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How about compare it to Beverly Hills? A close-in affluent suburb of San Francisco, Chicago or Boston, let alone New York City would be much higher.
Brookline, MA; median household income $96k; per capita $65k; transit share 27%
Newton, MA; median household income $119k; per capita $64k; transit share 12%
Scarsdale, NY: median household income $233k; per capita $109k; transit share 40%
Beverly Hills, CA: median household income $86k; per capita $76k; transit share 5%
Of those two Boston area cities, Newton has a lot more in common with BH than Brookline. Brookline is only a few miles from Bostons core and for all intents and purposes is an extension of Kenmore/Mission Hill/Allston/Brighton.
I think its always going to be hard to compare with LA metro because it is so geographically large, has many highly-urban-for-suburb areas, and at the same time has little job centralization so transit is less useful for commuting.
I always do find it funny that we use commuting as the end all be all for how walkable an area is. Commuting is 10 trips a week - someone really needs to get on calculating a true transit share that calculates how people get around outside their commute.
My wife usually drives to work, but those are usually the only 10 times she gets in the car all week. Because she drives to work in another neighborhood, Am I supposed to believe my neighborhood is not very walkable?
Of those two Boston area cities, Newton has a lot more in common with BH than Brookline. Brookline is only a few miles from Bostons core and for all intents and purposes is an extension of Kenmore/Mission Hill/Allston/Brighton.
True, but I think Beverly Hills might be closer to Brookline density-wise. Walk score:
All three (well Scarsdale isn't that walkable in genreal) are dragged by very wealthy, large lot sections. There's a dense section of big apartment buildings adjacent to Scarsdale train station but just outside the borders (not coincidentally); if they were included Scarsdale's income numbers would be more similar to the other three.
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I always do find it funny that we use commuting as the end all be all for how walkable an area is. Commuting is 10 trips a week - someone really needs to get on calculating a true transit share that calculates how people get around outside their commute.
My wife usually drives to work, but those are usually the only 10 times she gets in the car all week. Because she drives to work in another neighborhood, Am I supposed to believe my neighborhood is not very walkable?
No, but all of them transit is a minority; in some Los Angeles area places it's closer to barely used. Scarsdale is clearly less walkable than Beverly Hills despite having a near majority commute transit share.
I actually did my grad degree in urban planning. LA is a fun place to be if you're interested in such issues because its undergoing so much change at the moment. Good luck with your academic pursuits!
Enjoy your trip in July, and feel free to DM me if you have any questions about the city. Also, I run a blog called Urbanize LA that you might find interesting, given your interests.
I'm considering that next step, as long as my GPA allows! My undergrad degree in Social Science and Community Development is probably too vague and too wide of a scope to land me an entry level job, but who knows! That's why I'm trying my hardest to get any kind of tangible "internship" experience before graduation.
And I actually visit that blog quite often! I think I found it on another thread here a while back, or at least found it by browsing other websites. I could literally sit online for hours reading stuff like that
I always do find it funny that we use commuting as the end all be all for how walkable an area is. Commuting is 10 trips a week - someone really needs to get on calculating a true transit share that calculates how people get around outside their commute.
That already exists to an extent. There's the National Household Travel Survey.
I don't think commuting is the "end all be all for how walkable an area is." However, I do think it says something about how people in cities (or in a given area) live. The same is true for % of car free households since those people have no choice but to make trips by foot, transit or bicycle.
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Originally Posted by munchitup
My wife usually drives to work, but those are usually the only 10 times she gets in the car all week. Because she drives to work in another neighborhood, Am I supposed to believe my neighborhood is not very walkable?
While commute shares may not tell you how many people walk to a neighborhood bar instead of drive, they do give us a picture of what rush hour pedestrian vibrancy is probably like. Rush hour is the one (or two) time of day where most people have to leave the house. If you live in a neighborhood with a high transit/walk share, then your neighborhood will likely seem much busier than a neighborhood where people are headed to a garage to get into a car.
No, but all of them transit is a minority; in some Los Angeles area places it's closer to barely used. Scarsdale is clearly less walkable than Beverly Hills despite having a near majority commute transit share.
