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Old 07-19-2018, 12:42 PM
 
283 posts, read 326,844 times
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George street used to be a lot noisier before the pedestrianisation began. There was a constant stream of buses with their engines roaring down the street day and night and people had to talk over it. It's calmed a bit since the traffic was removed.

Thanks for posting the vid. Actually remind me more of the Kings Cross area in Sydney, before the government came in and introduced the lockout laws on the CBD and surrounding areas 4 years ago and devastated the nightlife. (no entry to bars and clubs after 1:30am, last drinks 3am)

Here's what Kings Cross used to look like before the lockouts:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvN9zCV27k

But these days it's not nearly the same as it looks there.
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Old 07-19-2018, 06:22 PM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ciTydude123 View Post
George street used to be a lot noisier before the pedestrianisation began. There was a constant stream of buses with their engines roaring down the street day and night and people had to talk over it. It's calmed a bit since the traffic was removed.

Thanks for posting the vid. Actually remind me more of the Kings Cross area in Sydney, before the government came in and introduced the lockout laws on the CBD and surrounding areas 4 years ago and devastated the nightlife. (no entry to bars and clubs after 1:30am, last drinks 3am)

Here's what Kings Cross used to look like before the lockouts:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvN9zCV27k

But these days it's not nearly the same as it looks there.
Makes sense about the removal of traffic. Downtown SF has a lot of traffic at times.

This video reminds me of the Gaslamp a lot more.
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Old 07-19-2018, 06:27 PM
 
Location: Rockville, MD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ciTydude123 View Post
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:

- Kings Cross and surrounds
- Newtown-Enmore
- Bondi Junction

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.
Looking at those areas, I'd say Sydney's commercial areas look more packed/intense than anywhere in North America- save for NYC and Mexico City. However its residential areas seem more along the lines of Seattle/Portland. I see more single family homes (as in Seattle/Portland/Vancouver) and fewer apartments or rowhomes (unlike say San Francisco, DC or Philadelphia).


If you ignore the architectural style, the patchiness of inner Sydney's roads seem to most mirror those of Boston in North America. Boston's retail density isn't at the level of Sydney's though and its pedestrian volumes are probably a bit lower. Take a street view tour of Boston's North End, Financial District, Back Bay (Commonwealth Ave and Newbury Street), and South End...you'll see as in Sydney, the roads tend to wind and there's no grid, but urban scale seems to be a bit similar (with Sydney's commercial areas feeling a bit more claustrophobic).




Also, Seattle is actually fairly vibrant. Check out these pics taken by City-Data member, Pwright1.














Similar to Sydney, Seattle has some pretty nasty freeway traffic:












….and local street traffic too...


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Old 07-20-2018, 09:36 AM
 
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Thanks for posting those pics. I have no doubt Seattle has an active downtown

With Sydney's residential areas again I think it's patchier. For example the areas to the immediate east of the CBD - the area around Surry Hills, Paddington and Potts Point/Elizabeth Bay:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U2bhpON6m8,

The housing around these areas is comprised completely of rowhouses (we call them terraces) and apartments. But moving further east to around Bellevue Hill it's mostly detached housing, with just a few walk-up unit blocks around for example at the north eastern corner. However move east again to Bondi, and you'll start seeing apartments and some terraces again.

But, around a roughly 3 mile radius of the CBD, the housing stock is almost entirely made of rowhouses and apartments (the most notable exception apart from around Bellevue Hill, being the area around Leichardt where you'll find wider streets and detached houses, but on very narrow lots kind of similar to rowhouses.)

North of the harbour though, Kirribilli and around the North Sydney area is denser but the rest is generally lower density (though there's still apartment blocks and several storey walk-ups mixed in with the houses upon a closer look). Perhaps more like Seattle?

