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Most cities are defined by their inner 15-20 square miles. As long as you have a built up inner core with a lot of cultural attractions and landmarks, it doesn't matter if suburbia exists outside of this.
Most cities are defined by their inner 15-20 square miles. As long as you have a built up inner core with a lot of cultural attractions and landmarks, it doesn't matter if suburbia exists outside of this.
except for LA, whose downtown isn't really recognized but the wealthy outer suburbs, Hollywood, and the beaches
That was the case in the past, but a lot of that has changed in the past decade, and especially in the past couple years.
You're absolutely right about LA. The presence and increase of rail transit is converting LA into a traditional, dense walkable (yes, I said walkable) city before our very eyes... and it's great to see. Downtown and the LA Live area is a great place NOT to have a car... ditto, Hollywood.
I live in Philly, so I see it every day and am regularly in and out of similar East Coast cities. Because of this, I'd like to think I'm not jaded... but maybe I am. I do love those unique, narrow beautifully claustrophobic streets and neighborhoods of Philadelphia, which are collectively and on such a scale, unmatched by any major city in this country.
I would rank Chicago ahead of Philly in terms of streetscape. I love the historical, Colonial (Federal, Georgian, Italianate, etc) rowhouse facades of Philly's streetscapes, but the lively mixed-use commercial areas of Chicago, plus the ornate old flats and rowhouses of residential areas, trump Philly imho. Chicago's neighborhoods just have that electric feeling to them.
Also, after Richmond, your list makes no sense to me (I can't speak on Austin, because I've never been there). Atlanta only has a few attractive pedestrian-oriented areas, the most prominent is Midtown along Peachtree Street to the north of downtown... Most of the rest of Atlanta is a bunch of malls, strip malls, cul-de-sacs and suburban office campuses which, collectively, don't even register with me. Charlotte is Atlanta, Jr.
Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Milwaukee, in that order (to name a few), leave Charlotte and Atlanta in the dust.
TheProf - it's clear he was only ordering the cities listed by the OP.
It's funny to see how outdated Google Streetview is for Seattle. There have been so many new buildings that have gone up over the past 2-3 years that the images available on Google Streetview look quite different than these neighborhoods now look in real life.
[snip]
Ugh, these make me miss Seattle already. I visited for the first time this past summer.
I live in Philly, so I see it every day and am regularly in and out of similar East Coast cities. Because of this, I'd like to think I'm not jaded... but maybe I am. I do love those unique, narrow beautifully claustrophobic streets and neighborhoods of Philadelphia, which are collectively and on such a scale, unmatched by any major city in this country.
I would rank Chicago ahead of Philly in terms of streetscape. I love the historical, Colonial (Federal, Georgian, Italianate, etc) rowhouse facades of Philly's streetscapes, but the lively mixed-use commercial areas of Chicago, plus the ornate old flats and rowhouses of residential areas, trump Philly imho. Chicago's neighborhoods just have that electric feeling to them.
Also, after Richmond, your list makes no sense to me (I can't speak on Austin, because I've never been there). Atlanta only has a few attractive pedestrian-oriented areas, the most prominent is Midtown along Peachtree Street to the north of downtown... Most of the rest of Atlanta is a bunch of malls, strip malls, cul-de-sacs and suburban office campuses which, collectively, don't even register with me. Charlotte is Atlanta, Jr.
Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Milwaukee, in that order (to name a few), leave Charlotte and Atlanta in the dust.
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I visited for the first time this past summer.
A few inner city San Antonio neighborhoods.
