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.
While Miami has crazy drivers, it has fairly decent walkablity in certain patches. Neighborhoods like Allapattah, Wynwood, Little Havana, Little Haiti, Design District, Flagami, Overtown, Coconut Grove, and Coral Way don't really exist in the rest of the South. Walk around any of those locales, and you'll see people riding bikes, and walking to the local Cafe, Liquor store, art gallery, etc.
While wide streets (in say little havana) may hurt the walkability of Miami neighborhoods the concentration of amenities absolutely helps. There is just a little shop for every conceivable need within walking distance for most of her residents.
This is what posters here fail to realize, and you can tell them right away the self-styled experts on Miami. Most of them have only done South Beach if the Miami area at all.
While wide streets (in say little havana) may hurt the walkability of Miami neighborhoods the concentration of amenities absolutely helps. There is just a little shop for every conceivable need within walking distance for most of her residents.
This is what posters here fail to realize, and you can tell them right away the self-styled experts on Miami. Most of them have only done South Beach if the Miami area at all.
Exactly. Walk ability also has to account for access and amenities. What's the point of a neighborhood having narrow streets, and low car activity, when there's nothing to walk to?
^^^Peachtree in some stretches worth a few blocks *may be* more urbane than any single street in Houston. I think you'd be impressed with DT Houston's transformation, though, and there are stretches of a few streets there that definitely give Peachtree through Midtown/Downtown a run for its money.
But speaking of Peachtree, it's a classic study on Atlanta. It's mildly urbane/pedestrian/commercially intense through a few blocks in DT and maybe 6-7 blocks in Midtown. But even in Midtown you have blocks taken up by grass, a Federal Reserve, a few churches, corporate plazas, the FDA, and parking lots.
What's notable, though, is that between DT and MT alone is a *huge* dead zone that is quite sketchy, actually. Sketchy enough with one homeless shelter in particular that it killed the single largest office investment in the city's history and emptied out the city's tallest building of tenants.
On the other side of 14th and going all the way up into Buckhead, you have very sporadic walkability at best. No meaningful transit trunk, and forest/<3,000 ppsm density a block off the road, not to mention the road itself curves and winds around, and is lined with high end gated condo complexes and multi-level strip malls set back from the road with parking in front. Houston, in contrast, has several main roads going in all 4 directions from its downtown, in straight, gridded fashion. It can have Peachtree building level intensity in a more walkable, connected format, with other arteries of similar fashion radiating off of those roads perpendicularly, and denser neighborhoods in between, rather than curvaceous forestland filled with ravines and uninhabited space.
I like Atlanta better than Houston and would prefer it over Houston. For a variety of other factors, having Midtown included. But Houston has so many inherent advantages over Atlanta's built form, and this will eventually come to play out in noticeable fashion.
Urbanity in Midtown Atlanta has definitely spread away from Peachtree. Just look at the units being built at the moment in Midtown...most of them are not on Peachtree, but on Spring and West Peachtree. Midtown Atlanta is still 2-3 decades ahead of downtown Houston and it's not like Downtown Atlanta isn't urban either. The only problem is that Downtown Atlanta has a few "hood" like spots if you get what I'm saying. Fairlie Poplar is a great little neighborhood. Very compact.
But I agree with you on Buckhead. I just don't think Atlanta should focus on urbanizing that part. It should continue to urbanize neighborhoods like Midtown, Atlantic Station, Westside, Old Fourth Ward, and Poncey Highlands....the older Atlanta core before it incorporated Buckhead. Buckhead will likely always be a forest of single family homes apart from it's core. It is the very wealthy part of Atlanta with hills.
I'm not a "homer" I perfectly acknowledge where Miami succeeds and where it fails. For example, it lacks Asian and good asian food offerings.
But walkability is something Miami does better than most US cities. Miami might not have the equivalent of the "loop" of Chicago, at the same time it doesn't have neighborhoods filled with either ghetto slums or residential houses devoid of any shops. And you can bet many people in Miami walk, especially the poor.
Seattle has never left the impression on me it had good street design. Brickell alone in Miami is about the equivalent of Seattle's downtown when it comes to walkability. Maybe even more walkable to Brickell. But outside a few neighborhoods, Seattle is a sleepy residential area whereas Miami always has things in all of her neighborhoods.
It's just you that has something against Miami. When is the last time you've been to Miami anyway? Miami isn't PBC.
You have no clue what you are talking about and have clearly never been to Seattle. There are walkable, commercial-oriented nodes and strips throughout the city. Most neighborhoods in Seattle have walkable centers with commercial amenities.
Just for ****s and giggles I looked up the Canadian cities on Walkscore - Toronto and Montreal come in at 71 and 70. Surely these cities should be higher up than at least miami.
You have no clue what you are talking about and have clearly never been to Seattle. There are walkable, commercial-oriented nodes and strips throughout the city. Most neighborhoods in Seattle have walkable centers with commercial amenities.
It would be interesting to see which UA have the largest clusters of contiguous neighborhoods. I would imagine Boston would have some contiguous neighborhoods with Cambridge/Somerville and Brookline. DC might have it with Arlington. Maybe West Hollywood would flow into LA, etc.
OTOH, I would imagine that some of the cities might have isolated pockets of high walkscore neighborhoods that are somewhat isolated from other walkable neighborhoods. IMO, the most truly walkable neighborhoods are walkable neighborhoods that are located in a dense cluster of other walkable neighborhoods.
West Hollywood flows into Hollywood--both neighborhoods score in the high 80s.
Los Angeles has close to 1 Million additional 70+ neighborhoods not part of the city proper. Some of them (Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Santa Monica, etc) are closely intertwined with the city of LA.
Just for ****s and giggles I looked up the Canadian cities on Walkscore - Toronto and Montreal come in at 71 and 70. Surely these cities should be higher up than at least miami.
Reflects the larger city limits of Canadian cities. Toronto and Montreal contain almost half their metro population. Vancouver only about a quarter and it was a walkscore of 78.
Because Australian city limits are tiny, the walkscore numbers for Australian cities use the entire metro. Sydney is 63, which isn't bad. Consolidated city Indianapolis scores only 28, almost consolidated Calgary only 50.
I understand that, but the question is why are suburbs in the three areas I mentioned (and Chicagoland, I edited my post - some Chicagoland suburbs have moderately high walkscores) manage to be consistently built, when you can't find the same thing in suburbs elsewhere in the country, where nearly an entire town will functionally score zero on walkscore. Is it just because in those areas it was normal for suburbs to contain some strip malls, whereas elsewhere entirely residential towns took off?
Interestingly, Canadian suburbs which are often consolidated into large municipalites and are denser than American ones, score relatively high; comparable to Nassau County or Californian suburbs.
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.