Beyond that 3 miles is when you'll generally start seeing increasingly suburban detached houses on lots that start relatively small, but gets larger the further you go out. However there'll still be apartments around. Like these 2-4 storey walk-ups which if you look closer are actually spread everywhere in clusters and amongst the lower density detached house areas. Then there'll be clusters of mid and high rises every here and there. This pattern spreads throughout the metro with density dropping the further you go out (with the exception of nodes such as the areas around Parramatta, Chatswood, Hurstville rail stations etc)

So all in all those rowhouse and apartment neighbourhoods might not be as consistent over a wider area as San Francisco, or to the immediate south of Philadelphia's downtown (especially with Sydney's disorganised road structure and large parks). And with the rowhouses the ones in Sydney are mostly 2 or so storeys (1 storey in some areas), so not as imposing or impressive as the larger ones around Boston or SF. But I think Sydney still has its decent share. Definitely looks denser than Seattle, from what I can see.

But I don't think I agree with the freeway bit. Australian cities in general have less freeways than their American counterparts, and the only freeways around inner Sydney are the Western Distributor which runs along CBD's edge, and the Eastern Distributor which is mostly underground.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bballniket View Post
Take a street view tour of Boston's North End, Financial District, Back Bay (Commonwealth Ave and Newbury Street), and South End...you'll see as in Sydney, the roads tend to wind and there's no grid, but urban scale seems to be a bit similar (with Sydney's commercial areas feeling a bit more claustrophobic).
Yes I've taken a look at those areas before, the rowhouses around there look fantastic! I agree as well that in terms of road structure and topography Boston would most resemble Sydney.

Last edited by ciTydude123; 07-20-2018 at 09:52 AM..
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Old 07-20-2018, 11:04 AM
 
Location: Seattle WA, USA
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Sydney


Melbourne


Seattle


San Francisco


Boston
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Old 07-20-2018, 10:02 PM
 
Location: Rockville, MD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ciTydude123 View Post
Thanks for posting those pics. I have no doubt Seattle has an active downtown

With Sydney's residential areas again I think it's patchier. For example the areas to the immediate east of the CBD - the area around Surry Hills, Paddington and Potts Point/Elizabeth Bay:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U2bhpON6m8,

The housing around these areas is comprised completely of rowhouses (we call them terraces) and apartments. But moving further east to around Bellevue Hill it's mostly detached housing, with just a few walk-up unit blocks around for example at the north eastern corner. However move east again to Bondi, and you'll start seeing apartments and some terraces again.

But, around a roughly 3 mile radius of the CBD, the housing stock is almost entirely made of rowhouses and apartments (the most notable exception apart from around Bellevue Hill, being the area around Leichardt where you'll find wider streets and detached houses, but on very narrow lots kind of similar to rowhouses.)

North of the harbour though, Kirribilli and around the North Sydney area is denser but the rest is generally lower density (though there's still apartment blocks and several storey walk-ups mixed in with the houses upon a closer look). Perhaps more like Seattle?

Beyond that 3 miles is when you'll generally start seeing increasingly suburban detached houses on lots that start relatively small, but gets larger the further you go out. However there'll still be apartments around. Like these 2-4 storey walk-ups which if you look closer are actually spread everywhere in clusters and amongst the lower density detached house areas. Then there'll be clusters of mid and high rises every here and there. This pattern spreads throughout the metro with density dropping the further you go out (with the exception of nodes such as the areas around Parramatta, Chatswood, Hurstville rail stations etc)

So all in all those rowhouse and apartment neighbourhoods might not be as consistent over a wider area as San Francisco, or to the immediate south of Philadelphia's downtown (especially with Sydney's disorganised road structure and large parks). And with the rowhouses the ones in Sydney are mostly 2 or so storeys (1 storey in some areas), so not as imposing or impressive as the larger ones around Boston or SF. But I think Sydney still has its decent share. Definitely looks denser than Seattle, from what I can see.

But I don't think I agree with the freeway bit. Australian cities in general have less freeways than their American counterparts, and the only freeways around inner Sydney are the Western Distributor which runs along CBD's edge, and the Eastern Distributor which is mostly underground.



