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That is just fundamentally not true. The difference between cities built mostly from 1800-1875 look very different than cities built mostly from 1875-1930.
Lowell, Massachusetts has more people living in 20,000+ ppsm census tracks than Cleveland. Despite the latter being much larger. Because Streetcars changed how cities were built as much as cars did. living on 1/4 acre lot SFH became doable when streetcars allowed people to live 3-4 miles from work instead of the 1-1.5 mile walking limit early American mill towns like Lowell or Lawrence did.
NYC, Philly, Boston, New Orleans & Baltimore were all 1-2 centuries old by the time the first street car ran in NYC in 1832.
Yes, Chicago, SF, LA all were built around the street cars, but street cars still need high levels of density and walkability to function when no car exist to get to them in the first place. It’s why Chicago & SF look vastly more similar to NYC or Boston than they do Dallas, Houston or any other sunbelt city.
NYC, Philly, Boston, Baltimore & New Orleans were all 1-2 centuries old by the time the first street car ran in NYC in 1832.
Chicago, SF, LA etc.. all were built around the street cars, but street cars still need high levels of density and walkability to function when no car exist to get to them in the first place. It’s why Chicago & SF look vastly more similar to NYC or Boston than they do Dallas, Houston or any other sunbelt city.
Electric Streetcars, Horse drawn streetcars were only marginally faster than walking. Electric streetcars came about in the late 1800s. You can see the difference between Detroit, Minneapolis, and Cleveland (and honestly LA) and cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Boston (and even Chicago which largely was built prior to electric streetcar)
The Streetcar changed the city as much as the car.
Also every city in the US mostly dates from the early/mid 1800s and after. That is also true of most European cities.
Philly is not by and large a 300 year old city, it mostly a 150 year old city.
I use the word "amenities", which among other things includes places that could be considered vibrant. Having access to restaurants and entertainment is very much part of being urban imo.
As are local laundry’s mats, the random liquor store, barbershops or grocer to the average working man or a cities poorer residents.
It’s about the entire cityscape not just their best 3-4 square miles of downtowns/main arteries
Electric Streetcars, Horse drawn streetcars were only marginally faster than walking. Electric streetcars came about in the late 1800s. You can see the difference between Detroit, Minneapolis, and Cleveland (and honestly LA) and cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Boston (and even Chicago which largely was built prior to electric streetcar)
The Streetcar changed the city as much as the car.
Also every city in the US mostly dates from the early/mid 1800s and after. That is also true of most European cities.
Philly is not by and large a 300 year old city, it mostly a 150 year old city.
Yeah I forgot Philly leapfrogged Baltimore back in 1850-60 when it went from 120k to 560k, so no argument there.
Agreed. And to be fair, I didn't find Seattle residents to be especially "vibrant". They appeared very low key and understated to me.
Low key and vibrant aren’t antonyms. Vibrant doesn’t mean flashy. By vibrant I mean Seattle has a huge number of independent and locally developed stores and restaurants for a city of its size, and many unique neighborhood commercial strips. The stores and restaurants also typically have way later hours than places like Boston. There’s also a steady amount of pedestrian traffic and the buses are frequent and convenient.
If you want to be impressed by a place that can maintain structural/population density across a swath of land that you can practically throw a frisbee across, go ahead. To each their own.
If you want some good comedy go back through those threads where San Francisco gets ranked number 2 and look at how the people voting for SF answer questions about how it would warrant such a high ranking. How many hundreds of times have you heard SF analogized to "Manhattan?" East coast bias.
What D.C. does have: A wholly residential area with nothing but housing that makes up a signficant chunk of their city limits.
What D.C. does not have: A single skyscraper in their entire metropolitan area.
If the car had not been invented, the streetcar probably would have, which is where cities in Southern California derive their urban form from, not cars as 99.9% of the general public believes.
As are local laundry’s mats, the random liquor store, barbershops or grocer to the average working man or a cities poorer residents.
It’s about the entire cityscape not just their best 3-4 square miles of downtowns/main arteries
Common sense
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