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"Most urban" is subjective, but stats help. If you're measuring by volume, it could be something like residential density, worker density, college student density, and lesser factors like tourism density, toys, and so on. Plus you can add recent construction to adjust for statistical lag, though new construction doesn't fill instantly either. Current construction can add to the subjective feeling, and does involve people onsite, but doesn't bring occupants until later obviously.
Some groupings based on my impressions using those ideas, not necessarily in order within groups, and influenced by quality aspects:
NYC
Chi
SF
Phi
Bos
DC
LA
Sea
SD
Den
Min
Atl
Bal
Mia
Seattle's a tweener. It should be narrowing the gap with the third group, with the fastest population growth of any major core city in the last decade (25%) and massive office growth, both centered in the central (or central-north) 50 square miles. But it's clearly not there yet.
I know you said just using the zip codes given, but technically your right but also wrong. Their's actually lots of commercial in Sharpstown, the area you posted is the least dense part of that neighborhood. Since your not a Houstonian you wouldn't understand but let me give you a rundown on the history of development in Houston particularly SW Houston.
Sharpstown was an extremely desirable suburban neighborhood, that I think was Masterplanned. The neighborhood was built with lots of empty space on the main thoroughfares. I assume for commercial use. What happened was for whatever reason, an oil boom, lots and lots of Apartments was built in Sharpstown and generally points in SW Houston and you end up with a neighborhood where more people live on Apartments among the main thoroughfares hid the beautiful neighborhoods behind them, and only if you look at small census tracts do the population differences, become apparent. These Apartments went ghetto for whatever reason and attracted a ton of immigrants and residents of different backgrounds, many of the actual neighborhoods stayed relatively white but mixed a bit as well because the homes probably lost some value.
This is why the demographics at 4 miles from that part of Houston is- 49% Hispanic, 19% Black, 18% White and 11% Asian.
Sharpstown has 3 famous (locally) Commercial districts. Harwin Drive- Quinceanera+Furniture+Hispanic culture in general and and it borders two of the densest neighborhoods in the city, Gulfton and Westwood, which are both extremely diverse although like most parts of Houston lean Hispanic. Alief is also a cultural center of the city, producing many of the new breed of Houston artists and being the original homes of the Vietnamese and Nigerian communities. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7177...7i16384!8i8192
At one end of Harwin Drive- Doesn't look to good but if you want deals on Furniture their's literally a million Furniture stores there.
Mahatma Ghandi District and Great Indian/Pakistani food in general, mostly along Hillcroft Drive, borders Gulfton which borders Bellaire/West U (craziest contrast ever Gulfton for a long time was considered the hoods of hoods, and Bellaire/West U is in the top 3 most boujee areas in Houston (all of which are on the West Side and really close to Gulfton which is an interesting dichotomy).
Let's just say the drive in and around Sharpstown which borders several boujee neighborhoods and contains 3 different ethnic districts and borders 3-4 of Houston's densest neighborhoods in jarring. I reccomend Anyone who wants to see what Houston is about take the Bellaire Boulevard/Harwin/Hillcroft/Westheimer drive it's crazy how diverse such a small section of the city is. Then you can also go through the inner loop. I'm praying this area, especially Sharpstown sees major urban redevelopment to complete the look because the culture is already there.
Im well read on the history of Alief not Sharpstown/Chiantown. Hosuston is a gretat microcosim of Americas suburban dmeogrpahic shift over the past 30 years. Still the areas you ostd are strictly commercial in land use. I didn't say it was wrong ecuas enumbers are numbers just perhaps a little miselading on "urban" or "dense"
the images both you and I shared are extremely suburban.
Its nice that the areas diverse but is the correlation/significance? I guess is what im asking
Miami shouldn't have to do any explaining for itself because it already has 470,000 people in less land area by its small (36m2) city limits alone.
This 50m2 circle thing is arbitrary and statistically diminishes cities that have their densest development along substantial bodies of water.