Yes I've taken a look at those areas before, the rowhouses around there look fantastic! I agree as well that in terms of road structure and topography Boston would most resemble Sydney.
Yeah dude you're right about the dense rowhouses in inner Sydney- I stand corrected. They're all over the inner area (here, for example): https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.876...7i13312!8i6656


Neither Seattle nor Portland have that to nearly that extent.
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Old 07-20-2018, 10:30 PM
 
Location: Rockville, MD
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It always amazed me how outer and middle ring suburbs of Melbourne (and even Sydney to an extent) can have a really dense commercial district that's surrounded by single family homes.


Consider Springvale for e.g. in Melbourne. Here's the commercial district: https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.950...6!9m2!1b1!2i51


Here's some single family homes 3 short blocks away: https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.950...6!9m2!1b1!2i51


Now, here's Hurstville:
https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.967...7i13312!8i6656
(commercial street)


https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.963...6!9m2!1b1!2i51 (residential street 4 blocks away from commercial street)


But it's still pretty amazing how far out Sydney's tight streets extend from the core. Even in Hurstville there are plenty of multifamily homes and apartments, and where there are single family homes, they're VERY close to one another. Nowhere in the US or Canada- save for NYC- has this level of consistent structural density 15 miles from the CBD. Places like Boston and Philadelphia have pockets of it, but it's not as consistent as in Sydney.
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Old 07-20-2018, 10:53 PM
 
Location: Rockville, MD
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In retrospect, I'd say the scale of the urban part of Sydney is actually quite a bit bigger than that of San Francisco. Urban Sydney is definitely patchier, but it probably has as much urbanity in it as Chicago (which also happens to be patchy- albeit in a gridded way).


Sydney has tight and windy streets combined with the 'to-the-curb' development of Boston, but has the urban scale of Chicago. It also has a regional rail system the size of the Paris RER- but with ridership levels of either the Toronto subway or Montreal metro. Sydney doesn't seem to have anywhere with massive (over 1 acre) lot sizes like United States suburbs.


I don't think Sydney is at all comparable to San Diego or Los Angeles on urbanityl metrics since both San Diego and Los Angeles mostly have really wide streets and their commercial districts aren't as claustrophobic as Sydney.
Sydney has Chicago's urban scale with Boston's compression and winding streets, but just happens to have a climate similar to that of Southern California.


Regarding San Francisco, SF doesn't have the claustrophobic streetscape outside its 7 mile x 7 mile city limits; Sydney retains this over a MUCH larger area. However, SF's core is larger and more cohesive, but Sydney's is equally large- but the parts of Sydney's core are somewhat fragmented.
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Old 07-21-2018, 10:05 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bballniket View Post
It always amazed me how outer and middle ring suburbs of Melbourne (and even Sydney to an extent) can have a really dense commercial district that's surrounded by single family homes.

But it's still pretty amazing how far out Sydney's tight streets extend from the core. Even in Hurstville there are plenty of multifamily homes and apartments, and where there are single family homes, they're VERY close to one another. Nowhere in the US or Canada- save for NYC- has this level of consistent structural density 15 miles from the CBD. Places like Boston and Philadelphia have pockets of it, but it's not as consistent as in Sydney.
Post-war planning was a little different from what I understand. Sydney was late to the freeway building game, and as a result its freeway network isn't as developed as what you have in the US (as well the rest of Australia in general). More of its pre-war fabric is left intact, and comparatively more emphasis was made in placing growth and retail development into hubs, along existing rail corridors instead of freeways (most of Sydney's rail network, and the areas around it, dates to the early 20th century and before). The larger of these concentrated hubs continued (and continues) to evolve into full mixed-use employment, retail and entertainment precincts, with increased residential density nearby.

Another result of this planning direction is that most of Sydney's suburban shopping malls are built and integrated into these hubs with active street frontages (as opposed to the stand-alone ones you see in some other parts of Australia and as it seems, the US).

