LA vs Chicago. which is considered more desirable without factoring in cost of living? (metropolitan, difference)
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There is plenty of pre-WWII housing in the LA Metro. As a percentage over overall housing, pre-WWII may be lower in the LA metro burbs than Chicagoland burbs, but in absolute numbers it's not that different.
LA Metro 1940 Population-3 million
1940 City pop- 1.5 million
1940 Suburban pop 1.5 million
Chicagoland 1940 Population- 5 million
1940 city pop- 3.4 million
1940 suburban pop- 1.6 million
Well that % makes a material impact, doesn't it?
All that tells me is over 50% of Chicagoland was developed pre WWII, and <25% of LA was developed pre WWII.
I'd call that a large difference, and you can see it. But in the real world, there are plenty of people who don't care about build age.. It just happen to be an aesthetic that I like.
I don’t know anything about parking in SF. In LA, which is one of the topic cities for this thread, there is abundant parking in most of the areas where new housing is being built, with the biggest exception being koreatown. It’s not free parking, but parking is there.
Most places are getting exceptions and are providing less than the max parking required.
What about Chicago? How much parking is being built for new construction?
Not counting the above-ground and not residential linked underground parking. DOWNTOWN HERE OF COURSE.
What Chicago is lucky to have most cities do not and shows with many more huge above-ground parking garages by themselves the City built
- Chicago has under its front-lawn of downtown parks along Lake Michigan
- is a series of 4-UNDERGROUND GARAGES.
- under its Millennium Park, Maggie Daley Park that are new/rebuilt and a garage under a portion of Grant Park and reopened 1999 thru early 2000s from some with 50s 60s original builds.
Link for Millennium Garages sight to see pricing, entrances, to these garages.
https://www.millenniumgarages.com/about/
From link.
In aggregate consists of the following four facilities: Grant Park North, Grant Park South, Millennium Lakeside Garage and Millennium Park Garage. All the Parking there was rebuilt and completed 1999 thru early 2000s.
- Millennium Garages is the largest downtown public parking system in the United States
- is believed to be the largest underground parking system in the world.
- the system has a total of 9,176 spaces,
- 3.8 million square feet of space
Chicago's and some other major cities with just Underground Parking totals.
Chicago, IL Chicago Downtown Public Parking System ------------ 9,176
Houston, TX Theater District Parking Garage ---------------------- 3,369
Atlanta, GA Georgia World Congress Center’s Intl. Plaza Garage - 2,000
Boston, MA Post Office Square Garage ----------------------------- 1,400
Boston, MA Boston Common Garage ------------------------------- 1,300
Nashville, TN Courthouse Public Square Garage ------------------- 1,200
Phoenix, AZ Patriots Square Park Garage -------------------------- 1,200
San Francisco, CA Union Square Garage ----------------------------- 985
San Francisco, CA Civic Center Garage ------------------------------- 850
Philadelphia, PA Independence Mall Parking Garage ----------------- 615
There are the streets of downtown with another level under the street that can connect to its buildings for deliveries to areas of parking . Most saw the Batman Dark Night movie and racing scenes.
I payed like $140 p/month for parking right in River North, and 1/2 the spots were empty. It's a steal.
Out in Boston, people sell parking spots for $300k (not an exaggeration). Boston has parking condominiums, where transactions go down like real estate. Just another example of the Chicago lifestyle being cheaper/easier than coastal cities.
That's what I pay living in downtown Los Angeles for a space connected to my building. I'm surprised because someone from Chicago told me just a couple years ago that parking was much more expensive back home than it is in LA. It sounds like Chicago parking options are more like LA than they are like Boston or NYC. And that's a good thing, although it sounds like it's similar to LA in that there may be too much parking for existing, and especially, future needs.
Not counting the above-ground and not residential linked underground parking. DOWNTOWN HERE OF COURSE.
What Chicago is lucky to have most cities do not and shows with many more huge above-ground parking garages by themselves the City built
- Chicago has under its front-lawn of downtown parks along Lake Michigan
- is a series of 4-UNDERGROUND GARAGES.
- under its Millennium Park, Maggie Daley Park that are new/rebuilt and a garage under a portion of Grant Park and reopened 1999 thru early 2000s from some with 50s 60s original builds.
Link for Millennium Garages sight to see pricing, entrances, to these garages.
https://www.millenniumgarages.com/about/
From link.
In aggregate consists of the following four facilities: Grant Park North, Grant Park South, Millennium Lakeside Garage and Millennium Park Garage. All the Parking there was rebuilt and completed 1999 thru early 2000s.
- Millennium Garages is the largest downtown public parking system in the United States
- is believed to be the largest underground parking system in the world.
- the system has a total of 9,176 spaces,
- 3.8 million square feet of space
Chicago's and some other major cities with just Underground Parking totals.
