Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Snapshot of transit/walking in different neighborhoods.
Zip Code 11205 (Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, NY)
Transit share - 61.4%
Walk commuters - 12.4%
Bike commuters - 6.1%
SOV commuters - 10.8%
No vehicle - 67.9%
Median HHI - $44,688
Zip Code 19147 (Bella Vista, Philadelphia)
Transit share - 24.5%
Walk commuters - 19.4%
Bike commuters - 11.2%
SOV commuters - 31.2%
No vehicle - 35.8%
Median HHI - $60,400
Zip Code 20009 (Dupont Circle/Adams Morgan/Columbia Heights, DC)
Transit share - 42.1%
Walk commuters - 18.9%
Bike commuters - 7.2%
SOV commuters - 22.0%
No vehicle - 44.5%
Median HHI - $88,624
Zip Code 90004 (Koreatown, Los Angeles)
Transit share - 23.7%
Walk commuters - 2.0%
Bike commuters - 1.6%
SOV commuters - 57.1%
No vehicle - 19.3%
Median HHI - $37,976
Zip Code 90028 (Hollywood, CA)
Transit share - 18.1%
Walk commuters - 10.3%
Bike commuters - 3.8%
SOV commuters - 53.7%
No vehicle - 26.3%
Median HHI - $30,953
Zip Code 60614 (Lincoln Park, Chicago)
Transit share - 41.0%
Walk commuters - 6.5%
Bike commuters - 5.0%
SOV commuters - 35.9%
No vehicle - 30.2%
Not everybody who lives in Hollywood or K-Town works in place with Metro so it's really hard to get a sense how transit share means a neighborhood is more or less walkable. K-town has a train but it only goes east so most people are going to drive if they live west. You can still do most necessary activities without a car in those neighborhoods.
Not everybody who lives in Hollywood or K-Town works in place with Metro so it's really hard to get a sense how transit share means a neighborhood is more walkable. K-town has a train but it only goes east so most people are going to drive if they live west. You can still do most necessary activities without a car in those neighborhoods.
I don't think the stats reflect so much on walkability as they do one's ability to live entirely without an automobile. That's sort of the chief lifestyle distinction between NYC and every other city in America. It's also some indication of rush hour pedestrian volume.
From a simplified sense in that Phoenix's core has sidewalks therefore people can walk, yes, agreeable.
From a more complex sense in that the walkability is a function of pedestrian friendliness, urban build (wall-to-wall structural density), stacked amenities accessible by foot, and there being a destination per se, absolutely not.
Downtown Phoenix has a few walkable blocks, the most urban intersection in Downtown being Washington and 1st Avenue. From there about 3-4 blocks in any direction is about peak urbanity and walkability in Phoenix's downtown core. Likewise, Midtown Phoenix also has a few blocks, 3-4 there as well, that would characteristically be alright in walkability. You'll never get an urban wall-to-wall build in Downtown or Midtown Phoenix, which completely separates it from Atlanta/Houston/Dallas/Miami type of Sunbelt city, where their downtowns actually do have wall-to-wall build to a pretty decent extent.
The reality to the Phoenix area though is that the most walkable places in Greater Phoenix are in fact not in the city's core but instead in Tempe and Scottsdale. Old Town and Downtown Scottsdale and Downtown Tempe. In both cases, there are more destinations to walk to, the urban fabric is more cohesive, there is more pedestrian vibrancy, and finally far more amenities to actually walk to than Downtown Phoenix or Midtown Phoenix or anywhere else in the core of the city of Phoenix.
In that sense, I'd argue that while yes, from a simplified "there are sidewalks, so walk" perspective a few areas in the core of the city of Phoenix are walkable but the most pedestrian friendly areas in Greater Phoenix is actually not in the core of the city, but instead in Scottsdale and Tempe.
I don't think the stats reflect so much on walkability as they do one's ability to live entirely without an automobile. That's sort of the chief lifestyle distinction between NYC and every other city in America.
yeah, but this topic is about cities outside the top 5.
I think everybody knows that LA doesn't have the metro access cities in the top 5 do. It's expanding and all but It wouldn't be able to cover every part of the city. What I will say that it is doing a pretty good job of hitting the most dense sections and one day you'll be able to live in K-town and get to UCLA or Beverly Hills or wherever west without a car. Right now if you wanted to do that you could take a bus but most people don't like taking the bus if they already have a car.
yeah, but this topic is about cities outside the top 5.
I didn't mean to drag NYC into the discussion. I meant that one of the hallmarks of the most urban cities in the world--Paris, London, NYC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.--is the ability to move about easily without a personal vehicle.
