Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Buzzard Point & Navy Yards.... divided by a little road called 695.... are seamlessly integrated/connected to DuPont or Adams Morgan? Interesting take
We can play this silly game all day.
So we are moving the goal post now? Function =/= vibrancy
By that logic nothing in DC is core neighborhood if we are using Manhattan as bar for vibrancy.
Since when would an elevated highway divide an urban core? Low density single family detached neighborhoods maybe, but an elevated highway? As for vibrancy, Philly/Boston/Chicago/San Fran/DC are all vibrant and that is common knowledge. You’re talking about Baltimore? It’s not even an option in the poll.
Since when would an elevated highway divide an urban core? Low density single family detached neighborhoods maybe, but an elevated highway? As for vibrancy, Philly/Boston/Chicago/San Fran/DC are all vibrant and that is common knowledge. You’re talking about Baltimore? It’s not even an option in the poll.
Baltimore would fall under "other" my guy, and all these cities are closer to Providence in terms of vibrancy than they are to NYC, so that's really a moot point.
This whole tirade started because you were tooting about DC's amazing density and it's core being the size of Manhattan and people checked you on it.
Since when would an elevated highway divide an urban core? Low density single family detached neighborhoods maybe, but an elevated highway? As for vibrancy, Philly/Boston/Chicago/San Fran/DC are all vibrant and that is common knowledge. You’re talking about Baltimore? It’s not even an option in the poll.
How about asking Society Hill residents who protested the Pennsylvania Highway Department's plan to build I-95 as an elevated highway along the entire Central Delaware riverfront? Eventually, they called in a heavy hitter to bat for them — Vice President Hubert Humphrey — and the department (now PennDOT) agreed to cap the highway for one block and bury it for another block and a half right where it passes Society Hill Towers.
Or, for that matter, the New Yorkers who fought successfully to not have a freeway built along the Hudson riverfront after the state tore down the antiquated West Side Highway (another elevated freeway)? And that road would have run in a trench. (And while we're on the subject of New York, let's not forget how Jane Jacobs and her band of Greenwich Villagers stopped master road-builder Robert Moses from building an elevated freeway across Lower Manhattan.)
Or let's take Boston, which spent a ton and a half of money to bury the elevated Central Artery through the downtown. I can tell you that traveling from Haymarket to the North End via the path under the elevated highway felt like entering another country, so to speak.
We could then go to San Francisco, where residents managed to put a complete halt to the California Highway Department's plan to build an elevated freeway along the Embarcardero connecting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with the Golden Gate Bridge. The road had gotten past the Ferry Building when work stopped, but the work stopped — and after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused a similar elevated freeway in Oakland to pancake, the part that got built was demolished.
Shall I go on? I haven't listed all the examples I can think of yet. I certainly felt that Southwest was cut off from the rest of central DC when I had to find a small tunnel under I-395 in order to get from Capitol Hill to a gay bar on the other side of it in the 1980s.
Baltimore would fall under "other" my guy, and all these cities are closer to Providence in terms of vibrancy than they are to NYC, so that's really a moot point.
This whole tirade started because you were tooting about DC's amazing density and it's core being the size of Manhattan and people checked you on it.
No, you started showing your lack of knowledge of what DC looks like in 2023 and you tried it! I mean, the fact that you said Union Market is not part of the DC urban core shows you have no credibility to speak on this subject.
How about asking Society Hill residents who protested the Pennsylvania Highway Department's plan to build I-95 as an elevated highway along the entire Central Delaware riverfront? Eventually, they called in a heavy hitter to bat for them — Vice President Hubert Humphrey — and the department (now PennDOT) agreed to cap the highway for one block and bury it for another block and a half right where it passes Society Hill Towers.
Or, for that matter, the New Yorkers who fought successfully to not have a freeway built along the Hudson riverfront after the state tore down the antiquated West Side Highway (another elevated freeway)? And that road would have run in a trench. (And while we're on the subject of New York, let's not forget how Jane Jacobs and her band of Greenwich Villagers stopped master road-builder Robert Moses from building an elevated freeway across Lower Manhattan.)
Or let's take Boston, which spent a ton and a half of money to bury the elevated Central Artery through the downtown. I can tell you that traveling from Haymarket to the North End via the path under the elevated highway felt like entering another country, so to speak.
We could then go to San Francisco, where residents managed to put a complete halt to the California Highway Department's plan to build an elevated freeway along the Embarcardero connecting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with the Golden Gate Bridge. The road had gotten past the Ferry Building when work stopped, but the work stopped — and after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused a similar elevated freeway in Oakland to pancake, the part that got built was demolished.
Shall I go on? I haven't listed all the examples I can think of yet. I certainly felt that Southwest was cut off from the rest of central DC when I had to find a small tunnel under I-395 in order to get from Capitol Hill to a gay bar on the other side of it in the 1980s.
Well, highways cut through Black neighborhoods all over America and many Black residents lost their homes. Highways don’t belong in the city, but they don’t magically make the neighborhoods on the other side suburban if they were built urban.
