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This is an absurd statement. Again, I love love love Detroit, but pound for pound, it is much more comparable overall to STL, Cleveland and Pittsburgh than it is to Philadelphia, which is a decidedly complete, extremely urban, functional and walkable East Coast city. If nothing else, transit friendliness alone is a hallmark of urbanity, and all three of the cities you mentioned that you feel rank so much lower than Detroit have much better rail transit than Detroit. Maybe in terms of size alone Detroit is an easy victor, but per capita amenities, access and livability? I'm sorry, but Detroit just doesn't perform as well as it should.
As someone who lives in Detroit I agree on the transit thing. But Metro Detroit doesn't perform well for amenities and livability? That is BS. There are an endless amount of things to do and things going on year around for many different types of people and budgets. As for livability what do you mean? The vast majority of Metro Detroit communities are middle class and up.
This is an absurd statement. Again, I love love love Detroit, but pound for pound, it is much more comparable overall to STL, Cleveland and Pittsburgh than it is to Philadelphia, which is a decidedly complete, extremely urban, functional and walkable East Coast city. If nothing else, transit friendliness alone is a hallmark of urbanity, and all three of the cities you mentioned that you feel rank so much lower than Detroit have much better rail transit than Detroit. Maybe in terms of size alone Detroit is an easy victor, but per capita amenities, access and livability? I'm sorry, but Detroit just doesn't perform as well as it should.
This is a comparison of metro areas, not city propers.
This is a comparison of metro areas, not city propers.
Good point.
But expanding to the metro level may not necessarily close the gap between St. Louis and Philadelphia.
Like Seattle has with Bellevue and Detroit with Southfield, St. Louis has a "satellite downtown" in the St. Louis County seat of Clayton. And the Delmar Loop area of University City, like the Central West End and Mic-City in the city itself, are all very walkable, lively (well, the CWE a little less lively than either Mid-City or Delmar Loop), mixed urban districts of a kind that has pretty much either gone downhill or atrophied within the city of Philadelphia (atrophied: Frankford, Point Breeze Avenue; gone downhill: Germantown; gone downhill but will probably rebound as The Wave of reinvestment washes over it: 52d Street; in decent shape now: University City, Chestnut Hill; revived: East Passyunk Avenue, Frankford Avenue in Fishtown; struggling but still surviving: Mayfair, Tacony. None of these save U-City have the kind of dense mid-rise buildings found in St. Louis' Mid-City, but all of them are very walkable and have decent street traffic save Point Breeze Avenue).
But: St. Louis has relatively few of the walkable suburban small-town downtowns found in the suburbs ringing Philadelphia. St. Charles, Webster Groves, Kirkwood maybe, but most of the other suburbs lack those Main Street environments. Meanwhile, Philly has the Main Line train stops, Jenkintown and the four collar-county seats, plus Collingswood, Haddonfield and Merchantville in New Jersey.
But expanding to the metro level may not necessarily close the gap between St. Louis and Philadelphia.
Like Seattle has with Bellevue and Detroit with Southfield, St. Louis has a "satellite downtown" in the St. Louis County seat of Clayton. And the Delmar Loop area of University City, like the Central West End and Mic-City in the city itself, are all very walkable, lively (well, the CWE a little less lively than either Mid-City or Delmar Loop), mixed urban districts of a kind that has pretty much either gone downhill or atrophied within the city of Philadelphia (atrophied: Frankford, Point Breeze Avenue; gone downhill: Germantown; gone downhill but will probably rebound as The Wave of reinvestment washes over it: 52d Street; in decent shape now: University City, Chestnut Hill; revived: East Passyunk Avenue, Frankford Avenue in Fishtown; struggling but still surviving: Mayfair, Tacony. None of these save U-City have the kind of dense mid-rise buildings found in St. Louis' Mid-City, but all of them are very walkable and have decent street traffic save Point Breeze Avenue).
