny, 10 and 5 is about 20% bigger than San Francisco only, and with similar number of residents. So the density is not as great as statistical number suggests.
To put it another way, to expand SF's boundary to LA's size. it would include the entire San Mateo country to its south
Los Angeles: 470 sq mi: population: 39 million
San Francisto: 47 sq mil: population: 840k
San Mateo county: 440 sq mi: population: 750k
I think people typically think of SF and NY as having similar skylines, but they really don't. .
Who thinks SF and NY have similar skylines?
NYC has one of the top two skylines in the world. SF can't even crack top 30. Even Bangkok or Seattle's skyline is more impressive than San Francisco. You mean this is similar to NYC?
NYC has one of the top two skylines in the world. SF can't even crack top 30. Even Bangkok or Seattle's skyline is more impressive than San Francisco. You mean this is similar to NYC?
Eh. I thought San Francisco is more impressive than Seattle. Not a huge difference.
Sure the Downtown area of SF was extremely dense and walkable (not the norm either for a West Coast city) but not on the same level as Manhattan. Like others have said SF isn't even as dense as Brooklyn, let alone Manhattan. So no, SF is more like L.A. in this regard, but not fully.
Can we vote neither? If I had to pick, LA, obviously, as they are both West Coast cities with semi-similar architecture, density, geography, climate, attitude and overall feel. But SF feels distinct from both NYC and LA (and why Manhattan, which is even less similar to SF than NYC overall?).
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