I didn't mean to drag NYC into the discussion. I meant that one of the hallmarks of the most urban cities in the world--Paris, London, NYC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.--is the ability to move about easily without a personal vehicle.
Yes, those cities also have much more robust transit systems than Los Angeles so that shouldn't be too surprising. LA's first metro rail line was finished in 1990 so they are playing catch up to every other city you named on that list. Remember the redline from DTLA to Hollwood only opened up in 2000.
So does that at all factor into our evaluation of what the 6th most urban city in the U.S. is?
Yes, somewhat. Doesn't take away the fact that because K-town has a low tranist share then it is somehow less urban when its pretty dense and has a walkscore of 91. Also, we are mostly talking about neighborhoods actually within Los Angeles and we have avoided talking about cities that Los Angeles surrounds like Santa Monica, DT Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, etc. Which have their own varying degrees of walkability.
Edit: West Hollywood has a 91 walkscore but it's not included when you anaylyze los angeles because it's a separate city even though it's surrounded and culturally apart of LA.
yeah, but this topic is about cities outside the top 5.
I think everybody knows that LA doesn't have the metro access cities in the top 5 do. It's expanding and all but It wouldn't be able to cover every part of the city. What I will say that it is doing a pretty good job of hitting the most dense sections and one day you'll be able to live in K-town and get to UCLA or Beverly Hills or wherever west without a car. Right now if you wanted to do that you could take a bus but most people don't like taking the bus if they already have a car.
Yes, that's probably the worst part of LA and why it's hard to slot in a particularly definitive ranking during these comparisons. LA simply does not have a transit system that keeps up with its massive layout. LA's (rail) mass transit system in the sense of where you can get to and the number of neighborhoods and people who have access to it are about as good as the Bay Area's or slightly better. However, LA's metro is so large that when considering the percentage of people who can use it for commute is quite bad. It's even worse given that your friends or your workplace might not necessarily make it so mass transit works out that well for you even if you live in a very walkable neighborhood. Even if your current workplace is accessible via mass transit, you can still run into a pretty annoying issue if you're looking for other jobs in the metro but don't want to limit yourself to just what is accessible as there are a good number of jobs that would be out of a convenient service area. It's really this and not so much the layout of streets that's the main reason to ding LA in a ranking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
So does that at all factor into our evaluation of what the 6th most urban city in the U.S. is?
Yes, it should. That's where the criteria of what we're using to define urban makes a huge difference. Los Angeles is built really differently so that fairly reasonable definitions of an urban city can have LA within the top 5 or can have LA much lower than that. However, neighborhoods in LA can still be among the most walkable outside NYC even with the large expanse of the metro that is not served by mass transit and LA has a pretty large number of neighborhoods that are very walkable. So with those two arguments, you end up placing LA based on how heavily you weigh one subset of the criteria over the other.
You can still have a very walkable neighborhood and great access to other walkable neighborhoods, but if you find yourself with a job that isn't accessible, then you'll still need a car for the commute. That's probably bearing out in the stats you've been posting when it comes to commute--even though Koreatown and large parts of Hollywood (Hollywood is a massive neighborhood) are very walkable, you still might have someone who has a job that is not accessible without a car but wants to do everything outside of the commute without a car.
Certainly LA's been improving on this measure (greater transit access to the multiple job areas from all directions), but this issue isn't going away very soon in the foreseeable issue. And while LA might have one of the most ambitious transit expansion plans and works under construction among US cities, it's simply a lot of area to cover and the US really isn't that great about transit expansion right now.
How'd you like your stay at the Line hotel and your experience in the surrounding neighborhood? Did you hop on to a bus, bike, or metro and go to Langer's in Westlake for their purported best pastrami in the world?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-25-2016 at 02:54 PM..
Yes, somewhat. Doesn't take away the fact that because K-town has a low tranist share then it is somehow less urban when its pretty dense and has a walkscore of 91. Also, we are mostly talking about neighborhoods actually within Los Angeles and we have avoided talking about cities that Los Angeles surrounds like Santa Monica, DT Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, etc. Which have their own varying degrees of walkability.
I think when people say cities like DC and Boston are "walkable," they mean that very large contiguous portions of the city are walkable, not dispersed neighborhoods.
I remember I asked munchitup last year if he could direct me to anywhere in Los Angeles where, over an area of only 1 sq. mile, I could walk in any given direction without seeing any type of noticeable change in the built environment (meaning it remains pedestrian-scaled like Hollywood Blvd). He couldn't. Is that still the case?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
