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"Proportionally speaking," in this case, means "number of commercial corridors relative to their respective populations."
There are almost a million more Brooklynites than Philadelphians.
And if Walla Walla has x commercial corridors and a population of y, and New York has 100x commercial corridors and a population of 100y, then the proportional argument isn't a weird metric.
Ok if it is not a weird metric, then Walla Walla = Philadelphia when it comes to commercial corridors (they have a main street). Actually, Walla Walla may have more per capita than Philly. It is a weird metric in a sense that it results in these kinds of ridiculous comparisons.
In fact, most small towns in the US with one general store, probably have more stores per capita than Manhattan. Nevermind that Manhattan has like 6000 restaurants.
So in this case, if we're talking about a demographic mirror of the borough of Brooklyn, would you then say that Boston has more of a "Brooklyn vibe" than Philly? More West Indians, more Dominicans, etc. Culturally, I can't think of a place that would be more similar.
I think the Lower NE (Oxford Circle Mayfair) might be the closest demographically, although it’s a stretch. Maybe the badlands too?
I think the Lower NE (Oxford Circle Mayfair) might be the closest demographically, although it’s a stretch. Maybe the badlands too?
That's definitely a stretch. And top of that, you're comparing a small section of Philly to all of Boston. I'm saying that Boston as a whole is more demographically similar to Brooklyn than Philly is.
Some of you might know this but The Bronx is an extension of Manhattan and you can clearly see this in the street patterns uptown.
So with that being said The Bronx is just a bunch of neighborhoods. No true downtown or anything like that so Philadelphia is easily better overall.
There was an idea floated around during the Bloomberg admin to create a Bronx downtown area around the Hub, but it fizzled away once de Blasio came into office.
Nobody wants to come out and say it, but they are talking about trendy neighborhoods--or neighborhoods that are at least trending that direction even if they have a working-class element--that draw lots of foot traffic and have bars/restaurants more appealing to upper middle class people. I don't hear people going on about the wonders of Nicetown.
I think it's a matter of both scale (size) and intensity. If you're talking about how Philly stacks up against NYC--or the parts that transplants of NYC transplants are migrating from--Philadelphia can give you a somewhat similar experience for about 1 square mile. It arguably mimics NYC better than any other city, but we're talking a very small area here. Anyone walking out of Center City will instantly notice that the buildings are shorter and there's far less pedestrian traffic. It's almost 98% SFH rowhousing with fewer commercial corridors.
Just from an urbanity standpoint, the experience is closer to Baltimore than it is to Brooklyn.
I read Olney and Zona del Oro mentioned for Philadelphia which aren't really trendy neighborhoods. For my own part, I don't particularly value or dislike trendy neighborhoods. I think there's a lot of appeal of local character and sometimes local character in US cities take that on via having a particularly sizable immigrant community from one place or another. This can still draw a lot of foot traffic and have a lot of eateries or other entertainment/nightlife even if it's not upper middle class people or perhaps the less coded version of that. I think generally what you want though is that it at least doesn't have the look of or at least association with the look of desolation or violent crime and unfortunately a large swath of quite a few US cities have that.
Center City is quite dense and bustling as would be expected, but I also find parts in South Philadelphia especially, but also going north and west to also be pretty bustling. I think the question is where we do a cut off. I don't think a cut off of Bedford L in Williamsburg bustling makes sense, but I think reasonable to say something more like Windsor Terrace or Ditmas Park is reasonable. Brooklyn (and NYC in general) also has this where as noted with the mentioned neighborhoods, density or level of bustling can start leveling off further away from the cores of Manhattan / downtown Brooklyn. There's some unevenness to it, but generally that's the case and Philadelphia has that coming out of Center City and it's a pretty large and varied expanse in Philadelphia that I think overall is substantially larger than what an average person walking would cover daily. I would contrast that to a lot of other places where it's either very small or very discontinuous with walkable "blobs" that are small where you are clearly tied to just a small area that you outpace pretty quickly or gets old. I think it's not totally unreasonable to talk about this kind of scale when talking about a place being walkable.
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Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Getting back to this comparison though, I find it funny that posters often complain about cities that are too gentrified and lack "grit," but apparently the Bronx has a little too much of that. I guess you need to sprinkle in some hipsters moving from Bushwick to give it cache.
The ironic thing is that the Bronx is probably the best place in NYC for an actual "starving artist" to live, not simply some kid with a good job or significant parental support cosplaying as an artist.
Another cool thing about the Bronx is the cool stuff you can buy on the street. Fresh mangos, coconut, sugar cane, machetes, you name it.
I think an issue is what happened in the descent and nadir of the South Bronx was so overwhelming and what people were most likely to see / televised because of Yankee stadium that it was taken as a synecdoche for the entire borough despite the borough being massive, populous, and very diverse in many senses of the word. There's also been little incentive or move to correct that in terms of people who might have more say in the larger general pop cultural sphere as a lot of people within media had a pretty direct move from Manhattan along the L into Williamsburg and then Bushwick, but the bottom tip of the Bronx, the part closest to the central business districts and institutions like major universities that bring in people from elsewhere are generally quite a distance away compared to gentrified Brooklyn and Queens while also being some pretty notable rough and not particularly well built parts of the borough. Even the adjacent part of Manhattan has had a pretty tough time turning around given the way it's built out and the generational and institutionalized poverty it has.
