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Frederick County is part of the Maryland National Capital Region according to the State of Maryland. Look at all the traffic on I-270 heading south and say otherwise.
Sure it's part of the DC metro area, but it's too far out to truly be considered a suburb IMO. It would better fit the definition of an exurb.
Frederick County is part of the Maryland National Capital Region according to the State of Maryland. Look at all the traffic on I-270 heading south and say otherwise.
Just looked it up online. According to the American Community Survey, out of the total workforce of Frederick City (35,470) 65% work within the county, 24.6% work in another county in Maryland, and 10.4% work outside of the state. Presumably a good number of the later group work in DC, but i's not that far from Virginia, West Virginia, and even Pennsylvania, so some must commute to those areas as well. Thus the overall number of people commuting into DC is relatively small. The number commuting into the Germantown/Rockville area is undoubtedly higher, which is probably why the area got dragged into the MSA to begin with.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutiny77
Frederick isn't a suburb of DC though so it really shouldn't be in the conversation. Otherwise I suppose Boston could claim Nashua as a suburb.
Not an immediate one, but I would say it counts. I mean the DC suburbs are significantly more populated the Boston's and the sprawl is tremendous in between Mo County all the way to Frederick. I'd say it leans exurban, but has pretty close ties to Montgomery County etc. Hagerstown is the stretch.
So by that logic we should be comparing 14th street, Georgetown and NoMa since they are about the same distance from downtown DC as is Somerville and Cambridge are to downtown Boston. If you remove Somerville and Cambridge etc, Boston starts looking really small and the density of the built environment drops significantly and is far behind DC proper, especially the farther out you go.
There are towns that aggregate as dense as Boston (and Denser than DC) with about the population of Atlanta (Brookline, Medford, Chelsea, Everett, Winthrop, Chelsea, Cambridge, Somerville.)
Somerville is not Boston, sorry. you can't just omit towns because you don't want them to count.
There are towns that aggregate as dense as Boston (and Denser than DC) with about the population of Atlanta (Brookline, Medford, Chelsea, Everett, Winthrop, Chelsea, Cambridge, Somerville.)
Somerville is not Boston, sorry. you can't just omit towns because you don't want them to count.
Population density really doesnt matter as much as having a good economy and having a good mix of uses. The question was "Which to people think are more interesting/vibrant/walkable?" I could careless about population density I dont think its that important and real life shows it isnt either. I've seen plenty of places with an abundance of residential but they are dead at any point of the day except when people are leaving for work or coming back home. The areas with office and retail alone are always way more vibrant than those with just residential.
I didnt omit anything either just saying comparing major city propers to each other DC proper in the built environment density is over a greater area than Boston. Boston needs all those neighboring cities to match DC proper alone, not in population density but the mix of uses in the built structures.
Population density really doesnt matter as much as having a good economy and having a good mix of uses. The question was "Which to people think are more interesting/vibrant/walkable?" I could careless about population density I dont think its that important and real life shows it isnt either. I've seen plenty of places with an abundance of residential but they are dead at any point of the day except when people are leaving for work or coming back home. The areas with office and retail alone are always way more vibrant than those with just residential.
I didnt omit anything either just saying comparing major city propers to each other DC proper in the built environment density is over a greater area than Boston. Boston needs all those neighboring cities to match DC proper alone, not in population density but the mix of uses in the built structures.
Yes, all those towns have many squares and commercial strips, and large companies, Partners Insurance, Raytheon, Reebok Pharma Companies etc are all based in Boston Suburbs. Boston's metro probably more than anywhere else in the country has cohesive neighborhoods with people who rarely travel into the city center.
And the point was more you are trying to omit +/-10% of the metropolitian population, less so about Density.
Places like Gloucester, Salem and Lowell are more culturally unique and interesting than anywhere in the DC Metro not in the actual district.
However, more people actually live in an urban environment.
I'm not sure why you think a polycentric model lessens traffic issues. It makes traffic worse, because they are less transit friendly. Transit works best with a "hub and spoke" model, where most work commutes are from outlying areas in to 1-2 areas of high job density. If the job density is spread all over the metro, transit commutes will not be as efficient for many people, who would often have to transfer or at least ride through the core city in order to get to their place of work. And the last thing we should be doing is building mostly car-dependent urban nodes.
Not in DC. The whole reason the Purple Line is being built is to relieve congestion associated with the Metro's Hub-and-Spoke system to DC. If I want to take public transit from Alexandria, VA to Bethesda, MD, I must go through Downtown DC. There is no other option. As a result, you have massive traffic jams at choke points.
We even have a phenomenon called the "Orange Crush" because all of the Silver, Blue and Orange Line trains need to enter DC via Rosslyn (https://ggwash.org/view/30053/metros...at-can-be-done). As a result, I've had to wait for 10 minutes+ at times to cross the Potomac on the Subway. So in public transit terms, DC's Hub-and-Spoke system is a disaster.
The Purple Line (U/C now) is actually the first major project to bypass this Hub-and-Spoke system:
When it's complete, you can go from Bethesda to Silver Spring to College Park without even entering DC. When most people think of suburbs they think of bedroom towns that supply workers in the morning to the central city, and get them all back at night.
But now you have projects in DC that don't even include the central city! And I think that speaks volumes to the positive benefits of the suburban node system of DC. Once you start establishing connections between suburbs, then you relieve all the congestion to the core.
Maybe in 30 years WMATA will finally build the Beltway Metro Line:
One day I hope the suburbs are all urban interconnected centers. Here's a fantasy map I made of a Nova rail system:
Last edited by manitopiaaa; 10-20-2017 at 05:31 PM..
Places like Gloucester, Salem and Lowell are more culturally unique and interesting than anywhere in the DC Metro not in the actual district.
They are more culturally unique than most of the actual district, too. And I say this as someone who doesn’t like Boston or Mass wholes. The former Chocolate City has half plastic, half milktoast culture.
When the OP mentions Boston's "urban suburbs" do they mean towns that are physical extensions of the city (e.g., Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Chelsea) or towns that aren't physically connected to the city (e.g., Lowell, Gloucester, Salem, Waltham).
for e.g.- i wouldnt consider a place like brooklyn, ny to be a suburb. its not downtown n.y.c. but it is far from suburban.
Last edited by stanley-88888888; 10-20-2017 at 07:21 PM..
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