Most Densely Populated Major Cities in The US (beach, compare, people)
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What would you say is the ideal population max for Boston proper? A number that you feel would be high enough to not warrant anymore growth?
The problem isnt warranting high growth. Its just, the land area is so small that theres only so many mass projects we can build in 48 square miles before we have to come up with alternate solutions. Granted, we do have over 22.5 million square feet of developments proposed since January 4th 2020 alone. Its accelerating, but outside of Cambridge, Somerville and Revere there aren't much in the works around Boston. And there really isnt :/
I think Boston Proper could hypothetically max out around 900,000 people when all set and done. Granted, there is a LOT holding it back.
1) COL. Its going way out of control.
2) NIMBYism. Every. Single. Project. Has. Immense. Backlash.
3) The BPDA. It sucks. Theres not circling around that.
4) Transportation. We all saw Seaport go up with 6,000 new residential units and 15,000 jobs + restaurants, dining... but absolutely not one rail extension?? Down the road into South Boston we have another 1,500 units and a massive Office Mid Rises/Food Hall/Entertainment Complex with 4,000 jobs and not ONE transit extension? No Connecting the Red and Blue Lines? No North-South Station Rail Link? No Grand Junction?? Boston is shooting itself in the foot. It needs to make strides on its transportation, and now is the time to do it with ridership down. Its great they are heavily ivesting in quality/signaling/tracking/repairs/replacements now. Great. Bravo. But 1/2 of Bostonians still dont live near Rapid Transit :/
The 48 square miles of Boston will grow fast. There are 55,000 residential units down the pipeline,and thats only going to grow. (Ie, in the past week three major proposals were announced with over 4 million square feet of development. Also Boston Properties announced they are drafting a MAJOR tower proposal at Lord and Taylor Site). But, being so small, Boston needs the cities of Chelsea, Revere, Evrett, Malden, Melrose, Medford, Braintree, Quincy, Newton, Canton, Westwood, Dedham, Needham, Wellesley, Woburn, Watertown, Lynn, Weymouth, Randolph, Saugus, Salem, Peabody, Newton, etc to all help out. These are all relatively dense cities/towns just outside Boston WITH great transit access. Only like two or three of these towns (Quincy, Chelsea, and maybe Malden) are building enough transit oriented developments to help out.
These are Boston's equivalents of Alexandria, Tysons, Fairfax, Slver Springs, Dulles, Reston, Rockville, Gathersburg, etc... and Boston's equivalents just outside the city don't compare. And lets not even talk about Lowell, Framingham, Worcester, Brockton, and Lawrence. The later would be better 'equivalents' to said MD/VA cities, but thats a whole different conversation.
But back to the Original question, I think if Boston fixed its transportation issues, zoned a bit better and kept steady with developments... it would be possible to have 950,000 people in the city limits. I think that would be the cap. The ultimate cap. There are still swaths of land that could see 8-10k residential units across the city that are 10+ years from being redeveloped. (Widdett, End of Seaport, Allston, Roxbury/Tremont Crossing, Dorchester waterfront multiple spots, the space behind North Station, USPS/Fort Point Channel, etc).
But we cant develop those massive parcels at once or over a few years without fixing transit and making it easier to streamline projects that include a lot of residential units. I think it would be real hard to get to a million people in Boston proper even if everything went right and we did build a ton of apartment/condo towers, 5+1s, 10+2s etc..
Last edited by masssachoicetts; 01-30-2021 at 08:46 AM..
Not unless Michelle Wu wins the mayoral election and then she will immediately begin the long state-monitored process of dissolve the BPDA and absorbing by current employees in a new planning department.
If the BPDA remains in place as is there’s not even a consideration of rewriting the code. It’s not even on the table.
The BPDA was founded with help from the state and gradually began to external more and more control and autonomy. In 1965 they were granted tons of urban renwal zones for a 40 year period ending in 2005. This was meant mainly to increase business activity and reduce blight significantly. That was extended to 2015, then 2022, now they want 2026-you catch my drift. Frankly they’ve morphed out of there original purpose and accrued way more money and many times more influence than was ever the intention.
The closest Boston came to rewriting the code was in the 1980s after a failed attempt to abolish the BPDA. But that only made small tweaks and planned by neighborhood, not city wide. It was not an official master plan for the city as recognized by the state of Massachusetts’s
So crucial to remember Boston was a series of small walkable cities put together over the course of a century. There aren’t many long we’ll know streets that connect neighborhoods, especially not neighborhoods of different races-some folks call it a collection of towns loosely connected via subway. This lends itself to a relative lack of cohesion, shared interests and familiarity. There’s a ton of variability in terms of attitude, architecture, density, ethnic groups, history and vision that don’t break along simple racial or socioeconomic lines. Rewriting the code in a way that didn’t take 5+ years would be a Herculean task.
