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.
Here's a common dynamic for walking-focused urban life, particularly for singles and couples:
--Pay a lot for housing per square foot, but live in a smaller place (restaurants are your "big dining room")
--Pay very little for local transportation (transit pass, occasional Uber)
--Pay more for groceries due to buying at corner stores and/or expensive supermarkets
--Free exercise room in your building so no gym costs, plus you exercise to a point by simply living and walking
If you spend five figures a year to add a car to that dynamic, maybe you can save four figures on groceries.
I think the gap between NYC and San Francisco is minor, given SF's more compact size, but due to SF's hills, NYC is still the clear-cut winner. Another minor gap comes between SF and Boston, which also benefits from its small size, although the southwestern peninsular-shaped portion of the city drags it down a notch. Chicago is large, but is rarely more than half a mile from a commercial area even in the more outer neighborhoods and is the flattest of these, which is also part of the reason why Miami is a surprisingly walkable city, but the uneven development of the west and south sides shows that its not quite up to its potential. Outer parts of Philly and DC, especially their northwestern fringes, can be quite a hike from essential amenities, but even those cities have decent transit coverage towards their outskirts, especially DC. But these cities contain a bit more "no-go" areas that hurts its vibrancy a bit, even if some are quite walkable.
Runners up would be Miami, Seattle, Baltimore, LA, New Orleans, Portland, and Milwaukee.
Its funny because when cities and neighborhoods claim to have a grocery store and say like Trader Joes or something super upscale that is unattainable to most of the population, doesn’t really make a city walkable because you have to leave that neighborhood to get market rate food products. However, I find that Whole Foods has some good deals and study after study shows that Whole Foods has the cheapest grocery store list. Not always the case, but I do think Whole Foods is a great place to shop in to get good products.
But where I work in Manhattan theres 2 grocery stores, neither of which have products that the average family/person would buy. Lmao. Totally “walkable†if you have to travel 20 minutes by rail to get a good grocer. Seaport in Boston is also not as “walkable†as perceived. They have a Trader Joes. You have to walk 45 minutes to North Station’s Star Market, or the Whole Foods in The South End to get produce and good food products.
Huge socioeconomic factor we miss in walkability.
That's the first time I've ever heard of Trader Joe's described as super upscale. Worst I've heard is that it's kinda fancy but I've also heard it referred to as cheap. I'd say more around middle class, and it has different niches for some items where it's cheaper than most other places and other niches for some items where it's more expensive than other places. The only underlying bougie-ness it has in common with Whole Foods is they both try to generally open in middle class and up neighborhoods.
Where in Manhattan? What do you think all the many, many working class households in Manhattan do for groceries? They're probably not going to Trader Joes that much, but rather the various neighborhood green grocers, stands, or immigrant markets. When you have as much density as much of Manhattan does, you often end up having this and the actually super upscale grocers in walking distance without quotes. This doesn't happen though if you for some reason just assume that no native New Yorkers or working class New Yorkers exist anymore which is an absurd statement to make.
I also think walkability and breadth of socioeconomic population within a neighborhood can be different attributes and scored differently. It does not necessarily need to be tied. The place where they do sometimes correlate though is when the usage of a neighborhood's commercial strip caters to an incredibly narrow niche like when you have a small town where it's historic downtown becomes just fancy restaurants and boutique shopping without any pharmacies or grocery stores of any kind or incredibly destitute where there simply are almost no shops at all and missing some pretty important services like healthcare providers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays25
Here's a common dynamic for walking-focused urban life, particularly for singles and couples:
--Pay a lot for housing per square foot, but live in a smaller place (restaurants are your "big dining room")
--Pay very little for local transportation (transit pass, occasional Uber)
--Pay more for groceries due to buying at corner stores and/or expensive supermarkets
--Free exercise room in your building so no gym costs, plus you exercise to a point by simply living and walking
If you spend five figures a year to add a car to that dynamic, maybe you can save four figures on groceries.