I think that transit share, % of car free households, and median HHI go a long way in telling you how walkable a neighborhood is. I only factor in HHI because car ownership stats can have an upward bias in impoverished neighorhoods. Once you reach a certain threshold (like Harlem which is around 85% car free, I believe) income becomes a non-issue. But as a general matter, I think, the higher the rate of car ownership among more affluent residents, the less walkable an area probably is.
Which cities, and exactly how will DC surpass them? The term "core" can be a bit ambiguous and subjective.
The core of D.C. is about 20 sq. miles. It is shaped by the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers to the south and east, Georgetown to the west, and Petworth/Mt. Pleasant/Adams Morgan to the north. The building boom taking place in this area is what the media outlets continue to report on. Entire blocks are being torn down and redeveloped.
The population density and structural density in this area is increasing at unprecedented levels. I don't know when full build-out will happen, however, D.C. is building up over a much larger distance than many other cities because downtown has height limits. This is why many of D.C.'s residential neighborhoods are beginning to resemble downtown neighborhoods.
I think that transit share, % of car free households, and median HHI go a long way in telling you how walkable a neighborhood is. I only factor in HHI because car ownership stats can have an upward bias in impoverished neighorhoods. Once you reach a certain threshold (like Harlem which is around 85% car free, I believe) income becomes a non-issue. But as a general matter, I think, the higher the rate of car ownership among more affluent residents, the less walkable an area probably is.
Agreed. Also, what are the city's zoned parking requirements, how many buildings are being built targeting affluent renters or owners without providing on-site or covered parking (difficult to measure but can be tracked), and for buildings that do provide parking - what is the cost? Usually there are a lot of correlating data points here, but not all are easy to track, per se.
I think HHI is also an interesting point - very wealthy neighborhoods with very high density are usually found in very urban cities. To add further, very wealthy neighborhoods with high alternative mode shares (and perhaps that even includes using car services) indicates that rich people are living in multi-housing and not driving alone to work in their Mercedez/Lexuses. In cities that aren't quite as urban, it's not so common to find very wealthy people living on top of each other or using anything other than their own car to get to work.
To further drive home the point about the top 5, you find some of this country's wealthiest people/neighborhoods in some of the most dense parts of these cities:
UES/UWS/Tribeca/Grammercy Park/just about all of Manhattan
Gold Coast/River North/Lincoln Park
CBD (now)/Nob Hill/Russian Hill/Pacific Heights
Back Bay/Beacon Hill
Center City/Society Hill
In DC one could argue Georgetown and is it Mass Ave area that is quite wealthy?
You don't have that extreme/old money dynamic right in the CBD/core in Seattle, and you certainly don't in LA.
In DC one could argue Georgetown and is it Mass Ave area that is quite wealthy?
Georgetown probably has lower transit shares than more central parts of the city. Dupont and Logan Circle are very affluent and both have high walk shares. In Logan, I want to say that 60%+ of commuters walk to work and around 60% of households don't own a car.
All three (well Scarsdale isn't that walkable in genreal) are dragged by very wealthy, large lot sections. There's a dense section of big apartment buildings adjacent to Scarsdale train station but just outside the borders (not coincidentally); if they were included Scarsdale's income numbers would be more similar to the other three.
No, but all of them transit is a minority; in some Los Angeles area places it's closer to barely used. Scarsdale is clearly less walkable than Beverly Hills despite having a near majority commute transit share.
Excuse my ignorance, but if you get in a car, drive to a train station and the take the train into Manhattan, do you count towards the transit share only, or is it sort of a 1+1 for transit and car commuting?
I think its always going to be hard to compare with LA metro because it is so geographically large, has many highly-urban-for-suburb areas, and at the same time has little job centralization so transit is less useful for commuting.
jpdivola listed LA and Miami as "Unrankable".
It is hard to compare LA to conventionally urban cities, because LA is its own beast.
BTW, I have seen another grouping. On another thread Las Vegas was put into its own "Oddball" group.
Last edited by Tim Randal Walker; 06-18-2015 at 11:13 AM..
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