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Just curious, but did that area used to have more street facing shops along Puritas Avenue to the south of that address? Were there other commercial strips in place before the freeway plowed through it to the south?
I'm not historically familiar with West Park. This website may be useful for those interested.
I'd define Lakewood as semi-urban, given there's somewhat of a mix of housing typologies and several different business districts (including a rather traditional one around the intersection of Detroit and Warren). In terms of Ohio, I think somewhere like German Village or Over-the-Rhine, despite lower population densities, better represents good urban form.
Obviously it's subjective, but I feel like the best urban neighborhoods are basically defined by their chaotic nature. You turn the corner and you don't know what you will find. It might be a house next to a three-flat, next to an old commercial storefront, followed by a converted old garage. A long block of bungalows just doesn't cut it.
Lakewood has a population density of over 9,400/square mile and you describe it as "semi-urban."
Is your streetview supposed to represent a suburban or an urban neighborhood? It definitely seems to squarely fit a suburban neighborhood for the most part even if it is in city boundaries. I think one feature where this streetview is less suburban is that I see some buildings when you pan left have what look like multiple front door entrances which probably means some of these are multiple unit dwellings rather than single family homes. Is that inaccurate?
Whatever it is, this location looks great! Such nice homes with both attached single family units and probably more modestly priced multiple-unit buildings and in less than a ten minute walk to a major commercial strip. Pittsburgh really does have a lot of variety!
Those type of dwellings are called two-family flats in Detroit, and they are a very common multi-family housing in Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit. In Cleveland, they are called a "Cleveland double"; in Chicago, they are called a "two-flat".
Here are some architecturally wonderful two-family flats in the neighborhood of Russell Woods
This neighborhood has suffered from disinvestment and abandonment, as moving around this block and the adjacent blocks around it will show. My own home disappeared in a fire my brother and I heard was set by the house's occupants once they heard the KCMo cops were coming to seize it because they had set up a meth lab in its basement.
But when I was a child, this was a pretty nice neighborhood. People kept up their properties. I could walk to a small neighborhood shopping district four blocks away with a drugstore, a small supermarket, my barber, a record store and a small sandwich shop. There's a city park two-and-a-half blocks away that had a playground and a great sledding hill. My mom and dad each had a car, but she would take me shopping downtown on the city buses, which I would later take to my bowling league and school across town.
And yet I understand from what people are saying here is that I grew up in a suburban neighborhood. If that was the case, then I guess I didn't grow up in a city at all, for there are very few Kansas City neighborhoods that are more densely developed than these: the apartment towers along Armour Boulevard, the similar ones facing the Plaza from across Brush Creek, the blocks of colonnaded six-flats that could be found scattered all over the Mid-City section, some of which still stand.
Otherwise, most of KC looks something like the photo you see above. There are parts where the houses are nicer, or bigger, or both, but the basic development pattern remains the same. I knew this as a city neighborhood. Want to tell me how my vision or perception was wrong?
I love the Arts and Crafts houses! Very beautiful neighborhood, but yeah, it does not have much businesses to walk to.
Those type of dwellings are called two-family flats in Detroit, and they are a very common multi-family housing in Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit. In Cleveland, they are called a "Cleveland double"; in Chicago, they are called a "two-flat".
Here are some architecturally wonderful two-family flats in the neighborhood of Russell Woods
Forgot that we had similar houses in Kansas City. Like the ones in Detroit, they had a common front door for both units; once inside, there were second doors at the bottom and top of the staircase for each unit.
But I don't remember whether we called them two-flats or just duplexes. It may have been the former, for we did have attached twin homes for which we used the latter term. Most of the ones that lined The Paseo, the grand boulevard that ran the length of the pre-World War II city, have been demolished, but this row survives intact on the east side of the 5300 block:
Using some census data, the picture becomes a little clearer.
