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.
Philly for sure, DC's structural density is somewhere between Chicago and Los Angeles. DC is the least structurally dense of NYC, Baltimore, Philadelphia or Boston even if it has higher pockets or nicer in some areas. It has European boulevard wide style streets without any of the smaller alleyways and walkways to go with them.
Currently DC has one census tract in the mid 60,000 ppsm range and another at about 45,000 ppsm and most range from 5,000 ppsm in the business dominated areas to about 30,000 ppsm in the denser more residential areas of the core.
Outside of DC's core the density seems to range from a little over 25,000 ppsm to a few tracts around 2,000 ppsm.
Philly seems to remain at or above 20,000 ppsm over a much larger area. Philly also has a peak census tract in the mid 60,000 range and has many census tracts in the central areas around 40,000 ppsm and up which cover a much larger area than DC's do.
Obviously population density is not everything but Philly's row houses cover a much larger area than DC's which start to die out and turn into detached single family homes before leaving the city limits in many areas. Also like DC Philly has many inner suburbs that are very high density.
The census done prior to 2010 is pretty outdated now in 2013 for a city that has seen so much growth in the last three years much less what it will be in 2020. D.C. has built and is still building so many units in the core area that you will see census tracts in the upper 80,000's people per square mile in 2020. I'm talking thousands of housing units in some of the core census tracts. That will obliterate the 2010 data. If you take a look at the amount of construction taking place in the core, it's pretty easy to see that D.C. will have a core density that is pretty high.
Philly may be more structrually dense than D.C. now, but I doubt that will remain the case. D.C.'s structural intensity is moving at lightning pace right now:
I gave an example of the NOMA neighborhood above, I will give you another example of a different neighborhood.
Maybe so, I was thinking it was a little more so, guess not.
I guess structurally dense of the big cities we usually talk about I'd rank them Boston/Philly tie, NYC, SF, Chicago, LA, DC off top of my head.
I don't think "structural density" is a very intuitive concept. Most people walking down an average DC street would assume that the city is structurally denser because of the appearance of the built environment. Los Angeles, however, may have more actual units in the same area despite a built environment that appears less dense and walkable. When a lot of regular people say "density," they are thinking of an urban format that's similar to New York, Paris or London rather than a technical computation that simply divides the number of units by the land area.
I'm pretty sure DC passed LA and Philly on structural density about 30 minutes ago. In about 5 hours it will probably be above NYC.
Lol!!
The time people waste trying to boost their city is hilarious.
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.
