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This makes no sense though. Cities like New Orleans and Charleston are tight, historic and compact, yet they are nowhere NEAR as urban as Chicago because of just that, SCALE. Boston is no different. I could also flip this and say several cities have even NARROWER and concrete areas than Boston and are more urban, because that is your logic here. Chicago isn't just a *little* more urban, it is a LOT more urban, because as you say, it is over a much larger scale. Boston in many measures has an edge on Chicago, and for many is the preferable city to live, higher QOL, etc etc. Definitely not more urban though. Chicago is a more modern version of urbanism, Boston is pre industrial age in many places? If they are similar density, yet one is much larger... which is more urban? Answer is obvious to me. NYC is both on a level which is more packed + it is larger.
This difference is New Orleans really only has a couple urban neighborhoods which even they don't have the density of Boston/Chicago, and then it drops off quickly. There is no major transit system, no major shopping street. The outter neighborhoods don't have density and commercial strips you find in Boston or Chicago.
Yes, Chicago is a lot bigger. But, I wouldn't necessarily say it is more urban than Boston.
Compare Chicago to NYC, Paris, Tokyo, etc and it gets blown out of the water on every conceivable metric of urbanism (density, transit usage). There are no Manhattan-style neighborhoods in Chicago.
Compare Chicago to most US cities and it blows them out of the water.
Compare it to Boston and it is debatable in many categories. Chicago is bigger than Bos,Phil,SF. But, the lifestyle is qualitatively similar.
Both are one of the few cities you can live in without a car, but neither is as easy to live car free as NYC, Paris. The densities are similar w/ lots of areas that are dense by US standards, but aren't at mega city levels. Lots of rowhouse and apartment buildings. But, not the super dense apartments are far as the eye can see feel of the mega cities.
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I guess Annapolis is as urban as Boston because, even though it is much much smaller, it has "segments" that are just as urban as any street in Boston.
*Size DOES matter when it comes to urbanity. Boston is not as urban as NYC, even though it may have some streets that are narrower and more dense than a street you may find in NYC. Boston is not as urban as Chicago overall, because Chicago has nonstop urbanity for miles and miles more than Boston has. Strange this thread has turned into population counts during the school year vs. when school is out, and how narrow or wide streets are... there is more to urbanity than that.
I guess Annapolis is as urban as Boston because, even though it is much much smaller, it has "segments" that are just as urban as any street in Boston.
*Size DOES matter when it comes to urbanity. Boston is not as urban as NYC, even though it may have some streets that are narrower and more dense than a street you may find in NYC. Boston is not as urban as Chicago overall, because Chicago has nonstop urbanity for miles and miles more than Boston has. Strange this thread has turned into population counts during the school year vs. when school is out, and how narrow or wide streets are... there is more to urbanity than that.
but Boston doesn't have a street thats urban like Annapolis, it has entire areas. and when people count for Chicago for the inner 48 sq Miles they are using areas that add up to the largest population. The City of Boston was not made like that, as Boston counldn't annex the more develped areas like Cambridge, Somerville or Chelsea, even though they are 1-3 miles from Downtown, and annexed areas like Hyde Park about 7 miles from downtown.
I guess Annapolis is as urban as Boston because, even though it is much much smaller, it has "segments" that are just as urban as any street in Boston.
*Size DOES matter when it comes to urbanity. Boston is not as urban as NYC, even though it may have some streets that are narrower and more dense than a street you may find in NYC. Boston is not as urban as Chicago overall, because Chicago has nonstop urbanity for miles and miles more than Boston has. Strange this thread has turned into population counts during the school year vs. when school is out, and how narrow or wide streets are... there is more to urbanity than that.
I guess in theory if Annapolis had (%) of subway usage that rivaled Chicago and Boston, and had large sections of the city with densities of over 20,000/pps, had neighborhood business districts/major downtown shopping, and core neighborhoods with densities of 35,000k like Chicago, I would consider it as urban, just smaller.
But it doesn't.
Hoboken, NJ on the other hand... I would say is just as urban as Chicago or Boston (if not more so), despite being much smaller.
At the end of the day, I think there is a difference between size and urbanity. That's totally subjective, others can disagree.
See above regarding students -- whatever the number is, it's part of the official tally. Now the introduction of day population numbers is interesting, and I don't think anybody responded to this, but if we consider it for analyzing density, Boston definitely gets an edge from this data set. The day time commuter population adds 626,000 people to Boston, basically doubling the size and density. Put another way, it's about the same number of extra people as Chicago gets, but in a much smaller area.
Huh? I was stating that the roughly 4 square mile area of downtown Chicago has around 1,000,000 people working, walking around and going to school there every day. Almost none of those people live downtown, they live in outlying areas of the city and other cities in the Chicago metro.
I'm not sure what the 626,000 people represents. According to stats Boston's daytime population increases by around 240,000 people to a total poulation of 950,000 people in the 50 square miles.
Chicago has around 975,000 people living in its central 50 square miles as a nighttime population, although almost none of them live in that central downtown area that swells by 1,000,000 during the daytime. Many of those people downtown during the day will come from north side neighborhoods, but hundreds of thousands come from the suburbs, and hundreds of thousands from elsewhere in the huge city of Chicago.
I guess I don't see how Boston has any edge over Chicago in the daytime unless you're counting density of the entire 240 square miles of Chicago to the 50 square miles of Boston. Apples to apples Chicago packs a lot more people into the downtown area as well as the core 50 square miles of Chicago compared to Boston.
There are a ton of buildings in the central area to squish people
Last edited by Chicago60614; 02-01-2012 at 06:04 PM..
I guess Annapolis is as urban as Boston because, even though it is much much smaller, it has "segments" that are just as urban as any street in Boston.
I strongly disagree that Annapolis has segments that are just as urban as any street in Boston, its actually not even close.
Boston, on the other hand has neighborhoods that are just as urban as Chicago's most urban neighborhoods (Near North, Wicker Park, etc...).
Chicago is obviously larger than Boston, but its peak "urbaness" isnt any more urban than Boston's IMO, there is just much more of it.
People ALL THE TIME on this forum claim that San Francisco is more "urban" than LA, despite that San Francisco is much smaller, has fewer tall buildings, (and the only reason why LAs overall population density is only 7,000 is becuase there are wild, unpopulated sections of mountains as well as the HUGE port that bring it down). Now, which one is more urban is not the point of this thread, we're not comparing San Fran and LA,
but . . .
If people claim that San Francisco is more urban than LA, I think at least one can claim that Boston is about as urban as Chicago. Especially because LA has more urban inner suburbs. Chicago doesn't have Cambridge-Chelsea-Somerville the way that Boston metro does.
And Boston population density (which is about the same as Chicago) is more uniform.
Chicago proper population density varies from Manhattaneque downtown to suburban and postindustrial closer to the edge of the city proper.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by btownboss4
Boston counldn't annex the more develped areas like Cambridge, Somerville or Chelsea, even though they are 1-3 miles from Downtown, and annexed areas like Hyde Park about 7 miles from downtown.
ok...thats fine.. its not Boston's "fault" that it is smaller in area, but it's a fact. but to say that size is not a factor in urbanity at all is foolish.
ok...thats fine.. its not Boston's "fault" that it is smaller in area, but it's a fact. but to say that size is not a factor in urbanity at all is foolish.
No i wasn't saying that I said, you are drawing borders for Chicago to reach the greatest Population, try drawiing a 48 sq Mile city with all the land trailing off to the south and west (7X8) with Downtown in the NE corner., and areas a mile North of Downtown in a seperate town.
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