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I'd say its because most people have never heard of these towns. Most visitors to Boston aren't going to Chelsea or similar places.
Yes for the reasons I listed. It’s close to Somerville but it’s not a college area by any means albeit Chelsea has turned around significantly and has some gentrification and trendiness going for it.
I’m a a bit struck by how much people seem to know about various area of the top 4/5 cities. Seems like people know very little about 98% of Greater Boston. But people for all of LAs vastness can tell you about the Valley vs South LA vs Dolan vs Koreatown. People can tell you the vibes of all these pockets of SF and Chicago and NYC. That starts to waver in DC a bit but falls off a cliff for Boston. I think people are even more familiar with the inns and outs of Seattle, North Jersey, and Atlanta…
I would think people would know it just based off how close it is to downtown if they visit. Or just when they look at a map/google map.
Yes for the reasons I listed. It’s close to Somerville but it’s not a college area by any means albeit Chelsea has turned around significantly and has some gentrification and trendiness going for it.
I’m a a bit struck by how much people seem to know about various area of the top 4/5 cities. Seems like people know very little about 98% of Greater Boston. But people for all of LAs vastness can tell you about the Valley vs South LA vs Dolan vs Koreatown. People can tell you the vibes of all these pockets of SF and Chicago and NYC. That starts to waver in DC a bit but falls off a cliff for Boston. I think people are even more familiar with the inns and outs of Seattle, North Jersey, and Atlanta…
I would think people would know it just based off how close it is to downtown if they visit. Or just when they look at a map/google map.
I think media and migration places a role. There are countless tv shows and movies based in and around LA or NY. You'll meet people from California, NY, NJ, Chicago etc. every where in this country. Plus Boston is a bit isolated from the rest of the US.
I'd say the average American would be familiar with Boston and Cambridge but likely not the other cities of the Boston area. Maybe Somerville and Brookline as well. Plymouth, Salem, Lexington and Concord for history buffs also.
Lol I've noticed that alot of people simply don't look at maps anymore.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. You have to include it. If you don't include Chelsea Everett in the most urban 50 square miles what are you including instead??? The most urban part of the Boston MSA are directly north and west of Boston. Chelsea is hella permeable its from its edge to Boston's edge is what a 4 minute drive max? I thought we were talking about 50 square miles, how is 4 minutes a drive too far removed- especially when someone just said it functions as a part of Boston
This - i don't understand this logic. Arent we just looking for the 50 square miles that most urban? That by definition involves gerrymandering. The Bergen Neck isn't a real place or town- that in and of itself is Gerry mandering...no?
The Mystic River is not even as wide as the Charles river. Speaking as someone raised in Boston i have no idea what non-Bosotnians are talking about- what are the places you would include in the core if not Chelsea and still reach 50 square miles? It feels much closer to downtown Boston than Somerville does..
I did not expect that it was an "argument" for including Chelsea I figured that was an implied given, i was just asking about why its not mentioned. Much more of Somerville and Cambridge contains suburban-type areas than Chelsea.. and Wya more of Boston itself has super suburban areas than Chelsea.
If you're not including Chelsea that is a joke and would make the assessment 100% invalid IMO. You would include Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, and Everett at least in addition to Boston down to about Roslindale.
But I can also see arguments for including Revere Malden and Lynn for sure. But you really cannot include Chelsea and say that youre looking at the 50sqi that ost urban in the Boston area- nah.
But yea same for DC you'd have to include Arlington.. otherwise your not getting the most urban 50 sqmi. Its not complicated. Either way bodies of water are in or out. lets not dothis pick and choose because ittake 40 seconds longer to get across one body at one point than another Thats contrived.
I'm talking about how someone would consider continuous urban development and how they go about creating the "blob" for 50 square miles. Overall, it doesn't matter that much as its original lack of explicit mention on my top ten listing wasn't because it's not a known entity but rather there wasn't an attempt at exhaustive completeness for listing every municipality. You'll note that I didn't mention Brookline whose northeasterrn bit would almost certainly be included as well was also not mentioned. Similarly, I did not mention something like West Hollywood or the flats part of Beverly Hills or the city-iest part of Culver City or even Santa Monica when mentioning Westside Los Angeles nor did I list all the municipalities on the Bergen Neck peninsula that are being counted and those that are not nor did I explicitly outline the way Brooklyn and Queens are split or have an explicit contour of the Bronx that gets included with Manhattan. I think determining that *is* an interesting exercise though as well as discussing the process for doing so, but the omission wasn't because there was an argument that Chelsea should be excluded.
