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Seattle wouldn't be on their level in 13 square miles. But it gets close at 5, or the 4.5-sm area I find useful due to tract boundaries. Outside of that, single-family becomes predominant.
Outside the core, urbanity is in nodes and corridors around town due to our "urban village" growth concept, but that's collectively 15% of the city, going on 20% due to recent upzones, with SFRs more like 65% going on 60%.
As for city limits, you're being unfair to Boston. Much of Cambridge is part of the urban core. Administrative boundaries aren't relevant.
5 sq. miles is pretty small. DC’s downtown alone is larger than 5 sq. miles.
That’s true for Boston since Boston as a city proper isn’t that impressive, but the suburbs add a lot. I just wanted to use and apples to apples comparison. Cambridge is its own city with its own government and rules. It’s not a part of Boston even though people can cross the river to enjoy it just like they can in every other city.
I'm thinking from the perspective of the urban experience, the city as an economic engine, etc....Cambridge being managed by a separate entity is irrelevant. Likewise, London's West End was always part of its core, even before the merger.
Yes 5 square miles is smallish. It all depends what you're counting. A smaller area is helpful for Seattle, while a larger area favors DC.
I'm thinking from the perspective of the urban experience, the city as an economic engine, etc....Cambridge being managed by a separate entity is irrelevant. Likewise, London's West End was always part of its core, even before the merger.
Yes 5 square miles is smallish. It all depends what you're counting. A smaller area is helpful for Seattle, while a larger area favors DC.
No, I agree with you on Boston. For this comparison, I used city propers but that doesn’t take away from the cohesiveness of Boston and it’s suburbs.
As for the urban core. You can’t just cut off an urban footprint because you’ve reached the end of a measurement. That’s why some of these cities aren’t on the same level. Walking down streets in DC and Paris will never feel like walking down streets in the Loop or Midtown NYC, but if we’re talking urban core, cities like DC and Paris spread for miles with development and vibrancy for much longer distances than most cities because once an area is built out, cities with height limits have to move on to the next neighborhood.
If you think about it, that’s actually what makes the urban core comparison an unfair advantage to cities without height limits. Their small downtown areas absorb all the demand so the neighborhoods around the city don’t get built up.
It’s an attempt to add facts to a debate that has been subjective for the past three days. I was discussing this with another poster trying to get an apples to apples comparison based on facts and real neighborhoods covering an actual footprint that can be measured versus what people have been doing. This was the post:
I’m not sure whether DC and Vancouver should be included, but we need to use the same measurements for the cities to see exactly what is covered over the same distance and what isn’t. You can’t eyeball distance for an urban core, we have to actually measure. I bet most people would be shocked when cities are held up to each other apples to apples.
Right, I can see going for apples to apples by designating a specific area, but why specifically 13 square miles? Where does the 13 come from? Why isn’t something less peculiar like 10 square miles or 10 square kilometers or a 1 mile radius from a given center or some such?
I’m pretty sure it’s unlikely that for top 7 most urban downtown slots in North America, both are tough sales unless we’re really trying to game the metrics to something highly specific?
I don’t think you understand what I mean by cohesive. Cohesive means unobstructed. Brooklyn can’t be included in the core of NYC with Manhattan. They are separated by a huge river. You can’t walk outside your house to downtown Vancouver from North Vancouver. You can’t even swim it. Vancouver harbor is 1.48 miles wide from dock to dock. What is your explanation for that 1.48 mile distance of water?
I think you would need to consider the amount of crossings that happen to say if it’s cohesive. It’s certainly a barrier of sorts, but between Brooklyn and Manhattan are three bridges that host a lot of cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists, a tunnel that is vehicle-only, eight separate rapid transit river crossings with many of those hosting anywhere from one to four different train services, and multiple ferry services. The combined number of crossings there certainly don’t point to a lack of cohesiveness.
Right, I can see going for apples to apples by designating a specific area, but why specifically 13 square miles? Where does the 13 come from? Why isn’t something less peculiar like 10 square miles or 10 square kilometers or a 1 mile radius from a given center or some such?
I’m pretty sure it’s unlikely that for top 7 most urban downtown slots in North America, both are tough sales unless we’re really trying to game the metrics to something highly specific?
