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Yeah Miami is not that walkable on the whole and yes I put LA, San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, and Long Beach all over Miami in a heartbeat.
I meant of the large cities(IE the anchor of their metros). If we're including any and ALL cities in the metro, than I'd generally agree with your list of CA cities over Miami. Of the larger CA cities that you posted, I already stated that LA, SF, and SD(Arguably) are over Miami.
I meant of the large cities(IE the anchor of their metros). If we're including any and ALL cities in the metro, than I'd generally agree with your list of CA cities over Miami.
San Jose anchors its own metro, you could say. Oakland and San Francisco both do too, they share equal pie like Dallas and Fort Worth or Minneapolis and Saint Paul. LA and San Diego obviously do. I think the only one that was a stretch was Long Beach IMO.
Miami has walkable parts but I've attempted living there for a few months and just spent a week in Dallas a few weeks back and TBH there was very little difference. Both have walkable pedestrian friendly downtowns and surrounding areas but once out of those areas those sidewalks become patchy, narrow, and in some cases just disappear right before your very eyes leaving you standing on grass. For large cities I think of these two as equals, I haven't been to Atlanta and don't know Houston well to compare them but I don't think Miami is in a tier with bad cities, they're all improving right? That's all that matters really.
San Diego is much more consistent than either of those two southern cities. Which is why I put it higher and I've lived in San Diego btw.
San Jose anchors its own metro, you could say. Oakland and San Francisco both do too, they share equal pie like Dallas and Fort Worth or Minneapolis and Saint Paul. LA and San Diego obviously do. I think the only one that was a stretch was Long Beach IMO.
Miami has walkable parts but I've attempted living there for a few months and just spent a week in Dallas a few weeks back and TBH there was very little difference. Both have walkable pedestrian friendly downtowns and surrounding areas but once out of those areas those sidewalks become patchy, narrow, and in some cases just disappear right before your very eyes leaving you standing on grass. For large cities I think of these two as equals, I haven't been to Atlanta and don't know Houston well to compare them but I don't think Miami is in a tier with bad cities, they're all improving right? That's all that matters really.
San Diego is much more consistent than either of those two southern cities. Which is why I put it higher and I've lived in San Diego btw.
But the same can be said of San Diego, I remember many neighborhoods where there was no sidewalks.
The argument against " sprawling cities" is that they're too large in size to be walkable in their totality. Why should they be though? In L.A.'s case, if it were a census designated urbanized area, it would be the 11th most populous in the country. How many urbanized areas do you know are walkable from top to bottom? Few, is any. The New Orleans CSA is only 1.2 million and isn't close to being completely walkable.
Lets compare the walkscores of NO to the Central Los Angeles region of L.A. County. This is more of an apples to apples comparison. Central L.A. covers the same land area as the city of Boston, and is home to 830,000+ people.
RC, that is true... but New Orleans core is more walkable than anywhere in LA though, have you been there? "Walkable" isn't all about walk score and packing people in buildings via a higher population, it's about narrow often one lane one way streets, dense housing stock, no front yards, jay walking, anti car oriented and sidewalks. It's as compact if not more so than San Francisco, just not as built up high and of course less amenities, but you can definitely walk and bike around there with ease.
wyn peters
asergeev
desert librarian
from larger, to brought in, notice the street widths...
Marigny, French Quarter, CBD, Iberville, Uptown all have "walkscores" from 85-94 anyhow, which I still don't think means that much b/c it's based off a range of amenities people can walk to, not how easy it is to walk around on foot. New Orleans is a liquor store corner store type of place, not strip malls, targets, or big grocery stores.
New Orleans core is more walkable than anywhere in LA though, have you been there? It isn't all about walk score and packing people in buildings, it's about narrow often one lane streets, dense housing stock and sidewalks. It's as compact if not more so than San Francisco, just not as built up high and of course less amenities, but you can definitely walk and bike around there with ease.
The core of New Orleans is very walkable and even though the outer neighborhoods like the Garden District are pretty low density, they have a pretty walkable quality to them. At least I had no problem walking all over the core of the city and it was like 100 degrees with 95% humidity (it ended up pouring half the time). One thing it definitely has going for it over LA is narrower streets throughout the core.
I wouldn't say there is nowhere in LA as walkable as the core of New Orleans though, I think Downtown LA is a pretty good example. Not in the city but Santa Monica is as well.
Actually both cities are similar in that they pack in SFH about as tight as possible but have very different architecture styles.
One thing though, I would imagine there are more parts of New Orleans that lack sidewalks, outside of the steepest hillside streets that is a rare occurrence in Los Angeles.
Last edited by munchitup; 10-11-2012 at 05:56 PM..
The argument against " sprawling cities" is that they're too large in size to be walkable in their totality. Why should they be though? In L.A.'s case, if it were a census designated urbanized area, it would be the 11th most populous in the country. How many urbanized areas do you know are walkable from top to bottom? Few, is any. The New Orleans CSA is only 1.2 million and isn't close to being completely walkable.
Lets compare the walkscores of NO to the Central Los Angeles region of L.A. County. This is more of an apples to apples comparison. Central L.A. covers the same land area as the city of Boston, and is home to 830,000+ people.
Central Los Angeles (58 sq miles)
Above 90: 127,736
Above 80: 489,128
Above 70: 674,964
Isn't walkscore kind of an unreliable source? I mean Metairie and Gretna which are suburbs of New Orleans have a higher walkscore than the city but anybody who knows anything about the area will tell you that they are not nearly as walkable as New Orleans. Also the New Orleans urban area is actually pretty dense. I remember that before Hurricane Katrina it was about 200 square miles with 1 million people, not that that really means anything about walkability. But a lot of New Orleans is walkable. Many parts were built before the automobile and only have on street parking. Many parts have multi-family houses that are close together with the houses right up against the sidewalk or near the sidewalk. There are many shopping/restuarant corridors spread throughout the city and then your nieghborhood stores. Also the city is actually about 80 square miles since a lot of the land to the right is undeveloped. But I also will say that there are some suburban parts in the city limits with ranch houses (but they are still extremely close together).
I wouldn't say its unreliable...the top 5 "walkable" cities according to their formula are NYC, SF, BO'S, CHI, and PHI. Few, if any, will argue with that list.
Grapico, your pictures are nice, but how much area of land are we looking at there? It looks small, arguably smaller than DTLA, which is roughly 3 sq miles (using walkscore's boundaries). People underestimate its size.
As for amenities, I have to disagree, I think they're critically important. Getting to a restaurant/bar/supermarket/shop quickly and efficiently is the most practical purpose of walkability. That trumps pleasantness in importance, by far.
Nearly 500k Angelenos in the Central L.A. region live in walkscores above 80. That's superb, and completely debunks the myth that everything in L.A. is completely spread and difficult to get to.
Last edited by RaymondChandlerLives; 10-11-2012 at 06:39 PM..
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