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Right, that's what I'm looking at--I'm saying that if someone were to just put in Miami, they'll have it started as zoomed into fit the municipal borders so it'll look relatively more "green" than Seattle.
When you look at them at the same scale, they look more similar, though I think there's a bit more moderate green in Miami's greater area more spread out.
Right, Miami's density prevents neighborhoods like this which are not walkable at all:
I have a feeling you guys are only considering the walkability of the CBD and adjacent areas without considering the city as a whole. Miami is far more walkable as a whole, and I feel South Beach (in the Miami area) is more walkable than Seattle's most urban neighborhoods.
And you are entitled to your opinion. Although most people would clearly disagree with you.
I'm not sure where you're coming up with "most people." Please enlighten me how you got there.
What's not disagreeing with me is walk score, or other data points. I trust data more than subjective opinions of people who are not familiar with both cities.
I'm not sure where you're coming up with "most people." Please enlighten me how you got there.
What's not disagreeing with me is walk score, or other data points. I trust data more than subjective opinions of people who are not familiar with both cities.
You've been arguing/attacking several people about this topic for days now. It is pretty much you against the world here on this forum. You made this entire thread about your Miami superiority complex.
What do you make of the other data point where more people in Seattle (by household) own cars? For such a walkable city, that's a strange statistic.
As stated before, Seattle's land area is double Miami's. Therefore, outside of the core, there are suburban neighborhoods, in which a higher percentage of households will own vehicles.
As stated before, Seattle's land area is double Miami's. Therefore, outside of the core, there are suburban neighborhoods, in which a higher percentage of households will own vehicles.
It really isn't strange at all.
Not Double the land, almost triple the land.
But not triple the population, in fact not even double the population.
But if we add Hialeah and Miami Beach to Miami's total, we get a population 15% larger than Seattle's with a higher walkscore still.
Seattle is more of a suburban city than Miami. That's why more people have cars per household. They have garages, and need their cars far more.
I think you're talking about Riemann sums, not integrals.
The heatmaps seeming to favor Miami with more green areas might partially be a result of the map scaling to the borders of the municipality, so it zooms in on Miami just slightly more than it does on Seattle. Makes sense since one's 36 square miles of land and the other is 84 square miles.
I'm curious, have you actually spent significant amount of time in Seattle? I've lived short term in both within the last two years, one for about two weeks the other for about a month.
I think Seattle is definitely ahead for walkability overall, but not by a massive amount and is in some ways it's nicer because a lot of the walkable neighborhoods that are contiguous with each other are pretty well intact and frou-frou which hearkens back to the argument about what a neighborhood has in amenities that are walkable and what one is personally looking for (such as in the argument about Bushwick). Seattle has a lot of middle-brow nice-ish neighborhoods versus that of Miami which does have a lot of walkable areas on the heatmap aside from just the downtown/brickell area and south beach, but I don't think Little Haiti or Allapatah, while pretty green on the heatmap, are exactly equivalent. Areas like that are part of why I think Miami probably ranks higher than most other people might feel--while I definitely don't feel like those areas are a really good fit for me, they are pretty large swaths of moderately walkable areas.
I think the part of Miami that gets the least attention as being walkable isn't the greater downtown area or South Beach--it's South Miami and Coconut Grove with a bit of Coral Gables. If I do move to the Miami area, I'd probably opt for those parts instead of the general downtown area or South Beach.
South Beach is really walkable and more vibrant in many ways than any of Seattle's top walkable neighborhoods. I think Miami's greater downtown area has a lot of low-hanging fruit (and pretty rapacious development) which can greatly bridge the current gap between Seattle and Miami for overall walkability and it's pretty evident things change rapidly there. Generally, I'm sticking with the two being about the same tier with Seattle being overall higher within that tier.
When it comes to pleasant walkability -- as opposed to just access to amenities -- Seattle has clear edge IMO, although adding South Beach to the mix makes it a closer call.
Miami's got excellent potential though. If you draw a rectangle with South Beach on one side and the stretch from Brickell to the Design District on the other you've got a ton of good stuff there. The Edgewater/Midtown area is rapidly improving and becoming more cohesive with Downtown. Brickell is going off the hook. But it's still very patchy. Drop your Google pin west of Biscayne Blvd north of I-395 or just a few blocks west of the Downtown core and you are in wasteland. Surface lots, massive undeveloped tracts, dilapidated SFH neighborhoods. It's a mess. It gets better as you move farther west towards Little Havana and the Civic Center but it's still far from a walker's paradise. I think you are right to say that the best pedestrian experience in Miami (excluding South Beach) is probably Coconut Grove, South Miami/UM area and downtown Coral Gables.
Miami needs to continue developing, filling the gaps in its core and improving the pedestrian experience. A rail link between Downtown and South Beach would also be a massive shot in the arm. For the near future though, Seattle will continue to have a much more mature urban fabric.
Drop your Google pin west of Biscayne Blvd north of I-395 or just a few blocks west of the Downtown core and you are in wasteland.
Depending on where you dropped that pin, it could be either the Omni neighborhood, Park West, or even OverTown.
All of them were violent ghettos that are now gentrifying, and they probably look a bit different today than when those google maps were taken (from 2 - 4 years old).
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