So, the reason for why Chelsea should be included is obvious, but I think there's an argument for why it might not hinging on the continuous part of urban development and how the blob of 50 square miles. First, you start with saying that there is no continuous development between Chelsea and the other side of the Mystic River because what you have is a long bridge, and as is pretty common with bridges, no urban development in terms of buildings on that bridge. It goes even further than that in that not only is there no continuous urban development on the bridge, but it's also a fairly long one and traverses a treatment plant and industry for a bit before getting to what might be more universally considered urban development especially on the Boston side. It's also a bridge that does not support walking across though I guess that can be argued as a separate issue and not urban per se. Let's contrast that with the Charles River Dam Rd crossing where there is literally continuous building on top of such and is a much shorter crossing with urban development directly on both sides.
You're next accessible crossing over the Mystic is the Alford Street bridge. This one's shorter and has a much better argument for being continuous though of course it still does not have development on the road itself and is industrial for large stretches. Should that count as continuous urban development? I think many would say yes, but I can understand an argument for saying it is not. Even more so with the rail crossing, then the other dam (that is not cross-able to the public), then another rail crossing, and then the Fellsway crossing. At this point, the argument that it is not continuous development is still similar, but it's narrowing more and more, so the question is how far "upriver" do you keep taking the blob before a crossing counts as continuous development, and by then, how much of your land area have you essentially assigned into the blob from other directions before the blob is "allowed" to cross under the continuous development criteria and will it be enough once it crosses over to swing back southeast to get to and include Chelsea. Basically, it's kind of like watching slime molds grow on a medium with some minor obstructions. Do I think this is necessarily the way it should be made? No, but I can understand an argument for that.
I think an even stronger argument can be made that Arlington is not continuous urban development with DC as the crossing is even larger. However, if we're looser about it such that Arlington is included and there isn't a penalty for water crossing, then probably it takes it over Westside Los Angeles for the 10th spot.
Algorithmically, one way to think about it is where you use some kind of geographic atomic unit (something akin to a census tract or perhaps a literal street block or even a next square km--something like that) and choose one of them as your starting point. Within those atomic units, you sort of create some kind of score weighting system. Then you start expanding one step at a time for the next "highest scoring" unit and take that in which brings you a lot of new neighbors into the next step in selecting one of them. Now, you can do something where you select that in terms of the next couple of steps that are higher or more as the plan for what you choose, and the more you choose that, perhaps the greater density you have, but also perhaps the lower the "contiguous"-ness you have so the question is at what point if any does the contiguous-ness create a hard line of sorts. I would assume there would have to be some kind of threshold, because then otherwise why explicitly say contiguous?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-09-2023 at 09:20 AM..
That was a long post but I consider heavy industry to be essential and highly urban development. Real people work there and it makes for an urban built environment. It’s the backbone of these cities. Why would someone consider that less urban, they’re usually in urban environments and are often big imposing structures.
I also think activity centers in Chelsea (Bellingham Square), Malden (Downtown), Everett (Broadway/Ferry Square/Encore), Revere (Shirley Ave/Revere Beach), Somerville (Assembly Square/Sullivan Square), Charlestown, East Boston(Maverick Square) and the North End (Waterfront) are so dense and close to one another it’s undeniable energy. You can hop from every like 3 minutes. In the eyes of a local person just driving to your destination or just heading north of Boston in general Chelsea is even easier to get to than East Boston.
If you didn’t include Chelsea you’re also excluding a ton of other super urban areas there. And include a good amount of more bucolic suburban area further from downtown
That was a long post but I consider heavy industry to be essential and highly urban development. Real people work there and it makes for an urban built environment. It’s the backbone of these cities. Why would someone consider that less urban, they’re usually in urban environments and are often big imposing structures.