But: St. Louis has relatively few of the walkable suburban small-town downtowns found in the suburbs ringing Philadelphia. St. Charles, Webster Groves, Kirkwood maybe, but most of the other suburbs lack those Main Street environments. Meanwhile, Philly has the Main Line train stops, Jenkintown and the four collar-county seats, plus Collingswood, Haddonfield and Merchantville in New Jersey.
No question, suburban Philly, including in-city "suburbs" like Germantown, Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill, beat anywhere I know in this country in terms of main-street downtown vitality and walkability, all ancient TOD's -- mostly from the 19th Century when the bulk of the regional rail system was built. Yes the Main Line and Jenkintown on the PA side, but the list seems endless, with places like Media, Hatboro, Doylestown, Langhorne, Swarthmore, Ridley Park, Bristol ... and on and on. Upper Darby, close in, is a downtown unto itself, launched in 1907 with the completion to 69th Street of, ... of course, the Market Street El; an amazing hub of connector buses, suburban trolleys and the Norristown high-speed (surface) rapid transit line. Upper Darby around the el terminal is a bit scruffy these days, but is still vibrant.
St. Louis' suburb of Clayton has a compact, dense downtown area of mid-to-high rise office and apt buildings, thankfully adjacent to decade+ old Metro Link station.
Detroit lags far behind most older American cities in terms of walkability -- big surprise! ... The best suburban ones imho are Royal Oak and Birmingham... Ferndale is getting there... enclave burb Hamtramck has a nice strip along Joseph Campau Ave.
This is a comparison of metro areas, not city propers.
It could be argued that this actually widens the gap between Philadelphia and the others with the inclusion of places in suburban Philly like the Main Line suburbs, charming small towns on the other side of the Delaware like Collingswood and Woodbury, edge cities like KOP and Cherry Hill, and none of the others have an urban and walkable satellite city like Wilmington in their metropolitan areas. Even Camden, which is in the early stages of a resurgence, is an asset for metro Philly here--certainly more so that what is probably its closest counterpart within all the other metro areas here, namely East St. Louis.
It could be argued that this actually widens the gap between Philadelphia and the others with the inclusion of places in suburban Philly like the Main Line suburbs, charming small towns on the other side of the Delaware like Collingswood and Woodbury, edge cities like KOP and Cherry Hill, and none of the others have an urban and walkable satellite city like Wilmington in their metropolitan areas. Even Camden, which is in the early stages of a resurgence, is an asset for metro Philly here--certainly more so that what is probably its closest counterpart within all the other metro areas here, namely East St. Louis.
Yes, Camden, esp downtown, is coming back in a big way, particularly around the Rutgers campus and the waterfront. The still new-ish Riverfront Line LRT is seemingly helping this along. And NJ riverfront suburbs along the Riverfront Line have walkable central areas, too, like Burlington.
This is a comparison of metro areas, not city propers.
Yes, I know, and I stand by what I said previously-- that I think overall Detroit city/metro is closer in comparison to metro STL, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. than it is to metro Philly. No question Detroit is larger and more influential than the other Rustbelt metros due to a larger population, but it is more comparable to its legacy Rustbelt city/metro peers than it is to Philadelphia overall.
Yes, I know, and I stand by what I said previously-- that I think overall Detroit city/metro is closer in comparison to metro STL, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. than it is to metro Philly. No question Detroit is larger and more influential than the other Rustbelt metros due to a larger population, but it is more comparable to its legacy Rustbelt city/metro peers than it is to Philadelphia overall.
Using that same logic, Philadelphia is more comparable to Baltimore than Chicago simply because they're both east coast cities.
St. Louis/Cleveland/Pittsburgh are laggards in terms of international migration, they have relatively limited flight connectivity, St. Louis/Cleveland have no equivalent of Carnegie Mellon or U of M, Detroit has way more Fortune 500 companies than Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Pittsburgh have limited representation in professional sports, etc.
Other than the fact that they're all in the Rust Belt, the gap is much wider than you're acknowledging.
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