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For peak pedestrian volume, yes. Anything open air that's not a special event.
I know that you didn't ask for LA, but just so that I understand, shopping centers like the Grove, and destinations like Universal Citywalk and Downtown Disney would be acceptable? The difference between Pike Market and those places is that Pike Market is old.
I don't understand why we're still talking about Seattle. The only way Seattle doesn't make it in the top for 50 most urban contiguous miles in the US is if metropolitan areas can have multiple entries (i.e. NYC / Tri-State Area gets four to six entries in the top 10).
Right, 50 square miles really changes rankings quite a bit compared to an order of magnitude up (500 square miles) or an order of magnitude down (5 square miles). I think Oakland / East Bay where you go for a still reasonable 50 square miles that's not all of Oakland proper (eschewing some of the less urban hills) to instead include Berkeley and other more urban areas, so an urban contiguous and not too wormy 50 contiguous square miles for the East Bay can probably net an around or above 10,000 ppsm density, but it's maybe odd to put in multiple entries for a metropolitan area. 50 square miles is also the tricky point where it's questionable whether some of the booming sunbelt cities or the older rust belt cities have larger, more contiguous neighborhoods.
Cleveland, for example, at 77 square miles is about 27 square miles over the 50 square mile criteria, so that's dropping a good chunk of the least urban parts of the city. You'd probably drop even more in order to have the very contiguous and urban community of Lakewood be part of the 50 densest square miles. I don't actually think Cleveland is the strongest contender though for 11th place. I also don't think Houston has a particularly great chance at the top of this (11th spot) either if we're trying to go for reasonable boundaries that aren't very wormy looking strips connecting larger bulbous nodes. However, I haven't spent really any significant time in Houston, so I'd be curious about what the 50 square miles boundary you'd draw for it. I assume all of it within the Inner Loop San Diego is also a city that can do pretty well for a 50 square mile total, but for various reasons it's not very contiguous-y.
50 square miles works well for MSP though as it gets St. Paul and Minneapolis's most urban parts and downtown while still having a pretty convex and not too gerrymandered polygon for boundaries. Another pretty neat 50 square miles is Milwaukee which sort of follows a decently thick crescent mimicking the bend of the coastline that downtown Milwaukee is in and has it relatively urban and mixed-use for just about 50 square miles of land.
Actually Houston is most dense outside of the inner loop. The Western inner loop is around 50 square miles and 6,000-7000 ppsm while SW Houston (South of Buffalo Bayou's and West of 90) is around 70-80 square miles and 7500-8000 ppsm, with the inner portion probably being very close to 9,000 ppsm in 40-50 square miles.
Actually Houston is most dense outside of the inner loop. The Western inner loop is around 50 square miles and 6,000-7000 ppsm while SW Houston (South of Buffalo Bayou's and West of 90) is around 70-80 square miles and 7500-8000 ppsm, with the inner portion probably being very close to 9,000 ppsm in 40-50 square miles.
Are you sure? I put in several zip codes and couldn't find 50 square miles above 7k ppsm for 50 sq miles. The highest that I could find was 77096 which has 343,580 in 50.2 sq miles, so is 6,844 ppsm. Even at 27 sq miles the highest that I could find was less than 9,000 ppsm.
I know that you didn't ask for LA, but just so that I understand, shopping centers like the Grove, and destinations like Universal Citywalk and Downtown Disney would be acceptable? The difference between Pike Market and those places is that Pike Market is old.
I'd count public open-air walkways in urban districts differently from privately-owned walkways that nearly everybody drives to, but sure, why not.
I stayed in downtown Seattle a year ago (wow, time flies during covid!) and can give my impression as a tourist. I don't think that Pike Place Market is good to use as representative of pedestrian activity at all. It's a shopping destination that attracts lots of tourists. I walked there from my downtown hotel, but my impression is that most people drive there. I didn't see many others walking there when I went, yet it was busy. I wouldn't say that it was especially crowded though and it's also very overrated as an attraction, but that's a different story.
As for heavy pedestrian activity in general, I didn't see much of that downtown even on weekdays. But it wasn't empty either. Seattle has high public transit usage and there was noticeable pedestrian activity near train stations and at certain bus stops.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays25
I'd count public open-air walkways in urban districts differently from privately-owned walkways that nearly everybody drives to, but sure, why not.
are you sure? I put in several zip codes and couldn't find 50 square miles above 7k ppsm for 50 sq miles. The highest that i could find was 77096 which has 343,580 in 50.2 sq miles, so is 6,844 ppsm. Even at 27 sq miles the highest that i could find was less than 9,000 ppsm.
Is anyone curious as to why Mhays is refusing or unable to find a pedestrian heavy video of Seattle?
I think most people get what's happening here.
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