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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Idk what time of time you've spent in DC, but I go to LA. I'm very familiar and when I spend my time there, I am often in Central LA. My friend used to live in Hollywood, but now is out by Glendale. LA is in my top 5 of places I would live in the nation. There's no way in hell I would compare the two cities in urbanity. It just ain't the same, and really not even comparable. Hollywood BLVD is unique and active. It's still an entirely different level or type of urbanity or activity how I see it. What LA does is span for miles to some minimal level of urbanity, that the EC cities and SF are just smaller than in total land area, but it's urban form is completely different.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
Either you're triggered or you're still not understanding. It's not picking something to make LA look good and DC look bad, it's using the zip codes that yield the absolute highest populations for a 50 square mile area. It just happens that DC is so much less populated that it's not on the same tier as LA and Chicago.
Completely different from your own OP.
"The agreed upon top 5 "most urban" cities in the US from east to west are: Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, and SF so those are omitted from this poll.
DC, LA, and Seattle seemed to come up the most in the other thread although cases were also made for Miami, Baltimore, and New Orleans. "
Why not make a separate "radius population/density of an urban core" thread to hash that out.
With regards to the 6th most urban city, in response to your OP. The answer is Washington DC.
Idk what time of time you've spent in DC, but I go to LA. I'm very familiar and when I spend my time there, I am often in Central LA. My friend used to live in Hollywood, but now is out by Glendale. LA is in my top 5 of places I would live in the nation. There's no way in hell I would compare the two cities in urbanity. It just ain't the same, and really not even comparable. Hollywood BLVD is unique and active. It's still an entirely different level or type of urbanity or activity how I see it. What LA does is span for miles to some minimal level of urbanity, that the EC cities and SF are just smaller than, but it's urban form is completely different.
I certainly wouldn't call a 50 square mile circle that contains over 19,000 people per square mile "minimal". And they aren't the same, but I think that we have to objectively look at the numbers and step back from what we subjectively consider urban to look like.
I agree that Hollywood Blvd is unique, that's partly why I posted it. DC has no answer to it, just like LA has no answer to DC's parks, memorials, museums, or metro. DC also has no answer to Koreatown, nor even DTLA.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
I certainly wouldn't call a 50 square mile circle that contains over 19,000 people per square mile "minimal". And they aren't the same, but I think that we have to objectively look at the numbers and step back from what we subjectively consider urban to look like.
I agree that Hollywood Blvd is unique, that's partly why I posted it. DC has no answer to it, just like LA has no answer to DC's parks, memorials, museums, or metro. DC also has no answer to Koreatown, nor even DTLA.
Again you're taking density numbers and conflating that with a thread that is based on "urbanity". And even then you have to position the density to a concentrated area of LA to match DC, because as a city DC is more dense.
LA has no answer to Logan Circle, Georgetown, or even Adams Morgan or Shaw. I'm speaking in urban terms. This thread is about urbanity.
"The agreed upon top 5 "most urban" cities in the US from east to west are: Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, and SF so those are omitted from this poll.
DC, LA, and Seattle seemed to come up the most in the other thread although cases were also made for Miami, Baltimore, and New Orleans. "
Why not make a separate "radius population/density of an urban core" thread to hash that out.
With regards to the 6th most urban city, in response to your OP. The answer is Washington DC.
LA and Chicago are on the same tier for population only. I think that the main two factors in urbanity are population density and density of amenities. Chicago may have enough additional jobs in it's core that it has more amenities. I don't know.
And I do understand the concept that people move to urban areas to live a certain lifestyle and that has all sorts of factors included. I consider that as well. That's where DC starts to catch LA, but the population and amenity differences are so staggering, that I can't see it catching or passing LA overall.
Again you're taking density numbers and conflating that with a thread that is based on "urbanity". And even then you have to position the density to a concentrated area of LA to match DC, because as a city DC is more dense.
LA has no answer to Logan Circle, Georgetown, or even Adams Morgan or Shaw. I'm speaking in urban terms. This thread is about urbanity.
Population density is one of the two most important criteria in determining how urban an area is along with the density of amenities. After that you really start discussing the quality of the urbanity and it becomes largely subjective.