Right, and in some sense the higher costs for groceries and pantry items are the use of the neighborhood store as that pantry. This becomes moot though when rent gets so high that you have almost no ability to pay for any other expenses or even just rent alone and that certainly does happen. I do think part of that has to do with just how incredibly little of the US has good walkability.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Borntoolate85
^
I think the gap between NYC and San Francisco is minor, given SF's more compact size, but due to SF's hills, NYC is still the clear-cut winner. Another minor gap comes between SF and Boston, which also benefits from its small size, although the southwestern peninsular-shaped portion of the city drags it down a notch. Chicago is large, but is rarely more than half a mile from a commercial area even in the more outer neighborhoods and is the flattest of these, which is also part of the reason why Miami is a surprisingly walkable city, but the uneven development of the west and south sides shows that its not quite up to its potential. Outer parts of Philly and DC, especially their northwestern fringes, can be quite a hike from essential amenities, but even those cities have decent transit coverage towards their outskirts, especially DC. But these cities contain a bit more "no-go" areas that hurts its vibrancy a bit, even if some are quite walkable.
Runners up would be Miami, Seattle, Baltimore, LA, New Orleans, Portland, and Milwaukee.
I think going by the city boundaries and how walkable an entire city is over an average of the entire municipal limits isn't useful because of the vastly different city sizes and that having a walkable neighborhood has a rather limited range in terms of scale. There is a range for people and you'll have differing opinions where even a quarter mile for some people seems to much, but certainly most people will say walking five miles one way to get an errand done seems a bit much. I've walked end to end in San Francisco which is fun enough, but it wasn't to run a daily errand, so I think that since even with SF's relatively compact size of about 47 square miles, that end to end walk is probably too much to do on a daily for most people.
We could maybe split NYC into five since it's five different counties (SF is a single county coterminous with the city). In that, I'd say in comparison to SF:
- Manhattan/New York County at about half the land area is much, much, much more walkable
- Brooklyn/Kings County at somewhat more land area is much more walkable
- The Bronx/Bronx County at slightly less land area is more walkable
- Queens/Queens County at more than double the land area is more walkable
- Staten Island/Richmond County at slightly more land area is less walkable
Its funny because when cities and neighborhoods claim to have a grocery store and say like Trader Joes or something super upscale that is unattainable to most of the population, doesn’t really make a city walkable because you have to leave that neighborhood to get market rate food products. However, I find that Whole Foods has some good deals and study after study shows that Whole Foods has the cheapest grocery store list. Not always the case, but I do think Whole Foods is a great place to shop in to get good products.
But where I work in Manhattan theres 2 grocery stores, neither of which have products that the average family/person would buy. Lmao. Totally “walkable†if you have to travel 20 minutes by rail to get a good grocer. Seaport in Boston is also not as “walkable†as perceived. They have a Trader Joes. You have to walk 45 minutes to North Station’s Star Market, or the Whole Foods in The South End to get produce and good food products.
Huge socioeconomic factor we miss in walkability.
Odd that you use Manhattan to push your grocery point.
Manhattan is one of the few urban centers in America with a plethora of grocery options in virtually every neighborhood. Everything from bodegas/mini marts, basic grocery stores, food markets, random produce stands, high-end grocery stores, niche food markets, etc. Sure, you can push your narrative in Soho or a specific rich person enclave, but at-large, the grocery options in Manhattan are plentiful and appeal to a wide demographic.
And interesting that you talk up DC, Austin, and a few other cities (in other threads), yet those cities are also gentrification/transplant havens and much more limited in grocery options than Manhattan. Almost as if you're showing your hand...
Last edited by cpomp; 01-25-2024 at 02:48 PM..
Reason: edited thoughts
Odd that you use Manhattan to push your grocery point.
Manhattan is one of the few urban centers with a plethora of grocery options in virtually every neighborhood. Everything from bodegas/mini marts, basic grocery stores, food markets, high-end grocery stores, niche food markets, etc. Sure, you can push your narrative in Soho or a specific rich person enclave, but at-large, the grocery options in Manhattan appeal to a wide demographic.
