[BPt111]

Originally Posted by SteveM85

Ant, you should get in on the action of the Town Tourny and plug Stamford more. You’ll have to wait for next year though it got eliminated 2 rounds ago.

I find most people in the region don't love Stamford. The only ones that do are town natives and the Never Ever Leave CT GenZers who want some bigger city time and experience before their next chapters.
That’s just my personal observations. YMMv

Norwalk and Stamford is nice city but doesn’t have much of character it basically bigger version of Port Chester, New Rochelle and White Plains while Downtown New Haven have more character the architecture around Yale and college st area, Wooster Square, East Rock. Washington St in Norwalk does have bit of character give it credit for that.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by BPt111

Norwalk and Stamford is nice city but doesn’t have much of character it basically bigger version of Port Chester, New Rochelle and White Plains while Downtown New Haven have more character the architecture around Yale and college st area, Wooster Square, East Rock. Washington St in Norwalk does have bit of character give it credit for that.

I meant more seaport, coastal, forestry and home styles type of charm and character. If you know you know, if you don’t, you don’t.
Sorry but waaay nicer the the NY ones you mentioned, those shouldn’t even be in the convo my God what are you even thinking?
Yale was amazing 10 years ago now it’s all polarized wokesters, you can have it.
NH has no charm and character to speak of outside of DT and nearby areas. It’s a one trick pony.
People on this forum love it to death so I’ll give it that

[AntonioR]

Originally Posted by BPt111

Norwalk and Stamford is nice city but doesn’t have much of character it basically bigger version of Port Chester, New Rochelle and White Plains while Downtown New Haven have more character the architecture around Yale and college st area, Wooster Square, East Rock. Washington St in Norwalk does have bit of character give it credit for that.

To say that Stamford is a bigger version of Port Chester is stretching it. Besides, Port Chester has more of the mid-to-early 20th century / mid-to-late 19th century look due to the high concentration of buildings built in those eras.

White Plains doesn’t feel like Stamford due to the urban design particularly in its downtown. If anything, I always thought White Plains has the urban design of a large city that never became one. Stamford is a more populated place than White Plains, but its downtown has less of the “grand” look of White Plains. It’s a paradox. White Plains is easiest the most “grand” looking city in Westchester and compared to any city in Fairfield County.

New Rochelle is another one that doesn’t feel like Stamford. It doesn’t have the “grand” feeling of White Plains, but it isn’t designed like Stamford. You know very well when inNew Rochelle you’re not ina placd that looks or is even trying to look like Stamford.

Downtown New Haven is similar to Bridgeport and even Port Chester in the sense that it has much architecture from those eras plus some of colonial origin and the street grid is largely of colonial origin. However, having that is a function of not destroying much of it during the urban renewal frenzy of the 1960’s and 1970’s, something that was done a little too much in Stamford. Although Stamford doesn’t have much of those old buildings, at one time it did. In fact, the entire town was made up of buildings that essentially look like the western stretch of Atlantic Street fron the Bank St building upto the corner with Broad St. Not only were most of the buildings destroyed to make way for the more modern ones, but many streets were also eliminated either in part like Main St between Atlantic and Greyrock or entire streets like what once was Gray St.* That was the biggest and most stupid mistake, IMO.

As Bridgeport is a testament, having a strong imprint od buildings from the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries isn’t what most people want. If it was, Bridgeport would be the one going through the boom that is currently taking place in Stamford. In fact, I doubt any of the cities mentioned have seen their population grow as much as Stamford. In addition, a way to gauge the desirability of an area is by the value of real estate and cost of living, something that Stamford exceeds when compared to Bridgeport or even New Haven. I think even Norwalk, which has more of the typical suburban development of the USA than Stamford, as mentioned in my previous posts, has an overall higher cost of living and higher real estate prices than Bridgeport.

Some might say that is due to the proximity to NYC, but Port Chester and New Rochelle are closer than Stamford/Norwalk and those places haven’t seen a boom of the dimension Stamford in recent decades. For example, where is New Rochelle’s equivalent to Harbor Point? If we were to limit to the amount of residential highrises built since 2000, no place in Westchester or Fairfield counties come clomes to the amount built in Stamford. I would say something similar regarding office/commercial highrises as Stamford has more of them. This is despite that Stamford hasn’t seen after the year 2000 as much construction of office highrises as it has with residential highrises.

* Although that street was named either to mesn happy or after somone’s last name, I have a feeling if that street would had existed today and with that nane it would had become a hub for the LGBQ types, maybe even an east coast smaller version of San Francisco Castro District or a smaller version of Chelsie in Manhattan.