I think with that rather long distance, the Bronx isn't the most likeliest place for the arts, the kind that actually gets funding or comes with people who are themselves not wealthy but have a safety net from their families, to work out as a place for "starving artists" as opposed to the constant eastward migration going along the J and L lines that were an extension of Greenwich Village, then East Village, then Williamsburg, then Bushwick, and now even further out. Meanwhile, there's also a fairly prominent central business district that Brooklyn has that's also very close to Manhattan's financial district so there were basically two vectors from which gentrification occurred.
There is a lot going for the Bronx though as its sheer size and population also means its home to a lot of very different neighborhoods and communities.
??? The Nets play in Barclays Center in Brooklyn, not in New Jersey.
As far as news, Vice News headquarters are in Brooklyn.
Okay; I got my migration wires crossed — the team moved across the Hudson from Newark to Brooklyn.
Did I get the part about the revival of The Brooklyn Eagle right? Is that happening?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
So in this case, if we're talking about a demographic mirror of the borough of Brooklyn, would you then say that Boston has more of a "Brooklyn vibe" than Philly? More West Indians, more Dominicans, etc. Culturally, I can't think of a place that would be more similar.
Demographically, Brooklyn is closer to Boston than it is to Philadelphia, but it's still closer to Chicago and Philadelphia than it is to Baltimore or Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia is closer to Chicago and Brooklyn than it is to any of the other three.
Boston's majority white (barely: 52.1%), and Blacks make up a smaller share of the population there than in any of the other cities save Pittsburgh (its 24.2% share is just above Pittsburgh's 23%. I see Boston Blacks complain all the time that their city's Black presence is overlooked or downplayed, and that stat may explain why). Brooklyn's 33.8% Black population share is closest to Chicago's 29.2% (and nobody downplays Chi-town's Black presence), and it just about splits the difference between Boston's share and Philadelphia's 43.6%.
Native Americans make up a larger share of the population in Brooklyn and Philadelphia (tied at 0.9%) than they do in any of the other cities. (all 0.3% or lower).
In terms of Asian presence, Brooklyn, Boston and Philadelphia rank 1, 2, 3 (12.7, 9.8 and 7.8%, respectively), and Chicago (6.8%) and Pittsburgh (5.8%) are not far behind. Baltimore, with a paltry 2.8% Asian share, is the outlier. The first four all have Chinatowns; Pittsburgh's got obliterated; Baltimore, to the best of my knowledge, has never had one.
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders register on the radar in only three of these cities: 0.1% in Boston and Brooklyn and 0.2% in Philadelphia.
Hispanics account for nearly 30 percent (28.6) of Chicago's population and nearly 20 percent in Boston and Brooklyn (19.5 and 18.9). They account for 15.2% of Philadelphia's and less than 6 percent of the other two.
I would agree that Brooklyn and Boston are more alike in having a stronger Caribbean Black presence than the other three cities, but it's not like Caribbbean Blacks have no presence here: I can find Jamaican restaurants scattered all over the city, next door to my East Germantown apartment stands a Haitian Baptist church, and I took my Trini boyfriend to dinner at a Trinidadian restaurant that's about to move from near Broad and Girard into Center City proper. (Not to mention that the Penn Relays are a national holiday of sorts in Jamaica, and the city fills with Jamaicans on that weekend.)
And Caribbean Hispanics account for a large share of the city's Hispanic population, especially Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.
But here, I would say that none of the differences here rise to the level of differences in kind, save maybe for the quite strong whiteness of Pittsburgh and the equally strong Blackness of Baltimore.
Edited to add one more observation: Boston stands out from the other four cities in having a very noticeable college-town vibe. There may be more college students in Philadelphia and New York, but they don't have as strong an influence on the overall civic culture as they do in Boston.
Some of you might know this but The Bronx is an extension of Manhattan and you can clearly see this in the street patterns uptown.
So with that being said The Bronx is just a bunch of neighborhoods. No true downtown or anything like that so Philadelphia is easily better overall.
The Bronx is the Bronx. I don't think I've ever heard one Bronx native (family included) or my girlfriend who's born and raised on the Grand Concourse and grew up along Fordham Road say the Bronx is an extension of Manhattan.
Did you mean logistically speaking or interconnectedness with Harlem and other Upper Manhattan areas due to geographical proximity? I think you did as you mentioned street patterns. If you meant it in this regard specifically, then sure.
One huge Brooklyn difference between Philly and Brooklyn that can't be ignored is the composition of their respective populations (certainly can't be ignored in Philly since Blacks are a plurality). The overwhelming majority of Black people in Philly have their roots in Virginia and the Carolinas. The majority of Black people in Brooklyn have their roots in the West Indies and Africa.
So when I think "Brooklyn vibes," to me personally, I think of the sounds of Lord Kitchener, Beres and Sanchez and the smell of roti in the air. When I think of Philly vibes, I think of playing dominoes with uncles while listening to Frankie Beverly or Jill Scott and eating fried whiting.
I did get the impression that the Philadelphia AA population being from the US for generations down making up the majority though with some East African and some West Indian and others.
I know that Brooklyn has a very large West Indies population and African (mostly West African, right?), but I didn't realize they were the majority. Is there something you can cite as a source for this?
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