I also find it odd that you talk up DC, Austin, and a few other cities (in other threads), yet those cities are also gentrification/transplant havens and much more limited in grocery options than Manhattan.
I've stayed in SOHO a few times, and it was far from short on grocery stores all around. Last time I was there, it took no time at all for me to find a Japanese market, 2 blocks down from where I was staying.
I've stayed in SOHO a few times, and it was far from short on grocery stores all around. Last time I was there, it took no time at all for me to find a Japanese market, 2 blocks down from where I was staying.
You don't have to tell me... I was simply saying one can try to push their narrative in a specific rich enclave of Manhattan (even though I still disagree).
But yes, anyone that thinks Manhattan lacks grocery options for any demographic is just not a fan of Manhattan and leads with that...
I've lived here long enough to know that "real New Yorkers" can find plenty of reasonable (and unique) grocery options in Manhattan.
I think the gap between NYC and San Francisco is minor, given SF's more compact size, but due to SF's hills, NYC is still the clear-cut winner. Another minor gap comes between SF and Boston, which also benefits from its small size, although the southwestern peninsular-shaped portion of the city drags it down a notch. Chicago is large, but is rarely more than half a mile from a commercial area even in the more outer neighborhoods and is the flattest of these, which is also part of the reason why Miami is a surprisingly walkable city, but the uneven development of the west and south sides shows that its not quite up to its potential. Outer parts of Philly and DC, especially their northwestern fringes, can be quite a hike from essential amenities, but even those cities have decent transit coverage towards their outskirts, especially DC. But these cities contain a bit more "no-go" areas that hurts its vibrancy a bit, even if some are quite walkable.
Runners up would be Miami, Seattle, Baltimore, LA, New Orleans, Portland, and Milwaukee.
I have no idea how people think San Francisco is walkable. Due to hills, many parts are literally unwalkable, or at least over a large area. Perhaps down by Union Square (it's even hilly there) or by the wharves and a few other areas... but overall, SF is one of the least-favorable walking cities (large) I have ever been to. And I've pretty much been to them all.
Odd that you use Manhattan to push your grocery point.
Manhattan is one of the few urban centers in America with a plethora of grocery options in virtually every neighborhood. Everything from bodegas/mini marts, basic grocery stores, food markets, random produce stands, high-end grocery stores, niche food markets, etc. Sure, you can push your narrative in Soho or a specific rich person enclave, but at-large, the grocery options in Manhattan are plentiful and appeal to a wide demographic.
And interesting that you talk up DC, Austin, and a few other cities (in other threads), yet those cities are also gentrification/transplant havens and much more limited in grocery options than Manhattan. Almost as if you're showing your hand...
I think most people in the US are not going to be familiar with the idea of having groceries come in forms outside of large chain supermarkets, so Manhattan is going to seem kind of weird since they'll it on a few large usually better know large chains.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-25-2024 at 04:36 PM..
I have no idea how people think San Francisco is walkable. Due to hills, many parts are literally unwalkable, or at least over a large area. Perhaps down by Union Square (it's even hilly there) or by the wharves and a few other areas... but overall, SF is one of the least-favorable walking cities (large) I have ever been to. And I've pretty much been to them all.
I'd say in order, NYC, Chi, Philly, Boston, DC.
You very much get used to it and your calves end up looking great. The walkable areas go well outside of Union Square. Also, the hilliest parts are generally not very walkable in even the usual sense in that they don't have much in commercial strips or centers so they just aren't very walkable. SF I think definitely belongs in the tier after NYC. I think if we're doing environmental factors, the other part of that it seldom rains (or snows) and the temperatures are mostly in a very moderate band year long. I'd also maybe put LA in that tier, but LA's a bit weird. Doesn't have the highest peaks, but does have some pretty walkable expenses except they're kind of spread out from each other and connected via okay walkable areas and there are a lot of these nodes.
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.