[SteveM85]

Norwalk has surpassed Stamford in home pricing since the glorified flu days. Blown past it despite being more east and further from NYC. Area realtors can corroborate this.
The per sq foots are upwards near $400 per vs Stamford $350ish per.
I would assume Bridgeport and New Haven somewhere in the 2s.

Have a great rest of the day everyone

[Stylo]

First off BPT, Norwalk has PLENTY of character. I agree on Stamford though. Blah. A “nice” city that’s mostly charmless.

Originally Posted by SteveM85

NH has no charm and character to speak of outside of DT and nearby areas. It’s a one trick pony.
People on this forum love it to death so I’ll give it that

Tell me you barely know New Haven without telling me you barely know New Haven.

First off, the city is tiny (less than half the footprint of Stamford). So almost everything is near downtown.

But charm extends beyond downtown in East Rock, Prospect Hill, Wooster Square, City Point, Beaver Hills, Westville, Quinnipiac River Historic District.

We were just driving around the side streets of Westville last night gawking at the older houses (Sen. Lieberman’s was one) after a fantastic dinner at Camacho Garage.

[AntonioR]

Originally Posted by Stylo

First off BPT, Norwalk has PLENTY of character. I agree on Stamford though. Blah. A “nice” city that’s mostly charmless.

I disagree on putting Norwalk in the same sentence as Bridgeport regarding that. Norwalk is actually very modern looking, though the overall urban planning is not as great. That city could had been better planned regarding that.

Bridgeport is an older city with an obvious older infrastructure. Much of Bridgeport was actually built when it was in its heyday before Stamford and even Norwalk reached their respective zeniths. The city is not in its best time and that is mostly the reason why so much of its okd infrastructure still exist. In a way it’s similar to Havana, Cuba. Had it continue to be in its better time, a good amount of what still exist would had been destroyed to make way for more modern buildings, particularly in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This assuming it would follow the trend in the USA, which once the USA begsn to get involved more post the Spanish American War it did. They even created a Coney Island in Havana after the real thing in NYC. At the time of Fidel Castro’s rise in 1959, Havana was actually the wealthiest and most developed city in the world’s entire tropical area.

Right now Stamford is at its best moment ever, but that is not the case with Bridgeport which has seen better days.

[Stylo]

I did not mention Bridgeport, I was addressing the poster BPT111 not the city.

Bport is a mixed bag to me. Some gems in downtown, Black Rock is great, but lacks compared to Norwalk and New Haven.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by Stylo

First off BPT, Norwalk has PLENTY of character. I agree on Stamford though. Blah. A “nice” city that’s mostly charmless.

Tell me you barely know New Haven without telling me you barely know New Haven.

First off, the city is tiny (less than half the footprint of Stamford). So almost everything is near downtown.

But charm extends beyond downtown in East Rock, Prospect Hill, Wooster Square, City Point, Beaver Hills, Westville, Quinnipiac River Historic District.

We were just driving around the side streets of Westville last night gawking at the older houses (Sen. Lieberman’s was one) after a fantastic dinner at Camacho Garage.

Not quite, it s missing the woodsy-ness. There’s some but not very substantial. I know The Rocks have woodsyness

[Cambium]

I was in New Rochelle today...My God... Reminds me of what's going on in Stamford... Please don't let Norwalk get like that. Stop the Sprawl!

Does anyone know if Norwalk has a limit on how tall buildings can be?

[AntonioR]

Originally Posted by Cambium

I was in New Rochelle today...My God... Reminds me of what's going on in Stamford... Please don't let Norwalk get like that. Stop the Sprawl!

Does anyone know if Norwalk has a limit on how tall buildings can be?

Sprawl is horizontal, not vertical. Higher densities and highrises is actually containment of sprawl. If you go to Spain you will notice that even small cities are denser than not only much of every town and city in Westchester, but also in Fairfield County including much of Stamford. They have a lower height limit than downtown Stamford, but considerable more highrises. The footprint of their cities is also less than in the USA precisely because most don’t have much sprawl between the urban area and rural areas. Any small city and even many towns are bigger in land area than many much more populated towns in Spain. Dependency on cars is also lower as they are more walkable and have very good public transport.

The New Rochelle skyline isn’t similar to Stamford’s. They have considerably less highrises. Now that I think of it, Stamford probably has the most highrises of any city in Westchester or Fairfield counties.