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Savannah, Georgia isn't a huge city but its very urban and walkable in the city center and has many neighborhoods within the city that aren't crime ridden.
I would say Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. All are pretty small but have very impressive urban areas outside of their downtowns.
Again, these are historically some of the most urban cities in the country. I don't see how they could be underrated. If people don't know that they are urban, that's on them, not the cities.
Walk Score seems to take airports, large parks, cemeteries, waterways and probably some other things out of the neighborhood and city calculation. You can see them in where they don’t generate a heatmap.
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Originally Posted by Losfrisco
Again, these are historically some of the most urban cities in the country. I don't see how they could be underrated. If people don't know that they are urban, that's on them, not the cities.
I agree, because this thread was about underrating urbanity and not just urbanity in and of itself which is why LA is a good contender because it’s so synonymous with car culture and yet has an area and population living within walkable areas that is far greater than any sun belt city and in some ways rival that of the cities in the tier after New York City.
I think it’s pretty easy to imagine that LA with its continuing infill and having actually leveraged a sales tax on itself to support transit will within our lifetimes have a greater amount of heavy rail rapid transit than Chicago. As congestion gets worse, mass transit serves more point to point trips better and more people come to the realization in LA that mass transit isn’t the exclusive domain of poor people, then the conversation over new line extensions will more and more favor heavy rail, grade-separated construction rather than the limp-wristed light rail stuff. Have you shown up to any of these meetings?
The only way I can see this happening is with massive north/south lines on Vermont and La Cienega, a heavy rail through the Sepulveda Pass, AND heavy rail in the valley. As unlikely as that seems, Valley residents insisted on heavy rail subway because they didn't want light rail disrupting the tranquility of the valley. Van Nuys line calls for light rail, from what I hear that is happening.
I am a San Diego resident, so no I have not shown up to any meetings. Overlooked and underrated urbanity in San Diego is a whole other can of worms we could go on and on about as well.
Walk Score seems to take airports, large parks, cemeteries, waterways and probably some other things out of the neighborhood and city calculation. You can see them in where they don’t generate a heatmap.
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Does it really? Because how a city like Montreal would get a 70 if this were the case is beyond me.
This is about as urban and walkable as they come in North America...
Because the city of montreal has large physical boundaries due to the mergers not so long ago. The city scores are over municipal boundaries which vary wildly and is, on the other end, why Miami has such a high walkscore.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-15-2019 at 09:53 PM..
The only way I can see this happening is with massive north/south lines on Vermont and La Cienega, a heavy rail through the Sepulveda Pass, AND heavy rail in the valley. As unlikely as that seems, Valley residents insisted on heavy rail subway because they didn't want light rail disrupting the tranquility of the valley. Van Nuys line calls for light rail, from what I hear that is happening.
I am a San Diego resident, so no I have not shown up to any meetings. Overlooked and underrated urbanity in San Diego is a whole other can of worms we could go on and on about as well.
I think we're going to see other heavy rail proposals be put out in short order if LA Metro Rail really does become part of the daily fabric of people's lives. There have been proposals popping up about heavy rail down Vermont rather than the lukewarm bus rapid transit plan put out. A Sepulveda Pass heavy rail line will by itself add a lot of miles, though for usage, it's really more about how far it extends into LA proper and where it goes.
I think LA should go on essentially a series of heavy rail interlinings and it may come sooner than maybe some expect. Some routes that are not in planning but might make sense is to make usage of the current Red Line passage into SFV and have it split somewhere in SFV and then to go roughly southwards intersecting with the Purple Line. Another is a line that takes the Hollywood Boulevard Red Line path for parts of it but extend out from both west and east and on the west to arc down and from the east to keep going past Vermont to go through Echo Park under Sunset and into downtown LA.
San Diego does have, for the US, good mass transit and density for a mid-sized metro. That extension into UCSD is going to make a significant impact.
Ooohh yeah walker's paradise, right? Oh...wait...sorry. I read that wrong. What I meant to say was "Irvine is a Car-Dependent city." A 44 walkscore and a 27 transit score is horrible. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
I admit walkscore and transit score can be somewhat flawed, but cmon...Irvine is just an extreme example here. According to Walkscore, University Town Center is the most urban part of Irvine with a 67 WS and 35 TS. From the edge of UTC near Bridge Rd and Stanford Ct to the edge of the office park zone at Campus Dr and Jamboree Rd, it's a 30 minute walk. To bike to some of the further edges of the office park is 30 minutes. To take transit it's around an hour or more.
If we're gonna talk LA suburbs, please for the love of everything there is holy, leave Irvine out of it. Irvine is nothing but strip malls, cul de sacs, box stores, malls, parking lots, office parks, massively wide streets and boulevards, and grid lock traffic. It is the antithesis of urban.
Naperville, Illinois--walk score of 36, transit score of 21.
Sugar Land, TX--walk score of 24
Sandy Springs, GA--walk score of 27, transit score of 27 (and that's with a couple MARTA stations!)
Reston, VA--walk score of 39
Cary, NC--walk score of 26, transit score of 18
Nashville, TN--walk score of 28, transit score of 24
Markham, Ontario--walk score of 47 (hardly beats Irvine)
Pasadena, CA--walk score of 44 (same as Irvine)
Irvine is pretty darn walkable for a master-planned, post-world war II, US/Canadian suburb. Best on the list is Markham, Ontario, which is widely celebrated as a very dense, walkable suburb.
I agree that aside from the joke of a bus system that OCTA is, and the metrolink commuter rail, there's zero mass transit in Irvine.
Irvine has a bike score of 66. It's not Portland, Oregon, but 66 is pretty darn impressive for a masterplanned suburb. I never claimed Irvine to be ultra-urban, but I'm saying that as far as master-planned suburbs go in the US, LA has got very dense suburbs, with Irvine being one of them.
My post 2171 shows the alleged least dense city in the US... Charlotte.
But as I’ve already said, I think southern cities are unjustly underrated in urbanity. But as far as large cities. I definitely have to say Atlanta and LA are seriously underrated. Especially ATL.
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