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Even the neighborhoods far outside of the French Quarter are dense with rows and rows of houses like double shotguns for example with not much space in between them and they usually are right up agianst the side walk or close to it.
If I knew how to post google street view images, I would if people wanted to view examples or something.
New Orleans feels bigger than both Cincy or St. Louis in terms of it's downtown and outer edge footprint, as well as vibrancy.
Quite likely, but I was talking about them in terms of being Eastern looking. Cincy and St. Louis (Cincy more so) both developed and boomed pretty early so shares a lot of architecture and urban layout that northeast cities have--though maybe less intact since they dropped in population much more severely.
What other contenders with a good lot of older dense and urban development are there in the South? There's Charleston which was a top ten city for many decades. Savannah mentioned. Norfolk, maybe? Louisville? Richmond?
I know for the Midwest, Cincinnati and St. Louis are up there.
Unfortunately, there are not a lot of contenders for older dense urban development in the South. Charleston and Savannah are both small. Charleston is about 120,000 in the city and 600,000 or 700,000 metro. Savannah is even smaller.
The Hampton Roads area (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News) is fairly populous, but lacks a unifying major downtown area.
Richmond is a decent contender. It has some neat neighborhoods, although IMO the overall vibrancy of the city is pretty low.
Places like Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are the biggest in the south (along with Miami) but they lack a general feeling of density and history. They have some neighborhoods with those characterisitics of course, but the cities in general lack it.
"Eastern" is not synonymous with dense and European, but rather, it's a broad term that can encompass many different qualities. Virtually the entire right half of the country has characteristics of "the East" and could rightfully be called such.
So, is New Orleans the most European looking city in the South? Yes. Is it the most eastern looking? That depends on who you talk to.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Originally Posted by po-boy
To me New Orleans definitely has the most "city" feel of any sizeable Southern city. It has that old-school feeling of density and vibrance. For several decades in the 1800's New Orleans was a top ten US city, and that history really comes through when you are there.
I have often told of how when I was a child New Orleans and Atlanta were the only two "big cities" I had been to. I was surprised when I learned that Atlanta was a larger metro area, b/c New Orleans always felt like the city to me far more than Atlanta (even though Atlanta had a few taller buildings).
The place has its issues, but there are a lot of wonderful things about it. I would love to see N.O. regain its place as one of the great American cities.
In the South I've been to Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville...NOLA felt the busiest. The black culture reminded me of DC, but it's very different too of course.
^ great pics, too, it really conveys the old-school-ness of NOLA!
It is a pity that NOLA isn't one of the major cities in terms of prominence. It's still my 2nd/3rd favourite city I visited in America though.
Yes, this is true. The CBD especially looks Eastern because it developed as the newly-arrived Americans in the 1800s needed a center of business and entertainment. The French Quarter (as it would seem) stayed home to the French-speaking people's center of business. Essentially, (to paraphrase Pierce Lewis) New Orleans is like a double-yolked egg with essentially two "downtowns," the French Quarter and the "American Sector/Faubourg St. Mary" or CBD. So, the American CBD developed around the same time that most older eastern cities in America were urbanizing, with the French Quarter being developed much earlier.
In terms of the rest of the city, the city could be said to be eastern looking in some aspects, such as density and overall vibrancy due to the city's age. On the uptown (American) side of the city, there are more American styles of housing along with shotgun houses. On the downtown (Creole/French) side, there are more Caribbean houses also with many shotguns mixed in. The shotgun house (again, Pierce Lewis) is essentially the New Orleans version of an Eastern row house. It houses multiple families (many houses in New Orleans can have 3 or more apartments in the back or on the side). For some reason, New Orleanians decided to build wooden double shotguns and side apartments rather than row houses (although some townhouses can be found in several neighborhoods).
So, to sum that up:
the CBD of NOLA looks like an eastern city in architecture.
the rest of the urban core (20 square miles) feels like an eastern city in density and multi-family housing aspects.
however, the shotgun house is the NOLA version of a northern rowhouse.
IMO New Orleans is uniquely itself... saying its the "most eastern looking city in the South" takes away from the fact that it's different than just about anywhere else in the country. The fact that it's densely populated and busy doesn't mean it's "Eastern looking"... there's plenty of larger cities in the east coast that are not busy or densely populated (i.e. Hartford, Buffalo, etc). Do they suddenly lose their "Eastern" status? Being eastern is irrespective of being a city with hustle and bustle.
IMO New Orleans is uniquely itself... saying its the "most eastern looking city in the South" takes away from the fact that it's different than just about anywhere else in the country. The fact that it's densely populated and busy doesn't mean it's "Eastern looking"... there's plenty of larger cities in the east coast that are not busy or densely populated (i.e. Hartford, Buffalo, etc). Do they suddenly lose their "Eastern" status? Being eastern is irrespective of being a city with hustle and bustle.
Exactly, that is why I posted the grits and palm trees.
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