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Considering the urban footprint in which mixed-use-development and to-the-curb development are present and in which walking is convenient, what US or Canadian cities do the urban scales of Sydney and Melbourne most resemble?
I might say Seattle for Sydney and Portland for Melbourne on the strictly urban level. However, the outer areas of Sydney and Melbourne are more dense and much more transit-friendly than those in the US and Canada.
I've thought of Sydney as roughly comparable to San Francisco, IF there has to be an American comparison.
Here's a little portion of the downtown area on a regular thursday evening/night.
The area at the end of that first vid is Pitt Street Mall.
The city's main spine, George Street, is a full 4km/2.5 miles of continuous, uninterrupted retail, offices and pedestrian activity, from down at Broadway Shopping Centre up to the tip of The Rocks. It's in the process of being pedestrianised with a light rail line put through the middle, which is why you see the construction in the vids. And the activity spills onto the surrounding streets, and onto the waterfront areas.
Is there an equivalent in Seattle, Portland or San Diego?
Last edited by ciTydude123; 07-18-2018 at 04:24 AM..
I've thought of Sydney as roughly comparable to San Francisco, IF there has to be an American comparison.
Here's a little portion of the downtown area on a regular thursday evening/night.
The area at the end of that first vid is Pitt Street Mall.
The city's main spine, George Street, is a full 4km/2.5 miles of continuous, uninterrupted retail, offices and pedestrian activity, from down at Broadway Shopping Centre up to the tip of The Rocks. It's in the process of being pedestrianised with a light rail line put through the middle, which is why you see the construction in the vids. And the activity spills onto the surrounding streets, and onto the waterfront areas.
Is there an equivalent in Seattle, Portland or San Diego?
San Francisco's most urban section seems to cover a much larger area than Sydney; SF's is basically a 30 block by 30 block grid. Sydney's CBD is extremely intense, but the bulk of the activity is on George Street and a couple of other streets. Outside of the Sydney CBD, Sydney seems to have lots of freeways, parks and geographical barriers that make a grid difficult. Inner Sydney's development pattern is very similar to Boston's in that regard.
Downtown Seattle doesn't have a single street as busy as George Street, but it's gridded (like San Francisco), and there's quite a bit of activity along many streets. Downtown Portland is a notch below Sydney and Seattle (it's on a scale similar to the Hoddle Grid in Melbourne).
San Francisco's most urban section seems to cover a much larger area than Sydney; SF's is basically a 30 block by 30 block grid. Sydney's CBD is extremely intense, but the bulk of the activity is on George Street and a couple of other streets. Outside of the Sydney CBD, Sydney seems to have lots of freeways, parks and geographical barriers that make a grid difficult. Inner Sydney's development pattern is very similar to Boston's in that regard.
Downtown Seattle doesn't have a single street as busy as George Street, but it's gridded (like San Francisco), and there's quite a bit of activity along many streets. Downtown Portland is a notch below Sydney and Seattle (it's on a scale similar to the Hoddle Grid in Melbourne).
Well San Francisco's downtown looks around the same size as Sydney's to me, roughly.
It's true that the development patterns are different, Sydney is patchier and not gridded but I don't think what's more 'urban' based can be judged based on that. London for eg is also not gridded and its structure is also patchy like Sydney's (though it's much larger and more dense as a city with a more developed transit network so it'll feel more cohesive)
Sydney's walkable inner areas, although patchier spreads much further than just the downtown. There's multiple areas of high intensity. For example there's:
King Street and Enmore Road at Newtown and Enmore combined gives 3km/1.9 miles of continuous wall-to-wall retail. That area alone looks at least as large SF's Mission District.
Seattle's downtown and inner core looks a fair bit less intense than Sydney's (though if anyone has been to both cities and feels I'm wrong feel free to correct me). Does inner Seattle have any areas comparable to the ones I mentioned above?
And in Sydney besides these, within a 7km/4.3 mile radius of the downtown these are the areas of a decent size which are packed with wall to wall, to-the-curb retail.
- Bondi Beach and Bondi Road
- Double Bay
- Queen and Oxford Streets from Woollahra to Darlinghurst & surrounds
- Surry Hills
- Redfern-Chippendale
- Marrickville
- Leichardt
- Glebe and Pyrmont
- Rozelle - Balmain
- Kingsford - Kensington
- Randwick - Coogee
Then there's the smaller areas like Waverley, Edgecliff, Summer Hill, Petersham, Annandale, etc etc. As well as the up-and-coming areas at Green Square and Mascot. And that's before counting the areas right across the harbour like North Sydney or Mosman.
As well as that, like you mentioned Sydney retains a much more urban, transit and pedestrian oriented structure in its retail and commercial areas, spreading away from the core and around the metro area farther than pretty much any US city relative to size.
With Melbourne, it's more than twice the size of Portland and its urban footprint spread much further from the Hoddle Grid. (Chapel Street, Richmond and Cremorne, Fitzroy, Footscray, St Kilda - Balaclava, Malvern, Hawthorn, Box Hill, and so on). The downtown area itself is spilling out of the Hoddle Grid into Docklands, Southbank and over to the north.
So I think it's hard to quantify exactly which 'urban footprint is larger'. The structure of the cities here are different.
Last edited by ciTydude123; 07-19-2018 at 04:58 AM..
Sydney and Melbourne seemed to be about at the level of the tier of US/Canadian cities a step down from NYC such as Chicago / Toronto / Montreal / Philadelphia / SF
I've thought of Sydney as roughly comparable to San Francisco, IF there has to be an American comparison.
Here's a little portion of the downtown area on a regular thursday evening/night.
The area at the end of that first vid is Pitt Street Mall.
The city's main spine, George Street, is a full 4km/2.5 miles of continuous, uninterrupted retail, offices and pedestrian activity, from down at Broadway Shopping Centre up to the tip of The Rocks. It's in the process of being pedestrianised with a light rail line put through the middle, which is why you see the construction in the vids. And the activity spills onto the surrounding streets, and onto the waterfront areas.
Is there an equivalent in Seattle, Portland or San Diego?
LOL Downtown San Diego isn't even 2.5 miles long in any direction. Having said that, this reminds me a lot of the Gaslamp in San Diego appearance wise and how calm it is. San Francisco is noisy and people are a bit more high strung so to speak.
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