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If we're talking construction projects that are adding in housing, then it's a toss up between LA and Seattle. Both have so many projects under construction that it's basically a guess as to which is developing faster. LA has the benefit of an already built subway system. Seattle is basically redeveloping vast portions of its 84-square miles of land.
If we're talking percentages than LA would be dead last, for as much gains have been made it has been mainly concentrated to an area of about 40 sq miles, or to put it in perspective about 10% of the cities' land area.
If we're talking percentages than LA would be dead last, for as much gains have been made it has been mainly concentrated to an area of about 40 sq miles, or to put it in perspective about 10% of the cities' land area.
This has to be DC and it's not really close. The only reason for this is height restrictions. Height restrictions are a blessing and a curse for cities. The curse is that you don't have a chance to concentrate as much density as possible downtown. Downtowns are such a small part of a city that it's not really such a bad thing when you think about living in a true urban city from corner to corner if your goal is to make your entire city urban.
The blessing is that development is spread to all corners of a city which doesn't happen when there aren't height restrictions because demand tends to be all eaten up in downtown or other sub markets near it. DC's development footprint is the perfect example of this in comparison to other cities and it's the reason it has gentrified faster than any city in America.
If DC didn't have height restrictions, housing, office, and hotels would be concentrated downtown and in adjacent downtown neighborhoods like it is in most cities, however, because of height restrictions, those uses are being spread from corner to corner in DC which is the reason DC has gentrified so fast. No neighborhood is immune to gentrification when height restrictions are in place because supply isn't constrained in downtown pushing development to the far reaches of the city. There isn't another city in America seeing large scale redevelopment in as much of the city as DC is and it's not really close. The whole city is basically under-construction because it has to be. We can thank congress and height restrictions for that.
The bright side is that as time passes, most of the city is being developed like downtown DC for miles in all direction and this will only continue. If we could build 50-100 story skyscrapers, this would not be happening because all that development would go downtown like it is in most cities. You have to build somewhere so it's pushed out further and further.
The fastest is DC but DC is already there (urban wise). DC doesn't count
Seattle urban wise is right below San Fran on the West Coast so they are already there. There new developments will only add to what they already have. Seattle doesn't count
LA....Downtown has an urban core but it just needs more people and it needs to be polished up. Downtown LA isn't there yet but it will be soon.
Atlanta will have the most drastic change in the next 5 year but it isn't as fast as other places but it's fast in Atlanta standards
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