It doesn’t need to be 13 sq. miles. It can be anything, but I was trying to use a measurement that would capture the actual urban core size of the cities with the largest urban cores. If you think about it, that’s really the deciding factor for this anyway. If your city starts to fall off when other cities urban cores are still going when the measurements are laid down, it ranks all these cities for us.
Manhattan is 22.83 sq. miles and we can all admit every inch of Manhattan is apart of NYC’s urban core. DC’s urban core is actually larger than 13 sq. miles so if we are really going apples for apples, we should probably get an accurate measurement of what the urban core boundaries are for each city being discussed by sq. miles, and then put all those side by side to see which cities truly have the largest urban cores. We can’t continue having a discussion without facts, data, or logic.
I think you would need to consider the amount of crossings that happen to say if it’s cohesive. It’s certainly a barrier of sorts, but between Brooklyn and Manhattan are three bridges that host a lot of cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists, a tunnel that is vehicle-only, eight separate rapid transit river crossings with many of those hosting anywhere from one to four different train services, and multiple ferry services. The combined number of crossings there certainly don’t point to a lack of cohesiveness.
Do you consider Brooklyn to be a part of NYC’s urban core with Manhattan? I think it’s a separate urban core, but I don’t think it’s connected as a cohesive place that you take a stroll through on a Saturday afternoon. Yes, you can cross bridges just like you can walk from Rosslyn to Georgetown, but they are still separate from each other.
An example of a river that does not breakup the urban core is the Loop in Chicago and downtown San Antonio.
It doesn’t need to be 13 sq. miles. It can be anything, but I was trying to use a measurement that would capture the actual urban core size of the cities with the largest urban cores. If you think about it, that’s really the deciding factor for this anyway. If your city starts to fall off when other cities urban cores are still going when the measurements are laid down, it ranks all these cities for us.
Manhattan is 22.83 sq. miles and we can all admit every inch of Manhattan is apart of NYC’s urban core. DC’s urban core is actually larger than 13 sq. miles so if we are really going apples for apples, we should probably get an accurate measurement of what the urban core boundaries are for each city being discussed by sq. miles, and then put all those side by side to see which cities truly have the largest urban cores. We can’t continue having a discussion without facts, data, or logic.
I agree with trying to get things down to arguing about apples to apples areas—I just didn’t understand why it was the 13 square mile test with a definite article in front of it as if there was a very specific test standard outlined by something that you’re looking at.
Like, 10 square miles is a decent round number or 10 square kilometers. Or you drilled down to just 1 square mile or square kilometer or went up to 100 square miles or square kilometers. Or if you were going with measuring tools that only allowed right angles and straight lines, then 9 square miles or square kilometers for a 3x3 square or you went larger or smaller, or if you had a tool that drew circles and so you got pi squared like ~9.86 square miles. The 13 was confusing to me, because it was so specific that I thought maybe you were citing some specific study.
I agree with trying to get things down to arguing about apples to apples areas—I just didn’t understand why it was the 13 square mile test with a definite article in front of it as if there was a very specific test standard outlined by something that you’re looking at.
Like, 10 square miles is a decent round number or 10 square kilometers. Or you drilled down to just 1 square mile or square kilometer or went up to 100 square miles or square kilometers. Or if you were going with measuring tools that only allowed right angles and straight lines, then 9 square miles or square kilometers for a 3x3 square or you went larger or smaller, or if you had a tool that drew circles and so you got pi squared like ~9.86 square miles. The 13 was confusing to me, because it was so specific that I thought maybe you were citing some specific study.
Anyhow, yea, I’m all for metrics.
The problem with radius is you hit water and you cut off neighborhoods that would be right near the core. Look at using a radius for Chicago and Manhattan. You’re in water which doesn’t make it apples to apples. Using a sq. mile area allows for whatever shape is needed based on development of that city without using any water at all. That’s really the point and allows an apples to apples comparison. Take Chicago for instance, the Loop is really the far eastern point of the core. The north/south/west neighborhoods would create the core boundaries.
For major urban cores, how do you use anything smaller than 13 sq. miles? Really, 13 sq. miles is too small. Cities like NYC, Chicago, DC, San Fran, Mexico City, Toronto, etc. go way beyond 13 sq. miles for their urban cores.
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