Chatswood is a prime example of a mixed-use hub. High and mid rise apartments and offices, a pedestrian mall and a retail main street, a concert hall and library, a few hotels, and 5 shopping malls (2 large, 2 small, and 1 built right around the train station) - all crammed into that relatively small area around a train station:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJxpqE8ZXrk&t


And if you're interested here's a channel with someone driving and walking around some other of those hubs around Sydney. Gives a general idea of what they're like:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYa...tRTUZcw/videos

Perhaps another thing to note is that surface parking seems to be scarce compared to suburban America. Instead most parking around those hubs are hidden away either underground, in multi-storey complexes or at least behind buildings away from the main street.


Regarding detached housing lot sizes, they do get larger in most of suburbia away from those hubs and apartment areas, and especially as you go further out, not dissimilar to the lots around suburban America. I don't see how this for eg, is different from any average US suburb (well maybe apart from the fencing around the houses, you don't seem to have much of that in the US). One thing you don't seem to get as much in Australia though is the swathes of very low density exurban development you get in some parts of the US (such as around Boston or DC from what I can see). The urban fringes of Australian cities seem to be a bit more defined than in those parts of the US.



Quote:
Originally Posted by bballniket View Post
In retrospect, I'd say the scale of the urban part of Sydney is actually quite a bit bigger than that of San Francisco. Urban Sydney is definitely patchier, but it probably has as much urbanity in it as Chicago (which also happens to be patchy- albeit in a gridded way).
I suspect that SF's core in terms of plain population density should still be a bit denser than Sydney (since it looks so consistent with its rows of attached buildings over such a large area). Away from the core and around the Bay Area though I'm not sure how it compares. Especially now that Sydney's in the midst of the biggest building boom in its history and apartments are spreading like wildfire, changing suburbs everywhere.

With Chicago I like how its North Side is so consistently dense for a 10 mile or so stretch, especially along the lakefront. You won't find such a long stretch of consistent density in Australia. In Sydney it's fragmented with clusters spread around. And Chicago as a whole is still a bigger city.

What it does seem to me though is that Sydney's (and probably Melbourne's) overall urban structure is more focused, transit and walking-oriented than the US (at least in the retail and commercial areas). More of a dense, human-scaled walking environment where it matters. Which might make it, at least compared to the US, "punch above its weight" considering its density and population.

Last edited by ciTydude123; 07-21-2018 at 11:33 AM..
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Old 07-22-2018, 09:08 PM
 
Location: Rockville, MD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ciTydude123 View Post
Post-war planning was a little different from what I understand. Sydney was late to the freeway building game, and as a result its freeway network isn't as developed as what you have in the US (as well the rest of Australia in general). More of its pre-war fabric is left intact, and comparatively more emphasis was made in placing growth and retail development into hubs, along existing rail corridors instead of freeways (most of Sydney's rail network, and the areas around it, dates to the early 20th century and before). The larger of these concentrated hubs continued (and continues) to evolve into full mixed-use employment, retail and entertainment precincts, with increased residential density nearby.

Another result of this planning direction is that most of Sydney's suburban shopping malls are built and integrated into these hubs with active street frontages (as opposed to the stand-alone ones you see in some other parts of Australia and as it seems, the US).

Chatswood is a prime example of a mixed-use hub. High and mid rise apartments and offices, a pedestrian mall and a retail main street, a concert hall and library, a few hotels, and 5 shopping malls (2 large, 2 small, and 1 built right around the train station) - all crammed into that relatively small area around a train station:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJxpqE8ZXrk&t


And if you're interested here's a channel with someone driving and walking around some other of those hubs around Sydney. Gives a general idea of what they're like:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYa...tRTUZcw/videos

Perhaps another thing to note is that surface parking seems to be scarce compared to suburban America. Instead most parking around those hubs are hidden away either underground, in multi-storey complexes or at least behind buildings away from the main street.


