Which North American downtowns/urban cores are the retail and restaurant density kings? (better, map)
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.
So I decided to do a comparison of density of stores and restaurants for select North American cities using Yelp. I searched number of stores by using the term "shopping", and number of restaurants using "restaurants". I set the distance at both "4 blocks" and "1 mile" using the checkboxes available, and moved the maps around the various downtowns (and Midtown Manhattan) trying to maximize the number.
This is very inexact, as there are some problems:
1. Some places are omitted (especially newer places)
2. Some places are counted twice under slightly different names
3. Some places long since closed are still included
There are additional problems by using "shopping" to search for number of stores:
1. Malls get an entry (we really only want an entry for each store within the mall, not the mall itself)
2. Things like weekend outdoor markets sometimes get an entry
3. Some things that aren't stores at all sometimes get an entry simply because they've been tagged with "Shopping" (like some companies)
Nonetheless, I think this is a good way to estimate the number of stores/restaurants in a given area. And I see no reason to think the problems would affect one city disproportionately more than another.
I compared the following areas. If anyone feels like adding more, go ahead. To keep it consistent though, do it the same as I did (search "shopping" and "restaurants" within a 4 block and 1 mile radius, and move the map around until youve maximized the count).
Here are the numbers. Below the numbers are screenshots of the maps, so you can see where the map was centred for each city to get the count. Im going to add more cities in the future.
Stores, 4 blocks:
New York City: 4200
San Francisco: 1075
Toronto: 889
Seattle: 758
Vancouver: 651
Boston: 570
Portland: 423
Denver: 296
Houston: 202
Dallas: 158
Minneapolis: 148
Restaurants, 4 blocks:
New York City: 797
San Francisco: 515
Toronto: 435
Boston: 418
Portland: 418
Seattle: 409
Vancouver: 403
Houston: 348
Dallas: 259
Denver: 238
Minneapolis: 230
Stores, 1 mile:
New York City: 13,405
San Francisco: 4514
Toronto: 4347
Vancouver: 2730
Boston: 2051
Seattle: 1575
Portland: 1521
Dallas: 962
Denver: 771
Houston: 710
Minneapolis: 523
Restaurants, 1 mile:
New York City: 5984
Toronto: 2658
San Francisco: 2647
Vancouver: 1554
Boston: 1532
Seattle: 1330
Portland: 1175
Dallas: 1002
Houston: 755
Denver: 702
Minneapolis: 568
Did you pull the maps back when you clicked on "4 blocks", because I noticed the Chicago "4 blocks" was a much much smaller area than the other screen shots. I looked at the other cities and it seems if you click "4 blocks" for them it's also a much smaller area than the screen shots listed. They're only around 25% of the size.
Actual distances are probably a better measure than blocks since block lengths aren't uniform. 16 square blocks in LA may be 36 square blocks in NYC. That's a huge difference.
Did you pull the maps back when you clicked on "4 blocks", because I noticed the Chicago "4 blocks" was a much much smaller area than the other screen shots. I looked at the other cities and it seems if you click "4 blocks" for them it's also a much smaller area than the screen shots listed. They're only around 25% of the size.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at. I did the "4 blocks" thing for Chicago, and compared the vertical distance of the map to Toronto and New York at "4 blocks" using this:
They were all around the same: between 0.5 and 0.6 miles.
I was able to max. out the Chicago "shopping" count at 859 results, centred at roughly the corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets. The vertical distance of the map is about 0.53 miles, the same as the vertical distance of the Toronto map at 4 blocks.
Actual distances are probably a better measure than blocks since block lengths aren't uniform. 16 square blocks in LA may be 36 square blocks in NYC. That's a huge difference.
"4 blocks" is an actual distance. It's obviously not 4 of that city's blocks. It's a set distance. Around 0.53 miles vertically. Did you even bother looking at the maps? If you had you'd have seen that it's the same distance for each city.
I did a rough measurement of the vertical distance of the maps of Toronto and Chicago using the Google Planimeter tool, and got 0.529 miles for Toronto, and 0.527 miles for Chicago. It's obviously an identical distance.
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.
