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I don't know where you get that those pastel colors are common in the WC because they are not. It's usually beige stucco out in most WC neighborhoods.
And San Francisco has lots of biege stucco. Almost none here. Perhaps pastel wasn't the right word, mMostly what I meant was lighter colors. And the amount of stucco in San Francisco stood out to my as very distinctive.
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Can you please name me the town or show me the pictures.
Good point. I'm curious as to whether any neighborhoods that might have been previously like this were subject to urban renewal policies, freeway clearances or downtown revitalization efforts that destroyed them. I think that oftentimes the densest neighborhoods were often most associated with being slums during this period so might have been most likely to be cleared, but that's conjecture on my part.
True, but a truly high density city, there'd be way too much high density neighborhoods to clear. Boston did a rather large clearance of a high density neighborhood, but there's still a lot left. But San Francisco had relatively affluent, dense neighborhoods near downtown (Nob Hill, Pacific Heights) —*most rust belt cities didn't.
The Tenderloin and maybe Chinatown are similar "slums" near the center cities, but the city never cleared them. Only changes were in SoMa:
I found data on 1950 urban densities. San Francisco-Oakland (include San Francisco and Alameda counties only, San Mateo and Marin probably weren't populous enough to skew the urban area densities too much). It had roughly 40-50% higher weighted density than Pittsburgh/Detroit/Cleveland/St. Louis/Buffalo (all of which were similar. The the NE Quadrant of San Francisco was much denser. Boston had about the same weighted density but much lower average density — it already had rather low density suburbs.
While not a Midwestern city, Pittsburgh probably also has streets like these. Actually, I recall that smaller mining towns and cities in Pennsylvania often had really tightly built streets and really packed streetwalls--the only big issue was that there were gaps where houses had been demo'd or removed in some way since a lot of those towns aren't economically doing stellar. Probably a convergent evolution for these places and San Francisco due to bits of similar geographic constraints?
I didn't mention Pittsburgh as it's in a Northeastern state.
For San Francisco, I'm not sure if geographic constraints explain the density of the oldest northeastern quarter of the city. When those were built, the city was nowhere near running out of land. Much of it was built pre-streetcar (or at least pre-fast streetcar) but so were other Midwestern cities. My guess is that San Francisco was less industrial — cities like Cleveland have/had a ring of industrial around their center rather than high density housing. And the cities were just less centralized, oriented around scattered factories; San Francisco was more of a port city, and blue-collar employment was concentrated near the docks (like NYC), all of which faced the bay or eastern part of the Golden Gate.
For San Francisco, I'm not sure if geographic constraints explain the density of the oldest northeastern quarter of the city. When those were built, the city was nowhere near running out of land. Much of it was built pre-streetcar (or at least pre-fast streetcar) but so were other Midwestern cities. My guess is that San Francisco was less industrial — cities like Cleveland have/had a ring of industrial around their center rather than high density housing. And the cities were just less centralized, oriented around scattered factories; San Francisco was more of a port city, and blue-collar employment was concentrated near the docks (like NYC), all of which faced the bay or eastern part of the Golden Gate.
I think San Francisco's topography might have made a difference in density. As was noted, walking up the hills isn't always a breeze. It also meant that in San Francisco walking a mile would be more strenuous, and take longer, than walking a mile in a flat midwestern city. Thus in the pre-streetcar era property values would likely have dropped more quickly away from the urban core, which would have caused inflated property values closer in, making denser development more economical.
The bigger hills do tend to be less developed. But some of the hillier areas in the oldest part of the city are developed with the same streetwall of attacheed housing as flatter areas
The bigger hills do tend to be less developed. But some of the hillier areas in the oldest part of the city are developed with the same streetwall of attacheed housing as flatter areas
Which I think makes sense in that making larger, more sprawling developments up those hills means having to walk a greater length of hilly terrain. That combined with the precedent already set by the flatter initial parts of the city (as well as being developed well before the rise of the automobile or streetcar) might help explain why SF and Pittsburgh as well as so many small PA mining towns up in the hills were developed so tightly. This also comes into play for the lone Midwestern exception you made in regards to Cincinnati.
I suspect the city would feel even more Northeastern if it weren't for the fires following the earthquake. Some of the oldest building may have resembled New England architecturally, and there were more narrow streets.
I suspect the city would feel even more Northeastern if it weren't for the fires following the earthquake. Some of the oldest building may have resembled New England architecturally, and there were more narrow streets.
The earthquake ended up destroying the core of the city (which was built out of brick at the time) so I'm not sure the vernacular would have looked particularly like New England. It probably would have looked more broadly "Northeastern" in style however.
The same could probably be said for Chicago without the Great Fire, since attached buildings were essentially banned in response to it. IIRC Philly and New Orleans both had early fires which resulted in building codes giving them their modern, distinct structures as well, so disasters shaping U.S. cities built form is pretty common.
BosWash corridor also includes Baltimore and Washington , thats why its named BosWASH
just saw this...hilarious! lol
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