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It doesn't. It is a larger Chattanooga that is just now revitalizing its downtown. Birmingham is not growing however. I think New Orleans and Baltimore are the best answers. Louisville and Richmond have some dense areas, but they quickly fall off.
Austin is definitely not anti-sunbelt at all. San Antonio does have an old dense core. But most of it is sunbelt as well. Really, no Texas city should be mentioned as of right now.
San Antonio has some old buildings in the core but it certainly is not dense. I think only Houston and Austin has tracks over 40,000 ppsm in Texas. I would rank SA as the least dense urban core among Texas urban cities. San Antonio has zero census tracks over 10k in its 410 loop. Houston has peaks at 50k with consistent densities around 10k from Downtown to near George Bush Park. The other Texas cities do not maintain this uniform density as Houston does. Dallas's flood plain hinders it in this regard. Houston is decades behind LA but mimics its uniform density .
Further, outside a few touristy streets the development falls off the map abruptly. It's crazy people are listing SA as an example here and acting like Midtown Houston is some sort of wasteland.
Midtown Houston and Downtown NOLA density is about the same. The population density around Downtown Houston are higher than all Texas cities except for a few Austin spots. People ride the rail Down Midtown and think they know the city. That poster saying Dallas has connected neighborhoods around downtown but Houston doesn't is clueless. East Downtown to Downtown to Washington Ave /Rice Military, Heights, Montrose, Upper Kirby, Museum District, TMC, it's seemless. Really laughable that someone would boost the urban virtues of San Antonio and then look down on Houston.
Apart from places like San Francisco, I would say the best answer to the OP would be New Orleans as it has imo the best form maintained outside Downtown. Miami is another good contender. The posts boosting Birmingham and SA is just comedy hour.
Last edited by atadytic19; 08-10-2022 at 11:39 AM..
When I say old dense core I meant relative compared with the rest of Texas historically. But yes, San Antonio as a city has fallen way behind Houston, Dallas, and now Austin in building up more of their core.
Charleston doesn’t feel right. The downtown population is tiny and skews towards students and tourists. It is urban and walkable to be sure, but basically everyone that lives in Charleston lives in suburbia. James Island, West Ashley, North Charleston, and obviously Mount Pleasant all are your extremely typical Sunbelt suburbs.
But Birmingham's core is much smaller than Houston and Dallas. It's very hard to compare Birmingham to these two. Some small cities do compare to Houston and Dallas (such as New Orleans obviously). But I don't see how Birmingham is one of them.
Yeah, Birmingham is cool, but it just doesn't compare.
Birmingham has 197,575 people in 147.02 sq miles.
I added up the zip codes in Houston between Buffalo Bayou down to 610S and between 610W and 59 and I found the population to be 217,079 people in 34.95 sq miles. The zip code just north of downtown and 3rd ward was added in too.
When you can get to the population of Birmingham in less than a quarter of the land area that tells you that Birmingham does not have enough urban mass to make it comparable.
The West side of the inner loop has 249, 722 people n 43.38 sq miles while the east side has 187,910 people in 38.99 people. For the loop altogether I got 437,632 in 82.37.
Since this was by zip code some of the zip codes I used captured some areas outside the loop, and some areas in the loop were not counted because most of the zip code was outside the loop.
People who have done the full calculation say the loop is about 500k in 90 sq miles. For comparison ATL has about 500k in 140sq miles
Yeah, Birmingham is cool, but it just doesn't compare.
Birmingham has 197,575 people in 147.02 sq miles.
I added up the zip codes in Houston between Buffalo Bayou down to 610S and between 610W and 59 and I found the population to be 217,079 people in 34.95 sq miles. The zip code just north of downtown and 3rd ward was added in too.
When you can get to the population of Birmingham in less than a quarter of the land area that tells you that Birmingham does not have enough urban mass to make it comparable.
The West side of the inner loop has 249, 722 people n 43.38 sq miles while the east side has 187,910 people in 38.99 people. For the loop altogether I got 437,632 in 82.37.
Since this was by zip code some of the zip codes I used captured some areas outside the loop, and some areas in the loop were not counted because most of the zip code was outside the loop.
People who have done the full calculation say the loop is about 500k in 90 sq miles. For comparison ATL has about 500k in 140sq miles
I agree that Birmingham's not as urban as Houston, but at the same time, it's a bit dirty using the totality of Bham proper for the argument. Large portions are not developed and annexed to either prevent development or for potential big projects later as the city proper got surrounded. The suburbs of Hoover + Vestavia Hills + Homewood + Mountain Brook + Irondale (+ Meadowbrook if you want to push over) have the same population as Bham proper and in an area of ~100 sq miles. While Bham is spread out, the main city isn't the densest area of the metro. So using the implication that general density of Bham gets worse outside the city is actually a bit misleading.
Yeah, Birmingham is cool, but it just doesn't compare.
Birmingham has 197,575 people in 147.02 sq miles.
I added up the zip codes in Houston between Buffalo Bayou down to 610S and between 610W and 59 and I found the population to be 217,079 people in 34.95 sq miles. The zip code just north of downtown and 3rd ward was added in too.
When you can get to the population of Birmingham in less than a quarter of the land area that tells you that Birmingham does not have enough urban mass to make it comparable.
The West side of the inner loop has 249, 722 people n 43.38 sq miles while the east side has 187,910 people in 38.99 people. For the loop altogether I got 437,632 in 82.37.
Since this was by zip code some of the zip codes I used captured some areas outside the loop, and some areas in the loop were not counted because most of the zip code was outside the loop.
People who have done the full calculation say the loop is about 500k in 90 sq miles. For comparison ATL has about 500k in 140sq miles
Crazier is DC has 670k in 68 square miles.
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