I don't know enough about those areas to say that LA has no equivalent. LA's urban core has places like Beverly Hills (the mansions are not included in the area that I gave, but the shopping areas are), West Hollywood, and Santa Monica. None of these are going to be equivalent to DC, but come on, these are iconic areas.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
Population density is one of the two most important criteria in determining how urban an area is along with the density of amenities. After that you really start discussing the quality of the urbanity and it becomes largely subjective.
I don't know enough about those areas to say that LA has no equivalent. LA's urban core has places like Beverly Hills (the mansions are not included in the area that I gave, but the shopping areas are), West Hollywood, and Santa Monica. None of these are going to be equivalent to DC, but come on, these are iconic areas.
Again, DC is getting ready to pass Philadelphia in population density this decade. DC is not more urban than Philly in built form however. Same with Central LA vs all of DC, or wherever you're starting your radius tool from.
Again, DC is getting ready to pass Philadelphia in population density this decade. DC is not more urban than Philly in built form however. Same with Central LA vs all of DC, or wherever you're starting your radius tool from.
"Urban built form" is another one of those subjective terms. To C-D a row house having no parking space is "classic urban vernacular", but to me that's just "built before 1920".
I already said that there were mitigating circumstances for why the numbers are what they are. DC's densest urban area likely includes more area that they can't build upon because it's owned by the government for one reason or another. It may also include some water. But even if those add up to 20% of the area and you multiply by 1.25 (1.0 divided by 0.8), DC would still have 282,000 less people than LA.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
"Urban built form" is another one of those subjective terms. To C-D a row house having no parking space is "classic urban vernacular", but to me that's just "built before 1920".
I already said that there were mitigating circumstances for why the numbers are what they are. DC's densest urban area likely includes more area that they can't build upon because it's owned by the government for one reason or another. It may also include some water. But even if those add up to 20% of the area and you multiply by 1.25 (1.0 divided by 0.8), DC would still have 282,000 less people than LA.
You're doing a lot of extra work that's not needed. DC actually has it's 712,000 people on 46 sq mi of developable land. It's peak population was over 800k, and it's expected to pass that in about 10 years. The National Mall, park land, Bolling AFB, etc. take up an additional 15 sq mi from Washington.
No matter what vernacular is being used here, urbanity being the threshold, DC is more urbane, AND city wide it's more dense.
I certainly wouldn't call a 50 square mile circle that contains over 19,000 people per square mile "minimal". And they aren't the same, but I think that we have to objectively look at the numbers and step back from what we subjectively consider urban to look like.
I agree that Hollywood Blvd is unique, that's partly why I posted it. DC has no answer to it, just like LA has no answer to DC's parks, memorials, museums, or metro. DC also has no answer to Koreatown, nor even DTLA.
DC has plenty of streets as busy and built up as Hollywood Blvd, that's ridiculous. 14th Street is just as busy with pedestrians, if not busier. As is H Street, K Street through the urban core is far more built up consistently. You have 7th Street through Downtown. Hollywood and Highland reminds me a bit of a more touristy version of the Gallery Place crossings in DC.
It's true DC is more office intensive in its core than residential (the height restrictions cause most residential uses to be pushed to other urban neighborhoods rather than in the CBD itself), which I think makes parts of DC like Metro Center and Farragut Square more "Monday-Friday 8am-6pm" areas. I will give LA that, 7th Street is a bit more busy throughout the day and weekend than a lot of the DC ofdice areas. But, 5pm on a weekday in the CBD of DC is far far busier with streetlife and pedestrians than anywhere in LA, it's like a mass movement of humanity. And DC's employment core is massive, and virtually every building is urban (facing street, mix use, etc.) whereas a lot of DTLA like Bunker Hill has office buildings with giant dead plazas, underground food halls, parking ramps, and are built to be more "afraid of the street" like a suburban office park.
I think it's all these little reasons that LA just never feels very urban, regardless of the density on paper. Maybe the blocks are a bit bigger too? Idk, when I lived there is always felt less walkable and like less of a city than the older cities like DC, Baltimore, Boston, SF, Chicago, Philly, etc.
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