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There will never be another NYC, Philly, Boston, San Francisco, and DC. Unless cars go by way of extinction, the likelihood of seeing a city like those legacy mentioned are very slim. Doesn't meant they can't be urban, but not that type of urbanity.
Houston is too multi-nodal and the physical size of it will hamper it. Most of the city especially outside of the loop will remain suburban and even the city knows this. Dallas to a smaller extent has the same problem.
Between downtown, midtown, and TMC, then The Heights/Washington Ave/Montrose, downtown, to EaDo could be very cohesive if the right levels of investment were in place.
I don't ever see that coming to fruition but it could. Miami too.
Right now, I'd argue that America's great iconic urban big cities are NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and DC. These cities all have a distinct urban, walkable, vibrant, big city feel.
Some cities, like LA, Seattle, and Denver are newer cities that were built around the automobile but are quickly becoming more urban and walkable. Others, like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, have the bones but lack the vibrancy and, in some cases, the big city amenities.
Which of these cities is most likely to be the first to gain that unique, iconic urban big city feel on par with the first set of cities mentioned above? (Imagine we have a crystal ball and are looking decades into the future).
Los Angeles was not "built around automobiles", it was built around streetcars.
There will never be another NYC, Philly, Boston, San Francisco, and DC. Unless cars go by way of extinction, the likelihood of seeing a city like those legacy mentioned are very slim. Doesn't meant they can't be urban, but not that type of urbanity.
Right; that era of city-building has passed. Both commercially and residentially, the scale of development in cities today is much larger than in years past, with high prices for land being a big part of that. Instead of a bunch of individual rowhouses or individual commercial buildings housing local businesses with a level or two of apartments on top, we're getting highrise apartment/condo buildings with ground-floor commercial space typically occupied by larger chain businesses--in all cities.
LA may be big and iconic, but it still has a ways to go before it reaches the type of urban landscape prominent in the upper echelon of cities that I mentioned at the beginning of the post.
LA is a large stone's throw away from Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and DC in density and urbanity. All of those are much further away from NYC than LA is to them.
If you took SF's small area and mapped it over these cities not including NYC, LA would be densest followed by Chicago and then LA still has fairly dense neighborhoods outside of that area.
If you went by rail transit and usage, LA is a notch down as much of it is light rail (though it's probably now the highest ridership light rail system in the US), but has the largest ongoing expansion plan of any US city. In the next decade, its system will probably be about as good as the next worst (SF).
LA's issue is that even with its very dense and urban core, there's a lot more of the massive legal city boundaries that are not dense and walkable. However, in terms of a large contiguous blob that generally is, LA is pretty much in the same tier, though towards the bottom currently, of the cities you mentioned.
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Originally Posted by CityGuyForLife
How is Miami not already considered a big, urban city? It's already the 4th densest city by city proper, while both the metro area and urban area are also top 10 in density. It has the 3rd highest amount of high rises and skyscrapers in the country, behind only NYC and Chicago.
Miami's getting up there, but the city proper is really small so not really indicative of its ranking for amount of dense and walkable areas. It's developing really quickly though.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-10-2017 at 02:18 PM..
I really don't think any of these places can replicate the types of environments you find in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, or SF. I honestly think the places that can "transform" into urban environments are the places that once were quite urban - Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. They already have all the parts in place. They just need the infill.
Between downtown, midtown, and TMC, then The Heights/Washington Ave/Montrose, downtown, to EaDo could be very cohesive if the right levels of investment were in place.
I don't ever see that coming to fruition but it could. Miami too.
Yes the density is rapidly increasing. Put it this way, I just read that right now, the inner loop has its largest population ever. However, the urbanity is what's missing.
Seattle is the most likely to replicate a traditional downtown centric with dense vibrant neighborhoods surrounding the core.
Baltimore is the closest to matching an old consistent urban fabric. But, I think at this point Seattle is a more urban vibrant city. The trend lines appear to be magnifying this trend.
LA is massive and in many ways exceeded smaller cities like DC and Boston. But I think it is simply too sprawling to ever cluster in the way a city like SF does. Too much of the city's amenities are concentrated on the autocentric west side of town.
However, in terms of a large contiguous blob that generally is, LA is pretty much in the same tier, though towards the bottom currently, of the cities you mentioned.
I don't fully agree with this - even within the large continuous dense blob you're talking about (which is dense and big, no doubt), the urban fabric isn't as consistent and it has more "suburban" features than the cities I mentioned.
Yes the density is rapidly increasing. Put it this way, I just read that right now, the inner loop has its largest population ever. However, the urbanity is what's missing.
That's surprising and kind of not at the same time.
It kills me to see those townhouse developments have gates around them as if that is security.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jpdivola
Seattle is the most likely to replicate a traditional downtown centric with dense vibrant neighborhoods surrounding the core.
Baltimore is the closest to matching an old consistent urban fabric. But, I think at this point Seattle is a more urban vibrant city. The trend lines appear to be magnifying this trend.
LA is massive and in many ways exceeded smaller cities like DC and Boston. But I think it is simply too sprawling to ever cluster in the way a city like SF does. Too much of the city's amenities are concentrated on the autocentric west side of town.
I didn't travel around the metro much but the Westside of LA seems like the most dense outside of the core. I know Glendale Ave Pasadena have dense cores but they seem small in comparison to the rest of the metro east of DTLA. And by westside I mean west of the 405, but I was also thinking about Koreatown and Hollywood.
Um, no. Annexing land doesn't make a city urban, it actually has the opposite effect. Houston competes with cities like Kansas City in terms of urbanity, and even downtown Kansas City has more residents than downtown Houston and has a more vibrant and lively urban core. ETA: Pretty pathetic for Houston considering its rather obese girth. Muscle weighs more than fat, just saying.
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Originally Posted by Texyn
1.No one said anything about annexation, and it doesn't work the way you think.
2. Kansas City vs Houston in urbanity is apples and oranges, because the scale is not the same.
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Originally Posted by Turnerbro
But Houston is SOOOOO BIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some poster from Dallas simply post "Houston" with no context at all, in hopes of attracting flame and as usual it works splendidly. Typical visceral CD reaction...That post should have simply been ignored
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