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What? DC has more high rise buildings by definition of a "high rise" being 12 story+ than Boston, Philadelphia, SF, and Seattle. It's urban canyons go way beyond those cities. DC is third largest high rise office district in the country after Midtown Manhattan and Chicago. I don't even see why one would attempt to dispute that. High rise and skyscraper are two totally different things.
Exactly, the bulk of the urban core of DC IS an urban canyon for the exact same reason that these people are saying it’s not. Because of the lack of skyscrapers and inability to build above 14 stories, you have all four quadrants of the city with evenly scattered clusters of 12-14 story buildings throughout. Boston and Philly both experience a quicker drop off in their DT core much quicker to two story buildings than in DC. Of course a 12/14 story canyon isn’t as deep as a canyon of 30 story buildings. The point is BOTH are considered urban canyons with high rise buildings. Chicago’s and Philly’s are just taller.
We’re not going to get anywhere in this thread obviously since the rest of the posters here have asphyxiation over height, and tall skyscrapers. We could go around in circles for 100 pages here, but this is pointless.
You don’t need tall buildings. Salem Street in Boston’s North End has 5-6 floors but is an urban canyon because the Buildings are much taller than the street their on is wide.
If Dc’s streets were 1/2 as wide as they are with the same height buildings it’s have tons of urban canyons
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ne999
Could you argue dc has more continuous downtown landscraoers than Chicago? Chicago high rises don’t travel uninterrupted for more than 2ish miles north/south and east/west before hitting residential I don’t think...
The canyons you’re showing for dc may meet the definition but they just don’t have that imposing factor so lose for me on feel...they are just kind of wimpy...they are canyons sure but just don’t pass eye test...I would take San Fran, Seattle, philly, Boston over dc on feel..understood dc maintains the 12 story building urbanity over more distance...I understand this thread doesn’t seem to be about feel
Everything you're speaking of is subjective though.
Boston while having urban canyons in some places, feels wimpy to me because they don't stretch as far as the eye can see like this:
Since this is your thread, and you didn’t give a definition or criteria for your thread, could you please provide the exact parameters that defines a high-rise building? Also, could you please provide the minimal distance the street has to run with uninterrupted view when looking down the street to constitute a canyon?
The problem with this thread is there's too much subjectivity in definition by some here claiming that buildings have to be of a certain height to be "high rise". The definition of high rise is 35 meters or 12 stories, in which DC has more high rise buildings than SF, Boston, Philadelphia, and Seattle.
Two blocks down the street in one direction from where you just posted in SF there are 3 and 4 story buildings:
In the other direction you go two blocks you're at Embarcadero waterfront. So which is it, and what is the standard here? Because there are other cities that hold an even street wall and canyon of over 12 stories for MILES in 4 directions like DC and Chicago.
A high rise should be the minimum height of the the first highrise ever which was 138ft (42.3 meters). That's how I measure them
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