Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Boston is a major sprawlville metro, how it always seems to fly under the radar for sprawl is a mystery.
Boston is very dense...I'm not sure why you would think it is sprawl (it is, but that's beside the point) and LA isn't. Maybe you should check the definitions of sprawl as well.
Dense sprawl is still sprawl...I'm not sure what these other folks are talking about with the density thing as if it's not sprawl because it's dense. I think there is a lack of understanding about sprawl here.
What are you talking about?
From wikipedia:
Quote:
Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl is a multifaceted concept centered on the expansion of auto-oriented, low-density development. Topics range from the outward spreading of a city and its suburbs, to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, examination of impact of high segregation between residential and commercial uses, and analysis of various design features to determine which may encourage car dependency.[1] The term "sprawl" is most often associated with land use in the English-speaking world; in Continental Europe the term "peri-urbanisation" is often used to denote similar dynamics and phenomena.[citation needed]
Discussions and debates about sprawl are often made unclear by the uncertainty of the meaning associated with the phrase. For example, some commentators measure sprawl only with the average number of residential units per acre in a given area. But others associate it with decentralization (spread of population without a well-defined centre), discontinuity (leapfrog development, as defined below), segregation of uses, and so forth.
The BOS-WAS coridor is not nearly as sprawly as you think. You can't measure sprawl based on how many suburbs there are. Boston city limits are tiny. The most dense part of the metro is Somerville (an entire 4 miles from the center of town). A lot of areas began as towns hundreds of years ago and were not created out of the blue because of highways. Then whe nyou get outside of Boston, you run into Providence Rhode Island. Is Providence just Boston's sprawl? Please, give me a break. These are different cities. Doesn't sound like you've been to the east coast, honestly. You won't find sprawl monstrosities here on the same level as Texas, North Carolina, California or Atlanta. It's a different world.
I agree. LA shouldn't be on the list. They have around 12-13 million ppl in only around 4,000 sq miles. Anyone who says NY is a nut job. Everyone sees sprawl differently, but to me sprawl means medium density for long periods of time without a extreme high density core. To me the answers are easily Dallas, Houston, Miami and Atlanta. Atlanta is #1 for sure.
You do realize that Miami's Metro sprawl is closer to San Francisco's sprawl than it is to any other major Southern metro. Atlanta sprawls twice the size of Miami's!
Miami's metro is compacted between the Atlantic ocean & the Everglades to it's western boundary!
5.8 million people in about 1200 square miles is quite dense for a Sunbelt metro.
Well, I guess there are two ways to look at sprawl: (1) continuous adjacent metro areas that have multiple urban cores in which the suburban sprawl of one metro area is adjacent to the suburban sprawl of another adjacent metro area (i.e. BosWash), or (2) the suburban development that sprawls from a single metro area core.
So why doesn't the BosWash qualify as sprawl then? There really aren't any rural dead zones along the way.
No way, actually LA packs in the most people in its metro area than any other metro, so actually LA is one of the least sprawly metros by the way fixed it for you.
Clearly you don't know the definition of urban sprawl.
The BOS-WAS coridor is not nearly as sprawly as you think. You can't measure sprawl based on how many suburbs there are. Boston city limits are tiny. The most dense part of the metro is Somerville (an entire 4 miles from the center of town). A lot of areas began as towns hundreds of years ago and were not created out of the blue because of highways. Then whe nyou get outside of Boston, you run into Providence Rhode Island. Is Providence just Boston's sprawl? Please, give me a break. These are different cities. Doesn't sound like you've been to the east coast, honestly. You won't find sprawl monstrosities here on the same level as Texas, North Carolina, California or Atlanta. It's a different world.
Depending on the source, the NYC urban area spans anywhere from 3500-4100 sq miles of contiguous development. Boston, 1800-2000 sq miles. Philly, 2000 sq miles. They absolutely sprawl.
Boston is unique in that it is a bunch of small towns and villages and sometimes cities all within close enough proximity to still be considered "continuous development". It isn't just center-less suburbs or subdivisions stretching on for miles and miles like some other cities. Each node has a walkable historic center city, some of them are quite large.
Southern California is similar (in a completely different kind of way) in that it has a bunch of streetcar and rail hubs scattered all over the region. The big difference between a Boston and Los Angeles is the development in between these hubs is LA is inner-ring / street-car suburb dense throughout in-between while New England can get nearly uninhabited in between centers. Like Boston, nearly every LA suburb has a walkable downtown district, and some of them are quite large.
I personally don't think either of these come close to being in the top 5 sprawliest metros. They both have very strong cores (Downtown Boston - Cambridge - Back Bay / Wilshire / Santa Monica Corridor) and a unique development pattern.
IMO the only true "sprawlsvilles" of Southern California are parts of the South OC, Conejo / Santa Clarita Valley, parts of the Inland Empire and areas of the north San Fernando Valley. Everything else looks like most other American cities' inner ring suburbs.
Clearly you don't know the definition of urban sprawl.
I absolutely know what I'm talking about, did you not read the above definition? Sorry to break it to you but your beloved Chicagoland is one of the 3 worst sprawl monsters of this country
Not to say that LA doesn't as that is obvious, its just that Chicagoland is worse.
I absolutely know what I'm talking about, did you not read the above definition? Sorry to break it to you but your beloved Chicagoland is one of the 3 worst sprawl monsters of this country
Not to say that LA doesn't as that is obvious, its just that Chicagoland is worse.
I do think that Chicago has worse sprawl than Los Angeles because it is all based around one hub while Los Angeles has more hubs all over the region. Chicago is a monstrous city with lots of suburbs while Los Angeles is a mega-region with lots of suburbs.
I would say Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta are the real sprawl monsters of this country.
Is that a joke?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Dense sprawl is still sprawl...I'm not sure what these other folks are talking about with the density thing as if it's not sprawl because it's dense. I think there is a lack of understanding about sprawl here. 
