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The infrastructure sure but I recently saw NYC just a few days ago and it was the first time in years that I've seen the place. I was pleasantly surprised by how much cleaner the city not only looked but felt. What a relief from having to smell pee every corner your turned on like the way it was in the early 00's. Commendable actually.
Now the infrasructure, the roads are as patchy as ever, the trains are as mangy as ever, the sidewalks are as behind as ever and could use a refacing, and just don't even get me started on the sorry state of those train stations, but the city has cleaned up. I can tell NYC as a whole a city that now actually cares for aesthetics. Good job because that's important to leverage the image of a supposed worlds most powerful and most world class city.
London underground for example, a peer city with a peer system, leaves MTA in the dust. The stations, the trains, everything about it. NYC needs to modernize its infrastructure.
dont worry in 10 years you will be saying the same for nyc subway system.
beware cause all the stations in the outter boroughs are going through top notch renovations.
manhattan will be desert once the boroughs are completed.
No one said it is "in the burbs." But it is rather suburban. When people say that LA is "suburban," they're talking about function as much as they are form. LA might not be as auto-dependent as Lithonia, GA, but it's definitely more auto-dependent than the core Boston, DC, Chicago, or Philadelphia.
But isn't 16th St above Adams Morgan suburban feeling too? Its much closer to dt than Hancock Park. Its urban feel suddenly drops off there and continues its suburban feel into Maryland.
But isn't 16th St above Adams Morgan suburban feeling too? Its much closer to dt than Hancock Park. Its urban feel suddenly drops off there and continues its suburban feel into Maryland.
It is. The difference is that DC has a sustained urban feel throughout its "core." You're not going to cross 14th Street near the Whole Foods on P Street and suddenly find yourself immersed in neighborhoods with SFHs, parking lots and strip malls. I would say that the area north of Adams-Morgan is the boundary of what's "core" DC.
I'll repost this again since it does a pretty good job of categorizing cities by urbanity.
Quote:
Tier 1
A tier of its own, where you'll find obscenely crowded
sidewalks in all corners of the city.
NYC
Tier 2
Gigantic seamless walkable areas with intense, 3-Dimensional centers of commerceand residential density. Its also where you'll find generous amounts of people walking through residential side streets as part of their commute.
Geographically smaller areas of commercial intensity, sometimes resembling tier 2 (Downtown Portland, Miami Beach, French Quarter), or disjointed linearareas with noticeable commercial intensity (Los Angeles)....Vancouver I'm torn with, certainly feels like tier 2 within the downtown penninsula, but its so geographically small, and there is only a handful of areas outside of it.
Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Vancouver, New Orleans, Miami, Vegas (Baltimore?)
Tier 4
Similar to the previous tier, but not quite as intense, or geographically large.
The bolded language is the difference between LA and other cities. There's no drop-off in the core. The built environment is three-dimensional, meaning there's pedestrian activity on almost all streets. This is what most people would call "the city" and is in fact what LA is working towards.
Here's a more detailed breakdown, which I also think is pretty good.
Quote:
Tier 1 - The cosmopolitan capitals[/SIZE] [SIZE=3][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][/SIZE]Subgroup 1A Separated because it's so much bigger.
NYC
Subgroup 1B The other top cities.
Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal
-------------------------
[SIZE=3]Tier 2 - Better than average[/SIZE]
Subgroup 2A 19th Century cities with bones similar to Tier 1B cities, that remain relatively intact but that haven't grown as much recently and don't have quite the high level of activity.
Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New Orleans
Subgroup 2B Cities with 20th Century bones that have a high degree of walkability. These cities might be less walkable over large areas than cities in 2A, but may have small peaks of walkability that reach a very high level. Compared to subgroup 2A the most walkable areas of these cities will be better, but a smaller percentage of the city as whole will be walkable.
Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Miami Beach, Las Vegas (?)
-------------------------
[SIZE=3]Tier 3 - The great mass in the middle[/SIZE]
Subgroup 3A 19th/early 20th Century cities similar to 2A, but with smaller walkable areas. Also, some of the larger 19th Century cities that have degraded and have large gaps, but still have some sizable walkable areas.
Columbus, Richmond, Louisville, Indianapolis, Hartford, Providence, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City
Subgroup 3B 20th Century cities similar to 2B, but smaller and/or with a lower peak.
Minneapolis, Denver, Las Vegas (?), San Antonio, Austin, San Diego, Sacramento,
Subgroup 3C Very small 19th/early 20th Century cities, which remain very intact.
Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston, New Haven, Harrisburg, etc
Subgroup 3D Very small 20th Century cities, which have a particularly high degree of walkability (most college towns go here).
Madison, Boulder, etc
-------------------------
[SIZE=3]Tier 4 - Below average[/SIZE]
Subgroup 4A 19th/early 20th Century cities that have degraded so much that they don't have many walkable areas, even though their urban bones are strong.
Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit
Subgroup 4B Large late 20th Century cities with OK downtowns but poor walkability outside of downtown.
Atlanta, Dallas, Houston
Subgroup 4C Small 20th Century cities with average downtowns.
Boise, Roanoke, Green Bay, Toledo, etc
-------------------------
[SIZE=3]Tier 5 - Hopeless*[/SIZE]
Subgroup 5A Large metropolitan areas almost totally given over to cars.
Tampa, Charlotte, Phoenix, Orlando, San Jose, Nashville, Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, El Paso, Tulsa, Oklahoma City
Subgroup 5A Smaller cities almost totally given over to cars.
Topeka, Spartanburg, Naples, Colorado Springs, etc
That's laughable that LA is in the same tier as New Orleans.
Not really. To be clear, this post addresses the intensity of pedestrian activity. New Orleans has a generous amount of pedestrian activity, but it's confined to a small portion of the city overall. Los Angeles is similar in that respect.
That's laughable that LA is in the same tier as New Orleans.
Those lists are pretty logical (would be nice if the link was provided, but it is from a competitor's site so maybe that is not allowed). Not sure if it was mentioned in the posts above but they are meant to rank the pedestrian intensity of the cities, which explains why Vegas would be so high even though it is largely a pedestrian hostile city. It also explains why NO would be up in that tier with LA (French Quarter, Garden District and the other core areas have a good deal of walking). As far as the second list (still ranking the same criteria), I don't think 2A and 2B are necessarily meant to signify one group being better or worse than each other, just in two different subcategories.
The difference is NO has a small area of "360" environment while LA has linear environment after linear environment (with the exception of DTLA and SM being "360" environments - DTLA being relatively high-intensity while SM is a more moderate-high intensity).
But isn't 16th St above Adams Morgan suburban feeling too? Its much closer to dt than Hancock Park. Its urban feel suddenly drops off there and continues its suburban feel into Maryland.
16th Street isn't suburban after Adams Morgan. WHAT? There is about 3/4 of a mile of continuous apartment buildings before you get to Rock Creek Park (16th & Arkansas Ave). From there, 16th Street runs adjacent (west side) to the park all the way into Silver Spring. The east side of 16th Street features houses with small yards. To me, it looks like parts of Chicago. A few miles up, one block east off of 16th Street there are rowhouses on 14th Street and then that turns into apartment buildings up past Military Road. You can walk (sidewalks) from 16th & K (DT DC) all the way into Maryland uninterrupted, which is about 6 miles give or take. Once you get into Maryland. It's very urban for a suburb. There's an elevated subway station (Silver Spring) as well as a vibrant downtown area. I thought you lived in DC at one time?
That's laughable that LA is in the same tier as New Orleans.
It is..... CLEARLY.
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