Michelle Wu has a 76 page document detailing the rise of the BPDA and there hand over key projects. It also compares us to similar cities like Philly, Indianapolis and Seattle (sorry, no DC). What she find is these cities create master plans for the city-official one- every 5 years, with updates. They also are able to get a lot more public input and even produce mini-planner workshops/schools.
Side note: Malcolm X was raised in an Urban renewal zone -the Washington Park Section of Roxbury. I used to live on the very block he was a soda jerk at in the corner of him older and Townsend. The area was the first residential neighborhood south of Mass Ave that the BODA redeveloped, and it actually worked very wel. With primarily low income townhomes and co-ops as well as a new park (now called Malcolm X Park), church, elementary school, senior housing and community center. The only thing is? It’s not very dense. It’s still very functional and attractive and represent a very different era than Suffolk Downs and the Seaport-one actually driven by the desires of residents of that area, at that time.
Marksdale Gardens, a Co Op. virtually 99-% multigenerational families. Many of the original families from 1969 live there: https://goo.gl/maps/qgpzDYB9QtDyX6rF8
DC probably is not a good candidate to compare to. We don’t answer to a state. We are self governing when it comes to growth. We have way more control over our growth than any city in America. We are even contemplating this below which would really separate us:
The problem isnt warranting high growth. Its just, the land area is so small that theres only so many mass projects we can build in 48 square miles before we have to come up with alternate solutions. Granted, we do have over 22.5 million square feet of developments proposed since January 4th 2020 alone. Its accelerating, but outside of Cambridge, Somerville and Revere there aren't much in the works around Boston. And there really isnt :/
I think Boston Proper could hypothetically max out around 900,000 people when all set and done. Granted, there is a LOT holding it back.
1) COL. Its going way out of control.
2) NIMBYism. Every. Single. Project. Has. Immense. Backlash.
3) The BPDA. It sucks. Theres not circling around that.
4) Transportation. We all saw Seaport go up with 6,000 new residential units and 15,000 jobs + restaurants, dining... but absolutely not one rail extension?? Down the road into South Boston we have another 1,500 units and a massive Office Mid Rises/Food Hall/Entertainment Complex with 4,000 jobs and not ONE transit extension? No Connecting the Red and Blue Lines? No North-South Station Rail Link? No Grand Junction?? Boston is shooting itself in the foot. It needs to make strides on its transportation, and now is the time to do it with ridership down. Its great they are heavily ivesting in quality/signaling/tracking/repairs/replacements now. Great. Bravo. But 1/2 of Bostonians still dont live near Rapid Transit :/
The 48 square miles of Boston will grow fast. There are 55,000 residential units down the pipeline,and thats only going to grow. (Ie, in the past week three major proposals were announced with over 4 million square feet of development. Also Boston Properties announced they are drafting a MAJOR tower proposal at Lord and Taylor Site). But, being so small, Boston needs the cities of Chelsea, Revere, Evrett, Malden, Melrose, Medford, Braintree, Quincy, Newton, Canton, Westwood, Dedham, Needham, Wellesley, Woburn, Watertown, Lynn, Weymouth, Randolph, Saugus, Salem, Peabody, Newton, etc to all help out. These are all relatively dense cities/towns just outside Boston WITH great transit access. Only like two or three of these towns (Quincy, Chelsea, and maybe Malden) are building enough transit oriented developments to help out.
These are Boston's equivalents of Alexandria, Tysons, Fairfax, Slver Springs, Dulles, Reston, Rockville, Gathersburg, etc... and Boston's equivalents just outside the city don't compare. And lets not even talk about Lowell, Framingham, Worcester, Brockton, and Lawrence. The later would be better 'equivalents' to said MD/VA cities, but thats a whole different conversation.
But back to the Original question, I think if Boston fixed its transportation issues, zoned a bit better and kept steady with developments... it would be possible to have 950,000 people in the city limits. I think that would be the cap. The ultimate cap. There are still swaths of land that could see 8-10k residential units across the city that are 10+ years from being redeveloped. (Widdett, End of Seaport, Allston, Roxbury/Tremont Crossing, Dorchester waterfront multiple spots, the space behind North Station, USPS/Fort Point Channel, etc).
But we cant develop those massive parcels at once or over a few years without fixing transit and making it easier to streamline projects that include a lot of residential units. I think it would be real hard to get to a million people in Boston proper even if everything went right and we did build a ton of apartment/condo towers, 5+1s, 10+2s etc..
