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Yea, it makes sense that you've never used CoStar as it doesn't seem like you'd be familiar with it. You can however, use this US census tool to take a look at the different sizes of the tracts and have the SD and Seattle zoomed out to the same level. You'll see that Seattle obviously has a larger contiguous blob of highest density tracts--though on the map they only do 10,000 ppsqm and more so you'll have to hover over it to get the numbers as obviously going from 10k ppsqm to 50k ppsqm. Going by zipcodes is sort of silly since the census tracts actually get you far more granular divisions and populations given for zipcodes are themselves getting pulled from the US census and its census tracts. I understand it's a bit tougher to use perhaps, but there are a lot of tools out there.
Interesting tool, it shows pretty much what I expected to see-
Seattle's highest density tracts don't have a whole lot of people living in them
Seattle has no answer to San Diego's 28,000 ppsm tracts 15 miles east of downtown (El Cajon), or 13,000 ppsm tracts 39 miles north of downtown (Oceanside).
Interesting tool, it shows pretty much what I expected to see-
Seattle's highest density tracts don't have a whole lot of people living in them
Seattle has no answer to San Diego's 28,000 ppsm tracts 15 miles east of downtown (El Cajon), or 13,000 ppsm tracts 39 miles north of downtown (Oceanside).
Right, I understand you aren't familiar with how census tracts work. Generally what happens is that once a census tract gets to a certain population size, it then gets split into more census tracts which essentially tries to keep the basic unit of the census from getting too large. The census does actually require real physical work and the data they are collecting isn't just a rough count of the people in an area, but also other demographic information so that census tract unit needs to keep getting split to become manageable. This is also why Seattle and San Diego's census tracts *also* hover a couple thousand less or more from the 4K mark because that's how the census actually functions no matter if it's low or high density. What changes then are the physical land area covered by each tract and that's why Seattle has one's that get split into pretty tiny units compared to SD's because they are much denser.
That's interesting about El Cajon. Would you say that area is the most urban streetscape for San Diego County and more urban than San Diego's downtown core? I don't think I've ever been to El Cajon, so I'm not super familiar with it, but it doesn't seem more urban than downtown San Diego judging by the Google streetview.
Well, even if you just want to use murder as the metric for measuring violent crime, Seattle is still not as safe as what you would call the "top tier" cities, like San Diego or San Jose. It has had a higher murder rate than places like Boston and SF over the last few years as well. The most high crime areas are places the average tourist wouldn't go, but there is a fair amount of sketchy activity happening downtown and in other tourist areas as well, and you get weird stories like this pretty regularly.
That said, Seattle is still a relatively safe city by US standards, it's just not on the same level as places like San Diego. Tacoma 30 minutes south of Seattle is now decidedly unsafe, with a murder rate that is among the highest on the West Coast for cities above 200K.
Tacoma's 2020 murder rate is at 12.7. Not sure about the more recent data but the murder rate has to be at about 20-30+ per 100k to be among the highest on the West Coast. What stands out with Tacoma or rather PNW in general are the obnoxiously high property crime rates.
Tacoma's 2020 violent crime rate sits at 843 per 100k, again high but not among the highest. It would need to crack 1000 to get there.
This is hysterical. Who's this "Census Bureau" and their crazy "census tracts"?! Invented just to glorify Seattle I'm sure!
The arguments just get more and more bizarre from this guy.
Not at all bizarre to resort to a paid subscription website to scour for data that makes Seattle appear more dense or by cherry picking one block census tracts to represent an entire "core"!
The zip codes tell the story, the census tracts don't. For example, I live adjacent to a 50,000 ppsm tract, which is mostly a one block glorified apartment complex for students. I wouldn't put too much weight on it.
Not at all bizarre to resort to a paid subscription website to scour for data that makes Seattle appear more dense or by cherry picking one block census tracts to represent an entire "core"!
The zip codes tell the story, the census tracts don't. For example, I live adjacent to a 50,000 ppsm tract, which is mostly a one block glorified apartment complex for students. I wouldn't put too much weight on it.
Because mhays25 might actually work in a related field and put up money for data access and tools, therefore he's going to be less knowledgeable than you?
Or are you referring to the US census and the idea is that the paid subscription is taxes? Do you not pay taxes or something? Or is the idea that the US census is biased towards Seattle?
The zipcode demographic data stems from the census tracts--that's how places compile demographic data for different groupings in the US. There is not a separate zipcode agency that does demographic data from a separate census.
Your arguments are mostly irrational kneejerk reactions to imagined attacks on your tribe or something which is pretty rich since from previous topics it appears you're a transplant to the area and seem to have pretty little knowledge of the area and its history. It's unlikely to get better for you anytime soon because you don't seem at this point competent enough to even understand why it's idiocy. Thus, it's not worth engaging anymore because there doesn't seem to be a pathway towards productive or interesting conversation since you clearly have no idea what you're talking about most of the time and have little insight or curiosity, so I'm putting you on the Ignore List.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-22-2022 at 11:07 AM..
You can scan brokerage reports for the same data CoStar provides. It's just quarterly rather than current, far less detailed, and based on defined zones that might not be very useful.
But is any of it a surprise, really? In particular, is Seattle's multiples of SD's core office space a surprise to anybody?
As for census tracts, the point everyone else agrees with is that SD has good density in general, but Seattle has higher peak density. With eight tracts denser than anything in SD, this is proven on the residential side. (Not on the office side but 99 to 1 would already assume.)
We could also list the 20 or 50 densest tracts in each metro. I imagine the bottom of the list would be similar densities. But the top 20 or so would be dominated by Seattle including obviously the top 8.
San Diego doesn't even have a financial district, its not surprising that Seattle has a massive lead with commercial RE.
The question people must ask themselves is does a high concentration of office space in a small space (almost exclusively in high rises) contribute to the appearance of urbanity throughout the metro area.
Because mhays25 might actually work in a related field and put up money for data access and tools, therefore he's going to be less knowledgeable than you?
Or are you referring to the US census and the idea is that the paid subscription is taxes? Do you not pay taxes or something? Or is the idea that the US census is biased towards Seattle?
The zipcode demographic data stems from the census tracts--that's how places compile demographic data for different groupings in the US. There is not a separate zipcode agency that does demographic data from a separate census.
Your arguments are mostly irrational kneejerk reactions to imagined attacks on your tribe or something which is pretty rich since from previous topics it appears you're a transplant to the area and seem to have pretty little knowledge of the area and its history. It's unlikely to get better for you anytime soon because you don't seem at this point competent enough to even understand why it's idiocy. Thus, it's not worth engaging anymore because there doesn't seem to be a pathway towards productive or interesting conversation since you clearly have no idea what you're talking about most of the time and have little insight or curiosity, so I'm putting you on the Ignore List.
I'm saying "census tracts" is a very specific and cherry picked epistemology for determining "core density", since urban cores are typically comprised of hundreds of thousands of people.
I'm pretty sure everyone else reading these posts was able to discern that much.
Then let's combine tracts over large areas. Pick a number.
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