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To me fast past means hustle and bustle. People out walking, biking, using public transportation, and driving. Some cities just "feel" faster than others. Going from Minneapolis to St Paul you can feel the difference, its hard to put in words.
I know walkscores aren't the end all be all, but the most bustling cities seem to have the highest walkscores (and densities), especially in their core neighborhoods. Here's each city's top 10 neighborhoods.
(Walkscore, transit score, bike score)
Minneapolis
Lyn Lake
94 67 96
Downtown West
92 94 93
Lowry Hill East
92 64 90
Uptown
91 62 98
Loring Park
89 86 93
Nicollet Island
88 78 95
Stevens Square
88 74 91
Whittier
88 68 93
East Isles
87 61 96
Warehouse District
85 88 96
Houston
Midtown
82 83 72
Neartown - Montrose
80 52 77
Downtown
75 89 77
Fourth Ward
74 80 70
Greenway - Upper Kirby
73 50 59
The Museum District
72 64 73
University Place
70 57 80
Greater Heights
66 45 65
Washington Avenue - Memorial Park
65 48 63
Gulfton
64 49 59
Seattle
Downtown
98 100 67
Pioneer Square
98 100 62
Belltown
97 97 77
First Hill
97 98 74
International District
97 100 69
Yesler Terrace
94 98 72
South Lake Union
91 86 72
Lower Queen Anne
91 70 56
Capitol Hill
91 72 69
University District
91 71 85
Atlanta
Georgia State University
96 79 82
2
Peachtree Center
91 75 77
3
Buckhead Village
89 43 66
4
SoNo
87 67 78
5
Sweet Auburn
87 64 80
6
South Downtown
87 79 81
7
Midtown
84 63 76
8
Inman Park
83 58 81
9
Castleberry Hill
81 75 78
10
Old Fourth Ward
80 52 79
On the flip side, Houston, Atlanta, and Seattle all have more traffic and larger cores than Minneapolis. Seattle and Minneapolis are also more central, whereas Houston and Atlanta are more multimodal.
However, my rankings :
1.Seattle - Its the densest, most walkable, best shopping in its core. Seems very San Francisco lite
2. Atlanta - Midtown and downtown pack a strong punch, quickly densifying core, lots of tourists out amd about
3. Houston - largest population of the four, most people within city limits at any given time, most spread out (downtown, uptown, energy corridor etc)
4. Minneapolis- the smallest of the bunch, walkable in its core, nightlife, jobs, attractions, dining and some of the shopping is central, creating somewhat of a bustling feeling. I wanted to rank it higher (as high as #2) but the other cities are just too big.
Last edited by Mr Ambitious; 08-19-2015 at 08:09 PM..
FWIW, the urban area of Houston is denser than Minneapolis-St. Paul.
A few years ago I used urban explorer to make density maps of a number of metros. These are all to the same scale. The darker shades start at 10,000 ppsm, the darkest is over 20,000.
Nabes with 80+ walkscore or higher
Seattle- 21
Minneapolis- 19
Atlanta- 10
Houston- 2
Nabes with 70+ walkscore or higher
Seattle- 37
Minneapolis- 35
Atlanta- 25
Houston- 7
Again, walkscore is not the best way to measure pace of a city but the most walkable areas seem to be some of the most vibrant and bustling places.
If I weren't at work right now I'd break out the Excel docs I have at home and find the data for Houston and Atlanta, but this seems like a good time to bring in THIS post I made a while ago.
Essentially: I created an index based on the newest Walk/Transit/Bike Score that gives an average score for the 250k people living in the neighborhoods of a city with the HIGHEST scores in each category. It's an informal stab at sort of kind of almost a little bit trying to find a best-possible figure for each city given a standardized population. Admittedly Walk Score is very flawed for a bunch of reasons, but I do think it gives a mostly accurate idea of the qualities OP is talking about like "bustling" and "fast-paced."
So Atlanta and Houston don't crack the top 15 in any category (which is telling IMO) and like I said I don't have access to the full dataset at work, but for the other too...
AVG Walk Score, top 250k
Seattle: 87
Minneapolis: 78
AVG Transit Score, top 250k
Seattle: 71
Minneapolis: 64
AVG Bike Score, top 250k
Minneapolis: 87
Seattle: 78
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