Boston needs more help with development outside of city proper, Cambridge, somerville
Quincy seems to be heading in right direction
Yes the article is from 2011 but that is a scale (Accurate too) of what they are building. Most of the lots they are building on are parking lots. Overall, Quincy is building about 4,000 apartments and Condos by 2025. Pretty cool.
Braintree is definitely the worst offender right now. Horrible. Hopefully, the development from Quincy can trickle down.
The problem isnt warranting high growth. Its just, the land area is so small that theres only so many mass projects we can build in 48 square miles before we have to come up with alternate solutions. Granted, we do have over 22.5 million square feet of developments proposed since January 4th 2020 alone. Its accelerating, but outside of Cambridge, Somerville and Revere there aren't much in the works around Boston. And there really isnt :/
I think Boston Proper could hypothetically max out around 900,000 people when all set and done. Granted, there is a LOT holding it back.
1) COL. Its going way out of control.
2) NIMBYism. Every. Single. Project. Has. Immense. Backlash.
3) The BPDA. It sucks. Theres not circling around that.
4) Transportation. We all saw Seaport go up with 6,000 new residential units and 15,000 jobs + restaurants, dining... but absolutely not one rail extension?? Down the road into South Boston we have another 1,500 units and a massive Office Mid Rises/Food Hall/Entertainment Complex with 4,000 jobs and not ONE transit extension? No Connecting the Red and Blue Lines? No North-South Station Rail Link? No Grand Junction?? Boston is shooting itself in the foot. It needs to make strides on its transportation, and now is the time to do it with ridership down. Its great they are heavily ivesting in quality/signaling/tracking/repairs/replacements now. Great. Bravo. But 1/2 of Bostonians still dont live near Rapid Transit :/
The 48 square miles of Boston will grow fast. There are 55,000 residential units down the pipeline,and thats only going to grow. (Ie, in the past week three major proposals were announced with over 4 million square feet of development. Also Boston Properties announced they are drafting a MAJOR tower proposal at Lord and Taylor Site). But, being so small, Boston needs the cities of Chelsea, Revere, Evrett, Malden, Melrose, Medford, Braintree, Quincy, Newton, Canton, Westwood, Dedham, Needham, Wellesley, Woburn, Watertown, Lynn, Weymouth, Randolph, Saugus, Salem, Peabody, Newton, etc to all help out. These are all relatively dense cities/towns just outside Boston WITH great transit access. Only like two or three of these towns (Quincy, Chelsea, and maybe Malden) are building enough transit oriented developments to help out.
..
Not every project gets backlash, that’s not true. Many do-but it’s not that bad.
More importantly, Everett Lynn Weymouth Newton Malden Braintree Dedham as well as Stoughton all build TOD and I think you’re selling them really short. And ultimately with the new law going into effect within 10 years all of these towns will se significantly more residential development.
Not every project gets backlash, that’s not true. Many do-but it’s not that bad.
More importantly, Everett Lynn Weymouth Newton Malden Braintree Dedham as well as Stoughton all build TOD and I think you’re selling them really short. And ultimately with the new law going into effect within 10 years all of these towns will se significantly more residential development.
Interesting study conducted by Filterbuy showing the most densely populated major cities as measured by (1) Population density per square mile and (2) Change in Population density since 2010....listed below are the top 10 most dense large cities in the country:
1. NYC
2. SF
3. Boston
4. Miami
5. Chicago
6. Philadelphia
7. Washington DC
8. Long Beach CA
9. Seattle
10. Los Angeles
Seattle (+23.41%), Washington DC (+16.76%) and Miami (+16.68%) population density increased the most since 2010 of the top 10 dense cities.
The study also looks at the most and least densely populated small and midsize cities as well as the least densely populated major cities.
Since when does having 400,000 people make a city "major"? I think that there's a pretty good argument that there are only 4 "major" cities on this list. The ones with over 1 million people. That's probably where the cutoff should be.
Since when does having 400,000 people make a city "major"? I think that there's a pretty good argument that there are only 4 "major" cities on this list. The ones with over 1 million people. That's probably where the cutoff should be.
1 mill is your cutoff..so San Fran, Boston, dc, miami, Seattle aren’t major cities?
Since when does having 400,000 people make a city "major"? I think that there's a pretty good argument that there are only 4 "major" cities on this list. The ones with over 1 million people. That's probably where the cutoff should be.
You would have to use the same land area by miles squared to measure that. So, unless you’re going to shrink LA, NYC, Chicago, and Philadelphia to the size of San Fran, Boston, and DC or grow their boundaries to 200 sq. miles, you can’t really use that criteria.
1 mill is your cutoff..so San Fran, Boston, dc, miami, Seattle aren’t major cities?
Are Mesa, Tucson, and Fresno?
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