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Sorry, this is kinda ridiculous. Mainly because Philly is actually much more similar to Baltimore than to any other city in the Northeast Corridor. Both of them have strong blue-collar histories. Both are absolutely dominated by rowhouses (often with identical built styles). Both of them were strongly reshaped by the Great Migration, and strongly affected by white flight and mid-century urban blight. Baltimore does have more of a southern past, and received less ethnic immigrants, but that's about it in terms of major differences between the two cities.
I always though of Philly being the link of all the five cities of the Boswash corridor. It has characteristics of the Northern section of the East coast (NY, Bos) and characteristics of the southern (in terms of the end of the corridor) part of the East coast.(Balt,DC)
Your post is ridiculous. Everyone knows that all of the Boswash cities (DC, Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Boston) are much more similar to each other than Chicago/SF are to any of these cities. So there will obviously be many similarities between Philly and Baltimore (row houses, blue collar). My point was that Chicago (IMO) is more comparable to the upper half of Boswash (not in terms of "look") which is why I think some were leaving Baltimore and DC out of the comparisons.
Fine. Please explain to me what Chicago shares in common with Philly that it doesn't share with Baltimore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WizardOfRadical
You can go all over LA to find what you are looking for. I mean really, you can find that type of stuff in Downtown, Venice Beach or even Santa Monica.
I never said it doesn't exist at all. LA isn't, despite what a lot of people out here think, just a big jumble of ranch houses and highways. But the nice, walkable commercial districts in LA tend to be low-slung districts in relatively lower-density areas toward the beach. Again, this is very similar to Miami, which is very dense in some areas, but where the most walkable area is found in Miami Beach. And it's very different from eastern cities (and Chicago and SF) where the best walkable business districts are found in higher-density residential areas in the core.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WizardOfRadical
SF does not feel like an east coast city at all. It has a distinctly midrise/row house vibe for the most part. And it feels/look distinctly Mediterranean. It doesn't feel like the northeast at all.
I don't understand the part I bolded at all. If we're talking about historic attached housing, the "rowhouse belt" of the U.S. basically runs from the Hudson Valley to Richmond, Virginia.
There is obviously a Mediterranean vibe to a fair amount of SF architecture. But a lot of that has to do with the time period it was built. You wouldn't believe how many Pittsburgh bungalows and foursquares built from around 1915-1925 have Mission-style tile roofs. Also, the most popularly known architectural styles in SF (Italianate, Stick, and Queen Anne) all are very common in different forms in the east as well.
San Francisco certainly has plenty of rowhouses even if not in the "rowhouse belt". Overall, the look of the homes and buildings in San Francisco look quite different from Northeastern neighborhoods of a similar era.
In San Francisco, you can walk out from downtown in any direction except maybe southeast and be in continuous walkable areas for miles — usually mixed use, continuously high-ish density with buildings close to the street, rarely any vacant spots or pedestrian unfriendly zones. This is true of the larger Northeastern cities, but not really most other American cities; Cleveland has a ring of mostly vacant or industrial areas surrounding downtown for example.
LOL you can't really use any sort of objective real analysis by cherry-picking google map locations. Don't get me wrong I think SF does a much better job of mixed use than LA, but most of SF does not look like haight or castro streets. You are really trying to compare apples to oranges. It would be like me comparing Abbot Kinney in Venice to my old rental in SF's Excelsior neighborhood.
One of his examples was Inner Richmond, not quite a "core" neighborhood. I'll also add that the less walkbale San Francisco neighborhoods take more area but hold less people (simply because they're less density.
San Francisco certainly has plenty of rowhouses even if not in the "rowhouse belt". Overall, the look of the homes and buildings in San Francisco look quite different from Northeastern neighborhoods of a similar era.
Absolutely. But listing the amount of rowhouses (and midrises) as being an example of how San Francisco isn't like the Northeast is just head scratching to me. The style is different, but the level of structural density is the same.
Every pre-automobile boomtown was similar to a large part of the northeast cities in terms of masses of architectural styles and urban layout. If you looked at any pictures prior to the first and, even more importantly, the second world war, you'd see the obvious similarities in many neighborhoods. However, after that, things change dramatically in the US and few cities kept that layout. Chicago and SF for various reasons kept a lot of it, but mostly through land constraints through geographical features and large enough boomtowns that even while a lot was destroyed, a lot was kept as well given their prominence in their respective regions at the time.
San Francisco was of roughly similar size as Cleveland in the early 20th century and late 19th century, and not too different in size from Minneapolis/St. Paul, and somewhat small than St. Louis but later caught up:
but San Francisco neighborhoods appear to have a denser layout than any of them [I doubt Cleveland ever had anything to density of say Pacific Heights or Telegraph Hill, or even the Inner Sunset].
To me both SF and Chicago have East Coast qualities, but they DO NOT feel like the East Coast to me. San Francisco feels very very California. Chicago feels a very run of your mill American, be it more international and better than your typical American city. (I don't think it feels THAT Midwest).
Fine. Please explain to me what Chicago shares in common with Philly that it doesn't share with Baltimore.
But why single out Philly? And randomly start a comparison with Philly and Baltimore (Which wont end well for Baltimore) this isn't what the thread is about, and there are already several threads on that topic.
The poster also included NYC and Boston (Which he/she also explained why Baltimore and DC were left out, but I also know Baltimore/DC people on this forum hate to be left out and constantly have to prove how they're just like cities in the Northeast.) But his/her response/reasoning wasn't acceptable because....you'd rather him/her go into how Baltimore and Philly have similarities??
On the surface I can see why someone living in Chicago would only include said cities, they're (NYC, Philly, Boston) larger (sans Boston), more bustling cities, trains roaring above and/or beneath you, skyscrapers, more urban (Which Chicago is without a doubt more urban than DC/Baltimore), sports culture or.. dare I say more culture in general? Just more...of a city? Like Chicago. It's really not a big deal.
Fine. Please explain to me what Chicago shares in common with Philly that it doesn't share with Baltimore.
I never said it doesn't exist at all. LA isn't, despite what a lot of people out here think, just a big jumble of ranch houses and highways. But the nice, walkable commercial districts in LA tend to be low-slung districts in relatively lower-density areas toward the beach. Again, this is very similar to Miami, which is very dense in some areas, but where the most walkable area is found in Miami Beach. And it's very different from eastern cities (and Chicago and SF) where the best walkable business districts are found in higher-density residential areas in the core.
I don't understand the part I bolded at all. If we're talking about historic attached housing, the "rowhouse belt" of the U.S. basically runs from the Hudson Valley to Richmond, Virginia.
There is obviously a Mediterranean vibe to a fair amount of SF architecture. But a lot of that has to do with the time period it was built. You wouldn't believe how many Pittsburgh bungalows and foursquares built from around 1915-1925 have Mission-style tile roofs. Also, the most popularly known architectural styles in SF (Italianate, Stick, and Queen Anne) all are very common in different forms in the east as well.
This, most especially your last paragraph.
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