This is an urban core discussion. The highest level of the urban built form. Mixed use neighborhoods with residential above retail.
I agree DC growing faster than the 4 other cities and has more realistic development capacity than SF or Boston. Chicago almost certainly has more given it's massive core with no hight limit and lots of underutilized lots. Philly is probably somewhere in between. The city seems a little more aggressive than SF and certainly Boston when it comes to development along the rivers and UCity/30th station/western CC.
But all that bring said, I can't really see an argument for DC being more like NYC than tightly built textured cities SF/Boston/Philly or a massive skyscraper city like Chicago.
Well, highways cut through Black neighborhoods all over America and many Black residents lost their homes. Highways don’t belong in the city, but they don’t magically make the neighborhoods on the other side suburban if they were built urban.
This is an urban core discussion. The highest level of the urban built form. Mixed use neighborhoods with residential above retail.
You had asked "Since when would an elevated highway divide an urban core?"
All of the examples I gave are cases of that happening. Both San Francisco and Philadelphia had working waterfronts when the highways that cut them off from the rest of the city core were proposed, and the West Side Highway in New York actually served one too when it was built in the 1930s. Boston's North End is a mixed-use neighborhood of the type you describe. Society Hill got urban-renewed into an 18th/early-19th-century suburb with a couple of commercial nodes*, but it had been more mixed before the project that landed Ed Bacon on the cover of Time in 1966 was completed — and Old City immediately to its north also fits your description, then and now.
"Dividing an urban core" means cutting one piece of the core off from another. One might argue that prior to the Negro removal, no one considered Southwest DC part of the urban core.
*Society Hill also had its Black population surgically removed by this project. The birthplace of the AME Church (the Free African Society, no longer standing) and its descendant are both located in the neighborhood.
You had asked "Since when would an elevated highway divide an urban core?"
All of the examples I gave are cases of that happening. Both San Francisco and Philadelphia had working waterfronts when the highways that cut them off from the rest of the city core were proposed, and the West Side Highway in New York actually served one too when it was built in the 1930s. Boston's North End is a mixed-use neighborhood of the type you describe. Society Hill got urban-renewed into an 18th/early-19th-century suburb with a couple of commercial nodes*, but it had been more mixed before the project that landed Ed Bacon on the cover of Time in 1966 was completed — and Old City immediately to its north also fits your description, then and now.
"Dividing an urban core" means cutting one piece of the core off from another. One might argue that prior to the Negro removal, no one considered Southwest DC part of the urban core.
*Society Hill also had its Black population surgically removed by this project. The birthplace of the AME Church (the Free African Society, no longer standing) and its descendant are both located in the neighborhood.
You’re correct in saying this. DC may be the only city with urban renewal neighborhoods that went from lower density to extremely urban. I’m trying to think of another example, but DC may be the only one.
Baltimore would fall under "other" my guy, and all these cities are closer to Providence in terms of vibrancy than they are to NYC, so that's really a moot point.
This whole tirade started because you were tooting about DC's amazing density and it's core being the size of Manhattan and people checked you on it.
Since when did DCs core become bigger than Manhattan?
In terms of population, its metro is a bit larger than the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose MSAs combined).
And it's certainly close enough to those three to draw New Yorkers (Brooklynites especially) to it as a place to live because of its greater affordability. (More people move between New York and Philadelphia than between any two other cities in the country, and for the past three decades, the population flow has been net towards Philadelphia, with Brooklyn residents making up the overwhelming majority of the movers.)
The difference here is that the Philadelphia you see now is less than 40 years old – the product of a transformation that began when the City Council okayed the construction of a skyscraper that rose above the statue of William Penn atop City Hall Tower in 1987. What was once a municipal buzz cut is now an actual skyline, and I think that actually changed how Philadelphians regarded their city.
Certainly, the city's cultural institutions are "world class." And its dining scene is among the country's best.
And not just the neighborhoods – if Center City doesn't have an "urban feel," I'm Marie of Romania.
The skyline is the one thing here that's smaller than those in the other three cities. And judging the quality of a city on its downtown skyscrapers alone is pretty limiting.
Been in Philly 3 times in last 2 years for 4 days and explored the city. Stayed Center City each time.
As an "urbanist city lover" Philly neighborhoods are amazing and some of the most dense I have ever seen i the US. Some streets literally look like alleyways with homes on them
Also as a rabid sports fan, Chicago sports(I am a huge fan) are far inferior to Philly teams and fans. We put up with mediocracy or just flat out bad when Philly does not.
That said for downtown areas, Philly still leaves me with a lot to be desired. Yes there are skyscrapers and it blows away most American downtowns, but NYC, Chicago, and San Fran are just world class and I honestly dont find it that way.
Obviously could be wrong, just my opinion.
LA downtown is awful, but L.A. with the entertainment industry, natural beauty, is just far more world class than a city like Chicago.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
