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But 4 and 5th aren't bad...but seriously....are you THAT ignorant of Chicago?
I don't put that much stock in walkscores because the list changes every year. A city one year could be ranked #3 and then the next year be ranked #6. Cities aren't going to change that much when it comes their walkability from one year to the next.
Walkscore has nothing to do with a comparison of street level urbanity.
Walkscore has an algorithm of "stuff" within theoretical walking distance. It doesn't measure anything about the quality of the street level environment.
Walkscore has nothing to do with a comparison of street level urbanity.
Walkscore has an algorithm of "stuff" within theoretical walking distance. It doesn't measure anything about the quality of the street level environment.
Chicago is walkable but cities like Philly and NYC are on a different level in my opinion. The city's infrastructure alone proves my point. Philly was designed to be a walkable city. I don't understand why some of the Chicago posters can't admit that there are some advantages Philly has over Chicago.
True-Chicago will always have better hot dogs and perhaps, for many- pizza.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly
Chicago is walkable but cities like Philly and NYC are on a different level in my opinion. The city's infrastructure alone proves my point. Philly was designed to be a walkable city. I don't understand why some of the Chicago posters can't admit that there are some advantages Philly has over Chicago.
Ok I'll take the bait...the main advantage Philly has is the compactness, the proximity of the Reading Market, Chinatown, Italian Market from Center City. Chicago's immense downtown takes a lot longer to meander out of.
But in no way does that make the city less urban or walkable. The entire city of Chicago from the South Loop on the south (and soon to sweep south through Chinatown down to Hyde Park), to Evanston on the North, to The far NW Side, all the way down to the West Loop is one contiguous highly urban, entirely safe and walkable area probably containing roughly the same population as all of Philadelphia.
None of these areas is the North Philadelphia anyone is referring to (or comparing to Southside Chicago). Even for SS Chicago, people there have examples of quaint, charming walkable villages, such as Hyde Park (N and E of university).
I don't think anyone would argue that North Philly isn't urban though. Urban isn't the same as nice. And it does have pedestrian activity. Broad and Erie might be run down as hell but it could be reasonably described as a bustling commercial strip. Same goes for somewhere like 52nd and Market in West Philly, probably even more so. I would imagine the South and West sides of Chicago have similar areas but I'm not familiar enough with the city to know what they would be.
After all, Staten Island is almost entirely detached single-family housing - functionally a suburb. Over half of the land of Queens is also essentially suburban, along with a number of neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn, and a few in the outer portions of the Bronx.
In contrast Philly is almost all rowhouses. Northwest Philly has a lot of older detached housing, along with a few neighborhoods in West Philly, like Overbrook Farms and Wynnfield. And weird suburban-style semi-attached is more common in the outer portions of the Northeast. But probably 80% of the land area devoted to residential housing stock is taken up by rowhouses.
First, the bolded is false, only one-third of housing in Staten Island is detached single-family. Another 50% or so is either attached single family or two family. But no, I don't consider Staten Island particularly urban.
Only 8% of housing stock in Philly is detached (25% for Chicago, 20% for Queens). Southern Brooklyn overall is nearly as dense as neighborhood in and around Center City Philadelphia. Bensonhurst is denser than any borough of London, let alone Philadelphia. A few parts of Brooklyn might count as "suburban" (mill basin for example) but they're a small portion of the area. A lot of Queens' land area is single family detached, but it's similar to Chicago's bungalow belt — small lot sizes. Eastern Queens is similar density wise to NW and NE Philly.
Philadelphia is a the smaller city and almost invariably feels like it. While raw numbers never tell the whole story, Lakeview in Chicago has a population density of over thirty thousand people per square mile, City Center in Philadelphia barely cracks 11 000.
Lol what?!
Where are you getting these numbers from? Philadelphia's entire city population density is over 11,000 ppsm... so how could Center City, Philadelphia's densest area, be just barely over 11,000? Center City's population density is well over 30,000 ppsm as of 2014 - I know Kidphilly had recent density numbers not too long ago. Philly has multiple tracts in Rittenhouse Square, Old City and parts of South Philly that reach over 60,000 ppsm.
None of these areas is the North Philadelphia anyone is referring to (or comparing to Southside Chicago). Even for SS Chicago, people there have examples of quaint, charming walkable villages, such as Hyde Park (N and E of university).
The way you made it sound did sound like everything North of Center City though lol. Even talking about North Philadelphia, Fairmount is a neighborhood in North Philadelphia, so is Northern Liberties. And a lot of Lower North Philly especially along the North Broad corridor is improving pretty rapidly. Neighborhoods like Spring Arts, Poplar, Francisville, Brewerytown, Templetown, Olde Kensington are seeing tons of development. Entire blocks are being rebuilt in these neighborhoods.
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