Certainly one can pull back the circle to be out of the water in Miami, but that means that it doesn't capture the densest parts of it since that action would center the circle around less dense areas, while only capturing a fraction of the densest parts. Isn't the point to understand the how large and dense the cores of these cities are, or is this just a game being played to elevate some cities over others for homer egos?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
I get what you're saying but naw-were just doing the best we can with what we got, being unpaid an all lol.
The poster who posted the tool is from Boston, which also lies on the Atlantic.
Yeah, my post wasn't any homer post. I was just using the tool that Boston Shudra posted. As everyone has already pointed out, it's imperfect. It doesn't account for thing like water, a giant mountain chain, industrial land, parks, etc.
While it is imperfect, it is reasonably easy. I don't have time to go add up a bunch of contiguous census tracts until I get up to 50 sq miles, but I do have time to plug in a zip code and 4 mile radiuls.
I do work in development actually. Also, I only commented on your misinformed post. I didn't make any claims for which city was more urban, I just corrected what you said because it wasn't accurate.
Take it from me, not many cities can keep up with DC proper on development for many reasons. DC has a development pipeline that will only increase moving forward because of height limits. It actually opens the city up for more development than other cities believe it or not making growth easier. The city was decimated after the 1968 MLK riots leaving tons of parking lots and suburban structures poised for redevelopment. Look at Detroit for an example of the potential to build with a blank canvas.
Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, LA, etc. are on average shorter across their cities. Their downtowns may be taller, but the average building height is shorter once you leave the urban core compared to DC. You don't see 9-story buildings going up all across those cities way outside the urban core in the quantity you see them rising in DC proper and definitely not compared to what you will see over the next 10-years in DC proper.
right now or in the future? Boston and SF are pretty tall. But maybe new development is taller in DC? Most of DC is 1-2 story buildings (because the buildings are attached) where as Boston is mostly 2-3 story (because the buildings are detached)
Yeah, my post wasn't any homer post. I was just using the tool that Boston Shudra posted. As everyone has already pointed out, it's imperfect. It doesn't account for thing like water, a giant mountain chain, industrial land, parks, etc.
While it is imperfect, it is reasonably easy. I don't have time to go add up a bunch of contiguous census tracts until I get up to 50 sq miles, but I do have time to plug in a zip code and 4 mile radiuls.
I know you said just using the zip codes given, but technically your right but also wrong. Their's actually lots of commercial in Sharpstown, the area you posted is the least dense part of that neighborhood. Since your not a Houstonian you wouldn't understand but let me give you a rundown on the history of development in Houston particularly SW Houston.
Sharpstown was an extremely desirable suburban neighborhood, that I think was Masterplanned. The neighborhood was built with lots of empty space on the main thoroughfares. I assume for commercial use. What happened was for whatever reason, an oil boom, lots and lots of Apartments was built in Sharpstown and generally points in SW Houston and you end up with a neighborhood where more people live on Apartments among the main thoroughfares hid the beautiful neighborhoods behind them, and only if you look at small census tracts do the population differences, become apparent. These Apartments went ghetto for whatever reason and attracted a ton of immigrants and residents of different backgrounds, many of the actual neighborhoods stayed relatively white but mixed a bit as well because the homes probably lost some value.
This is why the demographics at 4 miles from that part of Houston is- 49% Hispanic, 19% Black, 18% White and 11% Asian.
Sharpstown has 3 famous (locally) Commercial districts. Harwin Drive- Quinceanera+Furniture+Hispanic culture in general and and it borders two of the densest neighborhoods in the city, Gulfton and Westwood, which are both extremely diverse although like most parts of Houston lean Hispanic. Alief is also a cultural center of the city, producing many of the new breed of Houston artists and being the original homes of the Vietnamese and Nigerian communities. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7177...7i16384!8i8192
At one end of Harwin Drive- Doesn't look to good but if you want deals on Furniture their's literally a million Furniture stores there.
Mahatma Ghandi District and Great Indian/Pakistani food in general, mostly along Hillcroft Drive, borders Gulfton which borders Bellaire/West U (craziest contrast ever Gulfton for a long time was considered the hoods of hoods, and Bellaire/West U is in the top 3 most boujee areas in Houston (all of which are on the West Side and really close to Gulfton which is an interesting dichotomy).
