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I'm pretty sure it's dense at street level too. These are people we're talking about, after all. Let's compare the Los Angeles suburb to three cities in the big, bad, urban, streetsmart region known as BosWash. So gritty, so tough.
Boston + DC + Philadelphia Urbanized Areas 5,176 sq miles
Population: 14,209,356
Los Angeles + Inland Empire + Mission Viejo Urbanized Areas 2430 sq miles
Population: 14,667,343
Twice the land area, SMALLER population than Los Angeles. Holy stale bagels, Batman!
You do realize NYC is part of the Northeast so that cancels your argument. (btw, NYC is Gotham not LA) Also we get that LA is a larger suburban network 'sunbelt' city than a older established pedestrian city like Boston. It would be like saying when Houston passes Chicago it will be more urban simply because of population without taking other urban defining criteria into consideration like structural density, ratio development evolved from pedestrians vs auto etc..Chicago and Toronto seem to be more centralized. Like I said before LA lacks a Manhattan or a Loop. It is more overwhelmed by it's surrounding suburbs that feel more sunbeltish compared to what you find out East. In some aspects LA reminds me of South Florida with all the stucco and palm trees.
What a great post. I agree with all of it. LA is clearly the least urban city of the three. The only people who think it is a close match is Californians.
I agree as well. I've been to LA personally it's nothing like what you find out East. I just don't see it. I've never been to a city covered by so many freeways in my life like what LA has. Houston was bad but LA is America's king when it comes to clogged freeways and smog. However, to be fair it does have an interesting cultural twist to it. I need to make my way out to Santa Monica sometime. That pier has my curiosity.
I think street-walls in the purest sense are a little over-hyped on here, especially in residential neighborhoods. However I do think it is important for buildings to be relatively close to the sidewalk (setbacks of say 10-15 feet are fine) and form a "wall" in a more abstract sense. There may be some gaps between buildings, but as long as they are just alleyways I don't see a huge difference.
Buildings don't have to be connected to have streetwalls. And they can also be set back a reasonable distance from the street. The basic idea is that you have a built environment that's not interrupted by auto-centric land uses.
You do realize NYC is part of the Northeast so that cancels your argument. (btw, NYC is Gotham not LA) Also we get that LA is a larger suburban network 'sunbelt' city than a older established pedestrian city like Boston. It would be like saying when Houston passes Chicago it will be more urban simply because of population without taking other urban defining criteria into consideration like structural density, ratio development evolved from pedestrians vs auto etc..Chicago and Toronto seem to be more centralized. Like I said before LA lacks a Manhattan or a Loop. It is more overwhelmed by it's surrounding suburbs that feel more sunbeltish compared to what you find out East. In some aspects LA reminds me of South Florida with all the stucco and palm trees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanologist
I agree as well. I've been to LA personally it's nothing like what you find out East. I just don't see it. I've never been to a city covered by so many freeways in my life like what LA has. Houston was bad but LA is America's king when it comes to clogged freeways and smog. However, to be fair it does have an interesting cultural twist to it. I need to make my way out to Santa Monica sometime. That pier has my curiosity.
LA was already of a fairly large size in the streetcar era, and though its boundaries back then were also large, the majority of the population was centered in the central region in and around downtown and over to the westside. At that period, there were also several smaller cities in the region, some of which are now within LA or surrounded by LA. Due to that, the older, denser areas of LA are much larger and more extensive than cities of the sunbelt. Added to that is the massive demand as people moved to LA made land far more valuable so incentivized development of greater density in the core and more in demand regions over a longer stretch of time. It's not the same as other sunbelt cities (which would also likely move towards infill as demand grows) due to those larger older areas as well as the much denser infill.
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