Chicago, IL Chicago Downtown Public Parking System ------------ 9,176
Houston, TX Theater District Parking Garage ---------------------- 3,369
Atlanta, GA Georgia World Congress Center’s Intl. Plaza Garage - 2,000
Boston, MA Post Office Square Garage ----------------------------- 1,400
Boston, MA Boston Common Garage ------------------------------- 1,300
Nashville, TN Courthouse Public Square Garage ------------------- 1,200
Phoenix, AZ Patriots Square Park Garage -------------------------- 1,200
San Francisco, CA Union Square Garage ----------------------------- 985
San Francisco, CA Civic Center Garage ------------------------------- 850
Philadelphia, PA Independence Mall Parking Garage ----------------- 615
There are the streets of downtown with another level under the street that can connect to its buildings for deliveries to areas of parking . Most saw the Batman Dark Night movie and racing scenes.
Interesting. The only public, underground garage in DTLA that I know about is Pershing Square and that has 1,750 spaces. I don't think that residents park there. It's mainly visitors and office workers.
Not counting the above-ground and not residential linked underground parking. DOWNTOWN HERE OF COURSE.
What Chicago is lucky to have most cities do not and shows with many more huge above-ground parking garages by themselves the City built
- Chicago has under its front-lawn of downtown parks along Lake Michigan
- is a series of 4-UNDERGROUND GARAGES.
- under its Millennium Park, Maggie Daley Park that are new/rebuilt and a garage under a portion of Grant Park and reopened 1999 thru early 2000s from some with 50s 60s original builds.
Link for Millennium Garages sight to see pricing, entrances, to these garages.
https://www.millenniumgarages.com/about/
From link.
In aggregate consists of the following four facilities: Grant Park North, Grant Park South, Millennium Lakeside Garage and Millennium Park Garage. All the Parking there was rebuilt and completed 1999 thru early 2000s.
- Millennium Garages is the largest downtown public parking system in the United States
- is believed to be the largest underground parking system in the world.
- the system has a total of 9,176 spaces,
- 3.8 million square feet of space
Chicago's and some other major cities with just Underground Parking totals.
Chicago, IL Chicago Downtown Public Parking System ------------ 9,176
Houston, TX Theater District Parking Garage ---------------------- 3,369
Atlanta, GA Georgia World Congress Center’s Intl. Plaza Garage - 2,000
Boston, MA Post Office Square Garage ----------------------------- 1,400
Boston, MA Boston Common Garage ------------------------------- 1,300
Nashville, TN Courthouse Public Square Garage ------------------- 1,200
Phoenix, AZ Patriots Square Park Garage -------------------------- 1,200
San Francisco, CA Union Square Garage ----------------------------- 985
San Francisco, CA Civic Center Garage ------------------------------- 850
Philadelphia, PA Independence Mall Parking Garage ----------------- 615
There are the streets of downtown with another level under the street that can connect to its buildings for deliveries to areas of parking . Most saw the Batman Dark Night movie and racing scenes.
There's a lot of man-made wonders in Chicago. The beaches are for the most part man-made. The urban river canyon is incredible. It's a lot of fun to just walk around Chicago.
Interesting. The only public, underground garage in DTLA that I know about is Pershing Square and that has 1,750 spaces. I don't think that residents park there. It's mainly visitors and office workers.
Actually downtown residents do park there, especially those living in older buildings that have no parking or very little.
I just realized, Chicago is less crowded, cleaner, friendlier, and has better air quality than LA. I would say that gives it some points on "desirability".
Homelessness is also not near as bad in Chi as it is in LA
Just my two cents on LA vs Chicago suburbs: Chicago probably has a higher density of walkable nodes; virtually any of the surrounding suburbs I can think of which are connected to the train (and that’s most) have some kind of walkability around the train station. Usually these areas have a small town Main Street feel, i.e very quaint, maybe a couple blocks of shops and restaurants that quickly peters off. Downtown Naperville is probably the largest in the far western suburbs, and it’s essentially a 3x3 block square.
By comparison the walkable nodes are farther apart in LA, but they tend to be larger and function more as independent cities than the Chicago suburbs. For that reason, those LA suburbs have a greater “pull” to them than any of the Chicago suburbs individually (besides Evanston and to a lesser extent Oak Park). Overall I’d say the average Chicago area resident is probably closer to a Main Street type area. There are huge swaths of the LA basin with no discernible town center. But, those LA area suburbs where there is a walkable core are bigger and more exciting. City-wise, it’s Chicago for me, but LA as a region holds greater appeal for many.
Fair post.
I get what you mean by "small town" Main street (this naming is quite literal in some suburbs). To be fair, a lot of Chicago suburbs were at first their own smaller cities before being absorbed into suburbia. Aurora and Joliet are good examples of this. However, I wouldn't say Naperville's walkable area has that typical small town Main street feel. When I was walking around Downtown Naperville back in March just before the pandemic shutdown, it felt like I was walking in a central city or one of Chicago's busier streets in a trendier neighborhood. There was a decent amount of pedestrian traffic. It's funny, because if you ever look at Downtown Naperville on aerial streetview it's not that big, rather it doesn't stand out from any other nearby suburb that happens to be much smaller than it is. (Maybe an effect of it once being a <50,000 pop city not too long ago). I'm not quite ready to nominate Naperville as a candidate for Chicago's "Second City", like one thread in a sub-forum once hyped, but I can definitely see it being a major gravitational pull within the far /Dupage County west suburbs at the very least.
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