Let's just say the drive in and around Sharpstown which borders several boujee neighborhoods and contains 3 different ethnic districts and borders 3-4 of Houston's densest neighborhoods in jarring. I reccomend Anyone who wants to see what Houston is about take the Bellaire Boulevard/Harwin/Hillcroft/Westheimer drive it's crazy how diverse such a small section of the city is. Then you can also go through the inner loop. I'm praying this area, especially Sharpstown sees major urban redevelopment to complete the look because the culture is already there.
Chinatown image brings back some memories. I miss Houston at times.
Also, just West of Chinatown (where the district ends) is Viet-town/Little Saigon. One of the largest in the country. Southwest Houston is as diverse as it gets.
I even forgot to mention PlazaAmericas which is a mall that was converted to largely cater to the large Hispanic population of the area.
28 Million Square Feet: DC Development in 2019, By the Numbers Boston Propper? 11.2 million square feet. Adding in Cambridge+Somerville=60sqmiles ... 17.0 million square feet development. Development is Under COnstruction, Newly Started or Projects finished in 2018. (Source, Archboston.org)
-$82,381 -- The median income for DC households, a 35 percent increase compared to 2010. By 2024, median income is projected to be $94,570. No one can predict incomes especially after COVID. Null that. But, Boston is nowhere near that high for incomes. Average Boston household is $65,883. Add in Cambridge and Somerville (60sq miles), and its barely over 70k. DC wins there.
-19,725 -- The number of 25-39 year-olds that moved to DC between 2015 and 2018. I cant find the Hub's statistics on that. Im sure its very comparable as Boston and DC are the biggest magnets for that cohort (Millenials are they still?)
-28.4 million -- The number of square feet of development under construction in DC. Of that, 16.6 million square feet is residential, equating to 89 projects and 17,088 units.Not sure if this is DC Propper. Would lik to see a source to this. Not saying this is not true. Boston is 17 ml sqft, 3 million square feet alone from three towers in the core (Winthrop, SSHQ, SST).. and yes all three of those are underway rn.
.. its good to note 10 million square feet of a project dubbed Suffolk Downs was approved officially in September. In October, Dorchester Bay Center is up for appoval. A 12 million square foot project with 10+ towers up to 400ft in height. (I think the highest was 389ft in the last presentation?)
-$15.6 billion -- Taxable retail and restaurant sales in 2018, up 9 percent since 2017. I cannot find any MA numbers for this, let alone Boston.
-42 -- The number of projects totaling 9.1 million square feet that delivered in the District as of August this year.
-4,861 -- The number of Class A apartments that delivered in DC between June 2018 and June 2019.
-$2,487 -- The effective monthly rent for Class A apartments in DC. Boston is over 3k.
-60% -- The percentage of units to deliver in DC over the last decade that were one-bedrooms.
**In 61 sq. miles**
To end the Boston vs DC Debate. Boston in red. Obviously DC has much more going on development wise. Boston has larger/taller buildings underway, but DC has more blocks going up. More overall, making DC urbanize much faster than Boston. Boston however, is much more urban at the moment.
DC is also rapidly expanding its rail and subway service. Im surprised no one brought that up. Its the best system in America according to WalletHub. This will help glide DC more projects and urbanize at the same rate. Boston probably will slump after what is proposed due to the nability to expand its infrastructure.
I've been thinking about this since it was brought up and I'm almost of the opinion that water being included isn't a "flaw" and that it's an accurate accounting of the actual density. I don't see why we would pretend that it's not there.
For cities on the water, like Chicago or Boston, you have to move the center away from the water. Some cities, like NYC or Seattle, have their densest parts surrounded by water. But that's really what it is. It doesn't make sense to pretend as if Hoboken is across the street from the west side of manhattan.
DC's median household income for 2019 is 92k up from 60k in 2010.
Bostons is 79k up from 51k in 2010.
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