I also think activity centers in Chelsea (Bellingham Square), Malden (Downtown), Everett (Broadway/Ferry Square/Encore), Revere (Shirley Ave/Revere Beach), Somerville (Assembly Square/Sullivan Square), Charlestown, East Boston(Maverick Square) and the North End (Waterfront) are so dense and close to one another it’s undeniable energy. You can hop from every like 3 minutes. In the eyes of a local person just driving to your destination or just heading north of Boston in general Chelsea is even easier to get to than East Boston.
If you didn’t include Chelsea you’re also excluding a ton of other super urban areas there. And include a good amount of more bucolic suburban area further from downtown
It is--it's to make up for having a very abbreviated first post which had set this off where I didn't explicitly mention every single municipality that would be included within the boundaries of each entry. It wasn't a slight to Chelsea or the Boston area unless brevity was a slight to almost all the areas mentioned.
I think the reason to not include heavy industry is because they are not particularly urban developments since they are fine in suburban settings, too. However, note that this was mentioned as part of a possible argument and not that there is a universal definition, and that the main argument hinges on whether it's contiguous or not. I can understand an argument to be made, though not necessarily one I agree with, that the bridge represents a break in contiguous urban area. After that, it hinges on what's being weighed as contiguous or not and thus how far up the river before you can arc back down to build the rest of the allotted 50 square miles of urban blob.
A change the rankings from various degrees of what's counted as contiguous and how that adds up the 50 square miles (and how "gerrymandered" that shape can be) when applied to all the cities would probably shift the rankings a little, but probably not a lot overall. I did split Brooklyn/Queens (and of course Northern New Jersey) from Manhattan partly because of this. I definitely think saying contiguous explicitly should rule out Arlington from DC, but if not and there's no "penalty" for the split, then that's one that probably gets placed higher.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-09-2023 at 11:25 AM..
It is--it's to make up for having a very abbreviated first post which had set this off where I didn't explicitly mention every single municipality that would be included within the boundaries of each entry. It wasn't a slight to Chelsea or the Boston area unless brevity was a slight to almost all the areas mentioned.
I think the reason to not include heavy industry is because they are not particularly urban developments since they are fine in suburban settings, too. However, note that this was mentioned as part of a possible argument and not that there is a universal definition, and that the main argument hinges on whether it's contiguous or not. I can understand an argument to be made, though not necessarily one I agree with, that the bridge represents a break in contiguous urban area. After that, it hinges on what's being weighed as contiguous or not and thus how far up the river before you can arc back down to build the rest of the allotted 50 square miles of urban blob.
Are they?? Not in Massachusetts.
You can't have those types of factories you have in Chelsea in true suburbs- that's why its in Chelsea. This same thing applies to places throughout the northeast. At the very least those facilities are employment centers characterized by urban spaces.
I cannot imagine the industry in Chelsea anywhere in MA that isnt a satellite city.n urban If they were they certianly would look very different.But on top of that, you can have triple-deckers, rowhomes, and 5 over 1s in suburban settings too. You can have SFH in suburban settings too. Or that office buildings are fine in suburban areas too. Just because you can find something in a suburban area doesn't mean it isn't urban.
Bridges in Chelsea are toll-free and one of them has sidewalks and is legit walkable.
At the ends of the smaller bridge you mentioned, there is housing quite literally right there. On both sides
If you leave Chelsea at 8pm tonight a 12-minute drive from Chelsea to Chinatown will take you by the Bunker Hill Monument, through the West and North ends of Boston, the Waterfront and Leather District. Super urban with tunnels, bridges, and surface roads and the skyline backdrop from different angles. I understand you see my point- I was just sort of outlining the level of connection and proximity to other highly urban areas.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 01-09-2023 at 11:55 AM..
Agree on #1. If we pull up Google maps on satellite view, the Los Angeles/Socal area is by far the largest urbanized area in the USA and perhaps the whole world.
Lived there for 4 years. It’s as wild as it sounds.
Central Tokyo (Yamanote Loop) is slightly less dense than Manhattan (residential population), but both have daytime populations of well over +3 million people so any differences in foot traffic is arbitrary.
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