Philadelphia surpasses Chicago as the 2nd largest downtown in the US! (live, state)
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Some bait is not worth taking..... when intent has nothing to do with the thread. But Chicago's South Loop is booming and the West Loop to the United Center. All the neighborhoods north of downtown have desirability thru Evanston and last bastions of rough patches shrinking. Each revisit I note improvements and areas that look great even if a section is shady. That's a Big city for ya. But guess somebodies Cleveland they live now is better? Or Philly or DC .... they all have a rough spot or 2 also.
Some bait is not worth taking..... when intent has nothing to do with the thread. But Chicago's South Loop is booming and the West Loop to the United Center. All the neighborhoods north of downtown have desirability thru Evanston and last bastions of rough patches shrinking. Each revisit I note improvements and areas that look great even if a section is shady. That's a Big city for ya. But guess somebodies Cleveland they live now is better? Or Philly or DC .... they all have a rough spot or 2 also.
But guess somebodies doesn't live in Cleveland now is better...lol...whatever.
Now that lowly Philly has come up with its population growth in its central core area, Chicago posters are losing it as Philly takes the 2nd largest residential downtown title. LOL.
Chicago has a lot of issues to deal with these days but I assure you no one here is thinking about this. Philadelphia is rarely, if ever, mentioned around these parts. No one cares about the place or its' downtown population.
Take a walk a few miles west and south of the Loop in Chicago. Be sure to wear your body armor.
Also, your quaint walk north to Evanston will include Uptown and Rogers Park, not so quaint either. No one wants to hang out on Howard Street either.
Safety aside even if you did walk from downtown Chicago to Evanston you arent walking thru east coast urban. East coast + midwest urbanity are 2 different animals. After NYC - Philadlephia is the most' urban city in the USA imo.
Go to google maps and look up South side of Chicago and South Philly. South Side of Chicago is more comparable to the East coasts grittier inner ring suburbs.
Safety aside even if you did walk from downtown Chicago to Evanston you arent walking thru east coast urban. East coast + midwest urbanity are 2 different animals. After NYC - Philadlephia is the most' urban city in the USA imo.
Go to google maps and look up South side of Chicago and South Philly. South Side of Chicago is more comparable to the East coasts grittier inner ring suburbs.
You keep wanting to say Chicago is less dense? Posting East coast vs Midwest urbanity. In FRONTAGE nd LEVEL of GREEN YES.
But overall it has a higher density stat then Philly.
Philly - 11,233 per sq/mi.
Chicago - 11,868 per sq/mi.
Chicago's North Side is denser then Its Southside which has lost housing removed by blight.
The area of downtown Chicago to its north limit to Evanston is like 15 miles is some of its densest. It still has ALLEYWAYS behind every block and housing off main streets with standard setback for green.
Again, I'm talking scale. I listed 10 miles of continuous nice downtown neighborhoods running up the lake from the Loop. You can see the street views above or the urban density on the map I posted. Center City is wonderful dense... but you go a similar 10 miles in any direction and in 2 miles you are in a blighted neighborhood and in 10 miles you are well outside anywhere you would call urban. 10 miles (as the crow flies) takes you to places like Upper Darby, Abington and Cherry Hill. Like I said in my first post, Philly has about 9 sqm of contiguous nice urban neighborhoods... Chicago had 40+ sqm of this along lake from the South Loop through Lakeview... and you could argue all of the way through Evanston.
If you want to argue which feels more "urban", Philly vs Chicago, then it personal taste. Chicago has greater population density in its urban residential core, but that is due to taller buildings on a wider street grid. This gives a more grand type feel in terms of combining architecturally interesting high-rises with wide enough street spacing to see the buildings and the sky (as opposed to NYC , which can feel claustrophobic.) While Philly has a narrower street grid, which gives a more packed in feel, but has far less vertical density than the core of Chicago. If you want both a narrow grid and tons of highrises, then NYC is unmatched in the US.
But the original post is about downtown population. And unless you limit "downtown" to just the Loop (which is primarily office buildings) then Chicago has both more population in its CBD, faster population growth, more construction, more population density, more retail, more theaters, more restaurants... it is just bigger.
And if you are talking urban "city" living as opposed to limiting yourself to an arbitrary definition of "downtown", the non-blighted parts of Philly are much more geographically hemmed in (3X3 miles) as compared to Chicago- where the density "city living" residential areas spread for 10+ miles N-S and 3-5 miles E-W. Probably the most central urban residential neighborhood of Chicago probably where the 2nd City is located in Old Town (between Lincoln Park and top of the the Mag Mile)- and you can easily walk 5 miles N, 5 M south and 3 miles west and be in dense residential urban neighborhoods that are not blighted (and walk 5 blocks E and be on a beach.)
Philly's urban core is not on the same scale. As a comparison... if you had safe, highly dense urban neighborhoods extending in Philadelphia from the stadium complex to Manayunk then you would be talking the same scale of Chicago city living which extends from Edgewater to the South Loop. You can easily see the size of the non-blighted urban areas in Chicago as compared to Philly (Basically the green, non-blighted area in the urban core of Philly is tiny as compared to Chicago. Chicago and Philly both have huge problems with poverty and crime... but the different scale of the cities means that Chicago's non-blighted central core is many magnitudes larger than Philly. And the population density of much, if not all of this Chicago core is higher than Philly. I included the population density map to show how this entire area is densely urban residential (30K+/sqm), except for the large parks and ironically, the Lopp (which has doubled in pop since this map):
Chicago has to extend its CBD borders so it can generate more taxes; the city taxes food/beverage/hotels within its CBD at higher rates. The city and state are broke, as we all know. Chicago's defined CBD is taxed at a higher rate. The northern border looks like it's been extended from North Avenue to Armitage Avenue.
All this going on and on about Philly having the 2nd largest residential downtown population. I understand Chicago's insecurity having lived there for many years; it always has to have the tallest, biggest, or largest this or that. , Well its claim to have the tallest, biggest, or largest of anything is dwindling.
Now that lowly Philly has come up with its population growth in its central core area, Chicago posters are losing it as Philly takes the 2nd largest residential downtown title. LOL.
Philly has about 9 sqm of contiguous nice urban neighborhoods... Chicago had 40+ sqm of this along lake from the South Loop through Lakeview... and you could argue all of the way through Evanston.
Thats absurd. Pretty much everything from Girard Ave down to the Stadiums in South Philly is hyper urban walkable 4 Miles N-S
Delware River to west Philly would span 6 miles.
So thats 24 sq mil for Philly. And then Philadlephia has another 50 sq miles of classic street car neighborhods that Chicago has.
As far as Downtown Density? Center City's population density is 30,000 ppsq.mi. If you can provide written information stating that downtown Chicagos density is greater I am all ears.
"Center City District’s annual report the State of Center City 2015, we know that central Philadelphia now ranks second only to Midtown Manhattan when it comes to urban density".
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