Per capita income:
2000
Youngstown 13,293
Cleveland 14,291
Gary 14,383
Detroit 14,717
Buffalo 14,991
Niagara Falls 15,721
St. Louis 16,108
Scranton 16,174
Pittsburgh 18,816
2016
Detroit 16,784
Youngstown 18,169
Cleveland 19,137
Gary 19,207
Niagara Falls 20,586
Scranton 21,322
Buffalo 22,300
St. Louis 28,794
Pittsburgh 30,234
Median Home Values
2000
Youngstown 40,900
Gary 53,200
Buffalo 59,300
Pittsburgh 59,700
Niagara Falls 60,800
Detroit 63,600
St. Louis 63,900
Cleveland 72,100
Scranton 78,200
2016
Youngstown 43,000
Detroit 43,500
Gary 64,800
Cleveland 66,800
Niagara Falls 69,200
Buffalo 83,500
Scranton 109,500
Pittsburgh 120,800
St. Louis 125,800
Bachelor's degree percentage
2000
Youngstown 9.7
Gary 10.1
Detroit 11
Cleveland 11.4
Niagara Falls 12.5
Scranton 15.2
Buffalo 18.3
St. Louis 19.1
Pittsburgh 26.2
2016
Gary 11
Youngstown 13.8
Detroit 14.9
Cleveland 16.3
Niagara Falls 17
Scranton 22.3
Buffalo 26.7
St. Louis 34.1
Pittsburgh 45.7
Poverty
2000
Scranton 15
Niagara Falls 19.5
Pittsburgh 20.4
St. Louis 24.6
Youngstown 24.8
Gary 25.8
Detroit 26.1
Cleveland 26.3
Buffalo 26.6
2016
Pittsburgh 19.2
St. Louis 23.8
Scranton 24.5
Niagara Falls 27.2
Buffalo 30.5
Gary 33.3
Cleveland 35
Youngstown 35.2
Detroit 35.7
So Pittsburgh and St. Louis have fared the best, with Buffalo in a distant third.
lol. so go ahead and post a poll and ask. you won't do it, because you know hardly anyone will agree with you. just post a poll and find out. and FYI, going by global standards, not US standards, many people would actually call that area somewhat RURAL, not even suburban. you are making Cleveland look bad with very low standards.
Well, to be fair, the neighborhood shopping crossroads four blocks from me didn't have a lot of stores. I'm surprised to see that all but one of the buildings that stood there when I was growing up are there still - even the neon "Drugs" sign on the former drugstore is still in place:
But there are a number of far denser and more built-up commercial districts in Kansas City. Broadway and Main Street on the west side are lined with two- to four-story commercial buildings, most with offices above, some with apartments. 31st and Troost had two department stores, a movie theater, a small A&P supermarket, a car service center and a bunch of small shops. There was a similar commercial node on Prospect Avenue between 31st and Linwood Boulevard, around a Catholic hospital that has since been replaced by a strip mall. By the time it got to 43d, Prospect was lined with used-car lots and a scattering of one-story commercial buildings; both have now disappeared.
I guess on our urban-suburban spectrum, the neighborhood I grew up in was "suburban" in form and function. But I sure didn't feel like I was living in suburbia.
Right, I can see it not feeling like suburbia because it is definitely a neighborhood that is part of the city. I think the thing is that the word suburban is being used for two different things. One is as a description for how an area functions and is built and the other is as a description of a place that is outside of a city boundary. These aren't mutually exclusive, but they're made messy from the use of the same word to describe them.
Anyhow, I think having a mix of things you can do in the neighborhood plays some part in making a place feel urban. Here's a streetview of a part of Ditmas Park in Brooklyn. This block and many like it nearby look very suburban, but many adjoining blocks are more densely built (doing so also means there's a large variety of household incomes and household sizes in the neighborhood) so this means that within a 15 minute walk are multiple commercial strips or corners, dozens of restaurants, bank branches, post office, subway station, theater, grocery stores, greenspace, and a lot more. Many parts of it look very, very suburban, but this neighborhood still functions in a way that's more urban than many more visibly "urban" looking neighborhoods in the country.
lol. so go ahead and post a poll and ask. you won't do it, because you know hardly anyone will agree with you. just post a poll and find out. and FYI, going by global standards, not US standards, many people would actually call that area somewhat RURAL, not even suburban. you are making Cleveland look bad with very low standards.
Just cutting to the chase, this isn't a Cleveland issue. You and the other promoter of some personalized, rarefied definition of "urban" haven't posted a signal definition of "urban" that would preclude any community with population densities of 5,000/square mile from being considered urban.
As point of fact, by any definition of "urban" that I've found, many suburbs clearly are urban.
<<Definition of urban
: of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city >>
Please post some definitions of "urban" that would make your case. Until then, I have little use for individuals so impressed by their own ignorance.
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