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Speaking of South Boston. I’ve been shocked by the amount of people I knew from places like Medford and Somerville who thought like 100% for sure neighborhoods like Dorchester and Charlestown were separate municipalities from the city of Boston.
It's gross. It's one of the reasons that folks who grow up within city limits dislike the whole "we're all from Boston" thing that happens with the metro. They don't even know where Boston begins or ends
The question is what city feels the largest. So Boston starts feeling like you left the city around Saugus/Dedham kind of areas. Nobody would question if you live “in the city” if you live in Somerville even if it’s mostly 3 Deckers and small (4-5 story office buildings/walk ups)
Well, if we are including rowhomes and small apartment buildings as the urban core, then I guess DC and Boston have urban cores that go to their municipal borders. What about Philadelphia though? Philly doesn’t have the small apartment buildings mixed with rowhouses seen in DC and Boston. It’s largely just rowhouses.
Well, if we are including rowhomes and small apartment buildings as the urban core, then I guess DC and Boston have urban cores that go to their municipal borders. What about Philadelphia though? Philly doesn’t have the small apartment buildings mixed with rowhouses seen in DC and Boston. It’s largely just rowhouses.
Nope.
The vast majority of Philly dwellings are rowhouses, true: but there are plenty of apartments, tenements, mixed-use and other structures also. Just ride the El from one end to the other. You’ll see what I mean.
Even if that weren’t the case though, rowhouses are indeed buildings.
They are physical structures that exist and occupy space, and are objectively part of a city’s urban fabric: no less, or more, than D.C.’s mid-rises, Boston’s triple deckers, NYC’s high-rises, Chicago’s bungalows, San Francisco’s Painted Ladies, or L.A. or Houston’s sub-divisions and freeways.
All of these structures are valid for considering a city or metro’s urban character. While we all have our own subjective preferences, objectively all of these are representative of “urbanity”, particularly in the North American context.
Well, if we are including rowhomes and small apartment buildings as the urban core, then I guess DC and Boston have urban cores that go to their municipal borders. What about Philadelphia though? Philly doesn’t have the small apartment buildings mixed with rowhouses seen in DC and Boston. It’s largely just rowhouses.
Wrong. You haven't been in Philly within the past 5 years or you're just simply haven't explored much of the city. Not including center city proper which has plenty of small apartment buildings mixed in, University City in West Philly, NoLibs and Fishtown among others, all have plenty of apartment buildings mixed in. That's not even including rowhomes converted into apartments. There's a reason why Philly is more dense than DC across the board.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nephi215
Wrong. You haven't been in Philly within the past 5 years or you're just simply haven't explored much of the city. Not including center city proper which has plenty of small apartment buildings mixed in, University City in West Philly, NoLibs and Fishtown among others, all have plenty of apartment buildings mixed in. That's not even including rowhomes converted into apartments. There's a reason why Philly is more dense than DC across the board.
Oh Philly definitely has apartments mixed in a number of areas across the city, I can attest to that. My normal resting place when I'm in town is the Drexel/UCity area, so that area for sure has a good mix. Although, DC probably will jump Philly in city wide density within 3-5 years, they both have their unique ways that they achieve it. Philly will probably keep the higher peak density, as DC's will be more evenly spread out. DC by percentage though is adding more high density apartments to it's pipeline than any city other than NYC. It added the second most housing units per sq mile over the last 10 years. The biggest difference with Washington is how expansive the areas being built up to high density apartment units are.
Wrong. You haven't been in Philly within the past 5 years or you're just simply haven't explored much of the city. Not including center city proper which has plenty of small apartment buildings mixed in, University City in West Philly, NoLibs and Fishtown among others, all have plenty of apartment buildings mixed in. That's not even including rowhomes converted into apartments. There's a reason why Philly is more dense than DC across the board.
I’m talking about south Philadelphia which has been the center of the discussion the last few pages. You may not have had time to read the last couple pages. Also, our discussion has been about size and height of buildings, not use in relation to feel. For context, a rowhouse that is 2-3 stories with 4-6 story apartment buildings mixed in is what we mean. Not a sea of 2-3 story rowhouses where some are apartments and others are single family homes. Urban core means the feeling of taller buildings. 2-3 stories is the same height as detached single family homes.
I’m just going assume you haven’t been to NYC, Chicago or LA let alone any Asian mega city lol.
Houston is big but on the grand scale of things, it’s a drop in the bucket
New York has the most expansive built environment, but for it's size LA is pretty compact.
In terms of urban land area, Atlanta is second after New York, then Chicago is 3rd.
Although, LA, Philadelphia, Boston and DFW all have a more expansive built land area than Houston, I wouldn't say Houston is a drop in the bucket. It isn't first like he said, but it's about 8th largest in urban land area in the US, that's not bad.
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