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I've walked around downtown San Diego and found it plenty walkable. Same for downtown Austin, TX. Same for downtown Nashville, TN. Same for downtown Miami/Miami Beach.
eh... i know what he is getting at, the cities he mentioned like chicago/sf/boston/nyc/philly/dc provide a density threshold over a large continuous area, a certain level of cosmpolitan diversity plus sophistication, high public trans usage, mixed retail/bus/residential that other cities, not just in the south, but others in the north as well just can't provide. I mean, come on... Detroit is urban and dense, but that isn't ALL there is to it. I'd rather live in ATL. The north would have a lot more livable cities, if there urban cores hadn't deteriorated.
just a lot of people living different lifestyles in these cities. while it can be done in a handful of others, there aren't many people doing it, it is not as easy to do, and definitely not catered to. I'm not sure how to explain it more, but walkscore.com shows this pretty well... and I have visited pretty much every major city to know that there are only 6-7 I would consider living in for the lifestyle I want that "I" know first hand, just wouldn't be possible in the other cities in the u.s.
You can spit out all the data in the world, but until you actually live downtown in these cities, it is probably hard to understand how your life in one place can't be found in just any random city w/ jobs, some skyscrapers and a decent population.
Let's face it, there is a huge North-South divide in this country from east to west. No cities in the south can actually pretend to be real cities.
LA is the one city that really tries, or at least wants to feel, like it is a true city. And in many ways it outdoes Miami, Atlanta, and Houston in terms of being an actual city. But is isn't...NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Philly, etc--these are real cities. Cities in the South of this country (and I don't mean 'the south' as a region, I mean literally the southern half) just arent' quite there yet...
Cities like NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Philly--even Portland--, actually feel like realy cities.
Everyone always divides it by East/West...but the real division is North/South across the country. In the north you get real cities, in the South you get sprawl.
From San Francisco across to Annapolis is about the true dividing line...
What is a "real" city as opposed to a "fake" city?
Wull, ya see ... real ciddies are da ones dats ... wull, narthern. Like, fer exawmple, Detwoit ... .... nice compact walkable city, dat!
Or dheres awlsew San Fwanciscuh ... ya know ... da one dat wuz a buncha muddy stweets and ten shanty town shacks in 1850 ... when Charleston, Richmond and Atlanta wuz just a couple a even woos shacks wid nuddin dhere ...
Seattle is pretty urban when you compare it to the majority of sunbelt cities, but when you compare it to LA. I think they are on the same level. LA has tons of walkable areas. I'd even go as far as to say, that LA might be more walkable than Seattle.
Someone clearly has not walked around in both cities downtowns.
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