Regarding detached housing lot sizes, they do get larger in most of suburbia away from those hubs and apartment areas, and especially as you go further out, not dissimilar to the lots around suburban America. I don't see how this for eg, is different from any average US suburb (well maybe apart from the fencing around the houses, you don't seem to have much of that in the US). One thing you don't seem to get as much in Australia though is the swathes of very low density exurban development you get in some parts of the US (such as around Boston or DC from what I can see). The urban fringes of Australian cities seem to be a bit more defined than in those parts of the US.





I suspect that SF's core in terms of plain population density should still be a bit denser than Sydney (since it looks so consistent with its rows of attached buildings over such a large area). Away from the core and around the Bay Area though I'm not sure how it compares. Especially now that Sydney's in the midst of the biggest building boom in its history and apartments are spreading like wildfire, changing suburbs everywhere.

With Chicago I like how its North Side is so consistently dense for a 10 mile or so stretch, especially along the lakefront. You won't find such a long stretch of consistent density in Australia. In Sydney it's fragmented with clusters spread around. And Chicago as a whole is still a bigger city.

What it does seem to me though is that Sydney's (and probably Melbourne's) overall urban structure is more focused, transit and walking-oriented than the US (at least in the retail and commercial areas). More of a dense, human-scaled walking environment where it matters. Which might make it, at least compared to the US, "punch above its weight" considering its density and population.
That youtube channel with videos driving around various Sydney suburbs is awesome. My favorite Sydney suburbs (at least via streetview- never visited in person) are Burwood, Hurstville, Ashfield and Campsie. I love those narrow commercial streets with a railway station in the vicinity with the track as an elevated structure over the street (but perpendicular to it).


You're definitely right about the absence of large masses of low-density development in Sydney compared to similarly-sized US metros.


Chicago's north side can be somewhat patchy actually- but it's nevertheless gridded so possibly it feels less patchy. It has some pretty big parking lots interrupting the streetscape- even close to the lakefront (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9612...6!9m2!1b1!2i51). Also the blocks are large and the streets are too wide (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9633...6!9m2!1b1!2i51), which imo makes it less walkable than much of Sydney- in spite of Chicago having the 10 contiguous miles of highrise along the lake proceeding north from the CBD. Also, the apartment structures are set back further from the street than are the walkups in Sydney (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9647...6!9m2!1b1!2i51).


Those rowhouses or apartments on gridded streets can offer lots of density WITHOUT walkability- lots of parts of Toronto are like this. Both Toronto and Los Angeles have high densities without walkability in many of their neighborhoods; Sydney's patchiness seems to facilitate walkability in the absence of numerical density. Although it's not as though Sydney has houses on large lots- as it most definitely doesn't; it's just that a residential area with gridded streets can fit more homes than one with winding streets- assuming equal lot sizes and square footage per home, since the winding streets will end up wasting some space in spite of the claustrophobic streetscape they create.


Sydney seems to have some dense, human-scaled retail areas near rail (e.g. Burwood, Hurstville, Ashfield, Campsie) and other high-rise areas (possibly with human-scaled streets in the vicinity) in Parramatta, Chatswood, North Sydney, etc.


Metro DC actually doesn't have the human scaled areas need suburban metro stations. However, it does have the Parramatta/Chatswood-esque high-rise areas near metro stations. For e.g. Ballston (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8821...7i13312!8i6656), Clarendon (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8873...6!9m2!1b1!2i51), Court House (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8913...6!9m2!1b1!2i51), Bethesda (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9844...6!9m2!1b1!2i51), Silver Spring (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9844...6!9m2!1b1!2i51 : the retail area is a short walk removed in this case), and Pentagon City (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8626...7i13312!8i6656 : integrated with a mall) .


But in general the development around even these stations in metro DC isn't really as pedestrian-friendly as similar ones in Sydney.

Last edited by bballniket; 07-22-2018 at 09:16 PM.. Reason: needed to add stuff about chicago
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