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Within its urban core, Philadelphia comes in 3rd by every metric after New York and Chicago and this is pretty much non-debatable. No other city comes close to Philly, with the exception of San Francisco.
Agree. These are the top 4 and I would put Boston at #5.
I think it's fair enough that we can agree with D.C as being #6 -
Like I keep saying it's all about the enormous size of LA that works against it in some areas.
But it's also what makes LA unique from almost every other city in the country. It has it's cool palm tree beach areas and than it has the Central LA + Hollywood urban area.
Even from a big city feel level, LA feels bigger and busier than any other urban city in the top 5 besides maybe NYC. It literally has traffic everywhere 24/7 on it's streets and freeways and in the real world it's the only city in the U.S" next to New York that has a GDP of over $1trillion.
I think it's fair enough that we can agree with D.C as being #6 -
Like I keep saying it's all about the enormous size of LA that works against it in some areas.
But it's also what makes LA unique from almost every other city in the country. It has it's cool palm tree beach areas and than it has the Central LA + Hollywood urban area.
Even from a big city feel level, LA feels bigger and busier than any other urban city in the top 5 besides maybe NYC. It literally has traffic everywhere 24/7 on it's streets and freeways and in the real world it's the only city in the U.S" next to New York that has a GDP of over $1trillion.
It's apple's vs orange's at the end of the day.
I would not automatically put DC at #6. I would say #6 could be LA, Seattle, or DC.
I would not automatically put DC at #6. I would say #6 could be LA, Seattle, or DC.
I'm not seeing how it could be Seattle; while it has made impressive strides in recent years, I'm not seeing where it competes with the country's biggest classical urban cities at this point. LA is hard to categorize by traditional criteria and is just a uniquely-built major American city (and it shares some characteristics with Miami in this regard), but DC has a pretty clear-cut argument for ranking 6th and it's a pretty close 6th to be clear. It has the same classical built urban form as Philly, Boston, and SF but just a wee bit less intensively due to its status as the nation's planned capital city, lacking a significant industrial history.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyborg77
And That's because LA is 10x bigger than D.C
Take Central LA vs D.C and you'll get a totally different result.
DC is closer to the top 5 in urbanity, than LA and Seattle are to DC. Its really not a question of the top 6 tbh. The only city out West at or exceeding DC's level of urbanity is San Francisco. Central LA is not built like DC, or Chicago, or Boston, etc. DC has downright neighborhoods or streets that would fit in Chicago or Brooklyn without much fanfare or noticing much difference. DC has a larger downtown urban radius of consistent buildings above 10 stories than any city not named Chicago or Manhattan, and the most ridden heavy rail subway transit after MTA. DC is about to surpass Philadelphia in density this decade. As mentioned above it's only slightly behind the others in top 5, there's not some drastic urbanity gap. I'd actually place DC last but on the same tier, at least with SF, Bos, Philly. LA and Seattle would be top of the next tier.
Last edited by the resident09; 01-01-2021 at 07:27 AM..
No way! That is your opinion. Again, a lot of this comes down to how "urban" is being defined. At its peak core downtown, LA and Seattle are both more urban than DC. Now DC extends more urban density over a longer continuous stretch, so in the end they balance out and they are about equal. There is no large gap. And if you consider than many nodes that LA has outside of the downtown core (which are officially still "LA" and not suburbs), an argument can be made for LA being #6.
I'm not seeing how it could be Seattle; while it has made impressive strides in recent years, I'm not seeing where it competes with the country's biggest classical urban cities at this point. LA is hard to categorize by traditional criteria and is just a uniquely-built major American city (and it shares some characteristics with Miami in this regard), but DC has a pretty clear-cut argument for ranking 6th and it's a pretty close 6th to be clear. It has the same classical built urban form as Philly, Boston, and SF but just a wee bit less intensively due to its status as the nation's planned capital city, lacking a significant industrial history.
Here is a clip of downtown Seattle in the peak of COVID, so it is completely empty. But imagine this with hustle and bustle of people. I have been to downtown Seattle and it is extremely urban in the core. And it spreads out a good distance.
Again, I will agree that DC's urban area is more continuous than Seattle's, but in the peak of downtown, I would put Seattle slightly above DC. That is why I said, I would consider DC, LA, and Seattle about even.
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^^^ whether it's a gap or not, DC is the clear 6th most urban city. I have friends in LA who will attest to this. It's not a tie. Only C-D have I heard such a thing. Seattle has come a long way, but it's not "as urban" as Washington DC as a city, sorry.
That "peak" of urbanity you posted in the video of Seattle looks like Midtown Atlanta no cap.
Last edited by the resident09; 01-01-2021 at 10:02 AM..
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