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SF's core looks a lot more dense looking from the air. Philly's structural density falls off a lot outside of the downtown area. SF has a large line of 5-8 story buildings that radiate out from the financial core which makes it feel larger. Neighborhoods like Chinatown and Tenderloin create a very big city urban environment.
Basically, it takes longer to get to the low rise 2-3 story urban neighborhoods in SF than it does in Philly.
I disagree. Philadelphia looks more dense than San Francisco from air because Philadelphia has narrower streets and more narrow streets than San Francisco which in result makes Philadelphia look more dense from air
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Notice how you can see every building and basically every street in San Francisco's cluster of buildings (though it is still dense) while in contrast the view of Philadelphia you cannot see most of the buildings and streets looks and the buildings look like they are right up on each other due to the narrower streets of Philadelphia.
Seems like the SF vs. Philly issue has been debated to death and the general consensus is usually SF has more vibrant/busy core with lots of 5-8 story buildings, while Philly is built up with dense row houses over a much larger area.
I'm gonna say Boston, with SF right on its heels. Chicago and Philly are very walkable, but both have outer neighborhoods that aren't very walkable due to being much larger, more populous cities. Boston and SF benefit from being small.
Percentage-wise, its SF and Boston, because they're both 40-50 square miles.
But id say Chicago and Philly are more urban and walkable over a larger area, and theyre both 3-5x the size of SF and Boston.
Obviously city limits are irrelevant to the question. You can't judge a city's relative urbanity by applying arbitrary local rules on municipal incorporation.
SF, Boston, Philly (and DC, for that matter) are all about the same size. They're also in the same general ballpark of walkability. Chicago is in the ballpark too, but somewhat bigger, and has slightly different urban form (a bit less consistent), so tough to compare.
New York is the most urban city, but it's far from the most walkable. To me at least. Too many of the main streets are 60+ feet wide from curb to curb, including nearly all the major north-south avenues in Manhattan.
New York is the most urban city, but it's far from the most walkable. To me at least. Too many of the main streets are 60+ feet wide from curb to curb, including nearly all the major north-south avenues in Manhattan.
I would put a place like Philly as more walkable.
So you would call Paris not walkable, because the main avenues are even wider than Manhattan? Seems odd.
NYC is very walkable over an enormous area, and has street level vitality over a contiguous geography that is rarely matched on the planet. The vast majority of streets aren't wide; only the Manhattan north-south avenues are wide, and a few of the cross streets (about one of every 10-15 streets going east-west). But 90% of the streets in NYC are narrow for urban U.S. standards.
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