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street-level people-watching: Tie
architecture: Boston
retail: Boston
restaurants: DC
vendors: DC
markets: DC
parks/squares: Boston
Street performers: Tie
Downtown: Boston
neighborhoods: Boston
In many ways DC can feel like the bigger market with the higher profile. But, my sense is Boston probably wins this one. It is objectively denser, with a slightly bigger traditional urban core. The main thing is it has more of a traditional central core. Back Bay/Theater District/DTX/Chinatown/Seaport/Quincy Market/North End/Bullfinch Triangle form a fairly cohesive area with contiguous urban streetlife. DC feels a lot more nodal. You have lots of commerical streets, but they are separated by row houses areas and 9-5 office zones. IMO, it doesn't really give off the heart of the big city feel.
Boston feels more like an organic smallish big city, where as DC feels like a city that was designed to be be a grander European style city that doesn't quite have the density/activity to pull it off.
In many ways DC can feel like the bigger market with the higher profile. But, my sense is Boston probably wins this one. It is objectively denser, with a slightly bigger traditional urban core. The main thing is it has more of a traditional central core. Back Bay/Theater District/DTX/Chinatown/Seaport/Quincy Market/North End/Bullfinch Triangle form a fairly cohesive area with contiguous urban streetlife. DC feels a lot more nodal. You have lots of commerical streets, but they are separated by row houses areas and 9-5 office zones. IMO, it doesn't really give off the heart of the big city feel.
Boston feels more like an organic smallish big city, where as DC feels like a city that was designed to be be a grander European style city that doesn't quite have the density/activity to pull it off.
I don't know about that last sentence. DC is both dense and active. DC is surprisingly more active that I remember. It'd say that that it's maybe a hair below Boston.
Boston is about 20% denser than DC, and San Francisco is about 23% denser than Boston.
Boston is the only one of these cities with a major airport entirely in city boundaries, also Boston has manyuninhabited Islands, IRL is probably more like 20% less dense than SF IRL.
Actually Boston is closer to 25% denser than DC.
Plus it’s surrounded by towns denser than the towns the surround DC, so there is just a lot more people living near the city center than in DC
I don't know about that last sentence. DC is both dense and active. DC is surprisingly more active that I remember. It'd say that that it's maybe a hair below Boston.
Obviously DC is still dramatically more vibrant and urban than your typical American city.
DC has several active pockets for sure. But, I don't really think it successful pulls off the European capital city feel. It simply lacks the sustained density. DC has lots of 9-5 office zones and very quiet lower lot occupancy rowhouse areas that lack retail.
Boston also has elements of a European city. Although it comes closer than DC, it similarly fails to match Euro capital densities. But it has a more off a traditional American centralized downtown core.
In many ways DC can feel like the bigger market with the higher profile. But, my sense is Boston probably wins this one. It is objectively denser, with a slightly bigger traditional urban core. The main thing is it has more of a traditional central core. Back Bay/Theater District/DTX/Chinatown/Seaport/Quincy Market/North End/Bullfinch Triangle form a fairly cohesive area with contiguous urban streetlife. DC feels a lot more nodal. You have lots of commerical streets, but they are separated by row houses areas and 9-5 office zones. IMO, it doesn't really give off the heart of the big city feel.
Boston feels more like an organic smallish big city, where as DC feels like a city that was designed to be be a grander European style city that doesn't quite have the density/activity to pull it off.
Boston is more nodal too, there much more traditional mixed development well outside of the areas you listed. Much more It’s a somewhat Balkanized city and if you’re not a local youre not really good to think about the commercial strips out on Dot Ave… DC is the one that more centralized and developments abbot more even less peaks and valleys, the Boston core is just that big/developed. But Boston really is much more nodal. That’s a function of it being an agglomeration fo independent cities. By definition they all had their own commercial corridors and town centers when they entered Boston. As a result you have a huge glut of “squares” that does not exist in DC
Boston is more nodal too, there much more traditional mixed development well outside of the areas you listed. Much more It’s a somewhat Balkanized city and if you’re not a local youre not really good to think about the commercial strips out on Dot Ave… DC is the one that more centralized and developments abbot more even less peaks and valleys, the Boston core is just that big/developed. But Boston really is much more nodal. That’s a function of it being an agglomeration fo independent cities. By definition they all had their own commercial corridors and town centers when they entered Boston. As a result you have a huge glut of “squares” that does not exist in DC
DC. Its vibrancy goes on for lengths only surpassed in NA by NYC, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal, IMO. Boston has a nice core, but DC has that European city feel to it, in that there isn't really a downtown -- rather, the whole place is busy.
Boston is more nodal too, there much more traditional mixed development well outside of the areas you listed. Much more It’s a somewhat Balkanized city and if you’re not a local youre not really good to think about the commercial strips out on Dot Ave… DC is the one that more centralized and developments abbot more even less peaks and valleys, the Boston core is just that big/developed. But Boston really is much more nodal. That’s a function of it being an agglomeration fo independent cities. By definition they all had their own commercial corridors and town centers when they entered Boston. As a result you have a huge glut of “squares” that does not exist in DC
These two cities will be very interesting to study over the coming years. Boston is much older than DC and still has the bones from its origin in many areas with very tight streets and original historic buildings. DC is kind of a tale of two cities because of the massive urban renewal of the 1950’s and the MLK riots of the 1960’s. Many neighborhoods still exist in DC, however, huge swaths of the city were cleared opening the door for levels of density that wouldn’t be possible without urban renewal and the MLK riots clearing the land.
The final product at buildout of Navy Yard/Buzzard Point/Waterfront Station/Wharf to the south and NOMA/Northwest One/Union Market to the north will create a level of density and vibrancy DC wouldn’t be able to achieve because of height limits without the events in the last century. DC has experienced unprecedented development over the last 10 years, but what is happening now is unbelievable. Walking around the city right now is overwhelming sometimes. There are so many buildings under construction at the same time it’s mind blowing. Even I didn’t imagine this much construction at the same time.
My real curiosity surrounds the inevitable massive office-to-residential conversions that will have to take place in downtown DC. There is no possible way DC will ever be able to fill the office space it currently has with teleworking taking hold so there will be massive residential conversions at some point in the future. What that means for DC is significant because of how large downtown DC’s footprint is. Outside of Manhattan, no city has the land mass sq. mileage of downtown DC. An inevitable massive shift to converting a significant amount of office buildings to residential or demolishing them completely and building residential from scratch is going to significantly improve downtown DC.
Last edited by MDAllstar; 09-20-2021 at 10:21 AM..
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