Greater Center City Philadelphia vs Greater Downtown Vancouver (comparison, populations, life)

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by jm02

These cities offer very interesting contrasts. Each are vibrant and beautiful but in very different ways. Vancouver is in a spectacular setting, surrounded by mountains and water. The scale of the street scene is more expansive than Philly with wider streets lined with more contemporary architecture. To me, it is what a sunbelt city could be, in the city planners and residents were interested in density and human scale v getting folks from place to place via automobile.

Philly, on the other hand, offers a intimacy that Vancouver can't, with it's tight warren of streets, dark and cozy restaurants and watering holes, and more street bustle. All if this in encased in the glow of Philly's warm red brick vs the shiny new facades of Vancouver.

This is the most intersting point thus far, I think think this shows that newer construct can be vibrant if done correctly

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by bballniket

Please treat "Greater Center City Philadelphia" as the region bounded by the following: Washington Ave to the south, Spring Garden Street to the north, Front Street to the east, and the Schuylkill River to the west. This means do not include University City or regions of the Art Museum Area north of Spring Garden Street in your comparison, but do include the Italian Market area (i.e. Bella Vista north of Washington St.), Hawthorne north of Washington St., Queen Village north of Washington St, Old City, and sections of the Art Museum Area south of Spring Garden St.

Please treat "Greater Downtown Vancouver" as the geographically contiguous region encompassing everything that's traditionally considered downtown Vancouver in addition to Gastown, Yaletown, Chinatown, Coal Harbor and the West End. Bound the region to the east by main street and by water everywhere else.

Items for Comparison
1) Cohesiveness of development between constituent sections (i.e. is it easy to walk from one end to the other through different neighborhoods without going through "dead zones"/surface parking lots)
2) Transit WITHIN each region (for example, judge only how easy it is to use transit to get across "Greater Center City Philadelphia" NOT into/out of it)
3) Integration between residential, commercial and retail corridors (the district in which offices, restaurants, grocery stores, banks, and houses are all found on the same street would for the purposes of this comparison be considered "better integrated" than the district in which the aforementioned are found on separate streets)
4) Viability as a 24 hour district (here I'm NOT concerned about last call/nightlife, but i AM concerned about restaurants/grocery stores/gyms being open 24 hours and public transit WITHIN THE DISTRICT- NOT BETWEEN IT AND OTHER DISTRICTS- being available 24 hours)
5) Size of the District (i.e. number of retail shops/restaurants/jobs/residences/population/physical size)
6) General viability as a live/work/play region

Items NOT to be included in the comparison
1) Diversity
2) Weather
3) Cost of Living
4) Aesthetic factors (i.e. how pretty/classic/ugly/sterile the architecture is; how amazing the natural features are; how beautiful the parks are)

I don't have enough personal experience with Vancouver to make a personal comparison on these aspects

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by kyle19125

Exactly, especially since Vancouver would run away with that.

I wouldn't exactly call it a runaway. No comparison with regard to natural setting. Vancouver's gorgeous. But Philadelphia has the edge when it comes to historic neighborhoods.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by jm02

I realize your post is based on your personal assessment, which you are fully entitled to. Regarding this last point, however, DT Vancouver and Center City Philly have popualtions of 54,690 and 57,239 respectively. While you may find Vancouver better geared towards supporting a DT residential population, the cores of the cities themselves end up attracting almost identical populations.

Downtown Vancouver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Center City, Philadelphia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Central Philly has way more office and commercial activity, which makes it feel less residential-focused to me. Vancouver seems a lot more balanced between the live/work/play aspects, while Philly feels very geared towards the work aspect. 45 million SF of offices means lots of commuters and office-focused businesses, far out of proportion of a typical neighborhood of 57,000 people. DT Vancouver has 20 million SF of office space, which is a lot more modest by comparison.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by Duderino

I'm just a bit confused by your assessment. Not trying to nitpick, but there are a lot of questionable things that you noted.

Center City in Philadelphia is extremely geared toward pedestrian and bike traffic. In fact, Broad and Market streets are essentially the only two-way thoroughfares in Center City, giving the CBD very little vehicular traffic for a city its size.

In comparison to a typical US city, yes. But in comparison with Vancouver, no. Vancouver has absolutely no limited-access roads in its city center, or any leading into it. As a result, there are way fewer cars passing through.

Due to its many colonial era streets, there are also many streets that are off limits to vehicles due to being so narrow. It's absolutely one of the top cities in the US for walkability. Describing someone as "lonely" when they're walking around Center City leads me to believe you really did not spend much time there.

So you disagree that there are some lonely walks (my actual words) within City Center? I wandered north of the Vine St Expressway with my GF and the area definitely didn't feel welcoming and vibrant for pedestrians. But maybe we just hit a couple bad blocks or something?

I can see an argument for Vancouver in terms of public space -- it seems "roomier" -- but Center City certainly isn't lacking in high quality park space with Rittenhouse Square, Filter Square, Fairmount Park and Washington Square right at your leisure.

Stanley Park is just a different animal than all of these. No comparison imo.

The built environment is also extremely amenable to downtown living. Aside from a couple of limited areas in the high-rise district of Center City, people live on essentially every street -- intertwined with plenty of shopping and restaurants. There are few places in America that have such a successful live/work/play environment.

Yeah, I said that people live all throughout the neighborhood, which is great. And it's definitely one of the best in the US--definitely on a different level than anything in the Sunbelt. But I'd still argue Vancouver's live/work/play environment is better. Again, it just feel less commuter-focused.

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by testa50

Central Philly has way more office and commercial activity, which makes it feel less residential-focused to me. Vancouver seems a lot more balanced between the live/work/play aspects, while Philly feels very geared towards the work aspect. 45 million SF of offices means lots of commuters and office-focused businesses, far out of proportion of a typical neighborhood of 57,000 people. DT Vancouver has 20 million SF of office space, which is a lot more modest by comparison.

Though the populations are similar. Maybe just a higher concentration of commercial with similar residential. Generally the concensus is that residential is already at high levels for Philly and commercial is is that aspect (potentailly some additonal retail though not lacking but can be better, well is the case for commercial too in not lacking but could be better in these parts.) that is lacking or could see the most improvement

There is also the large convention center which makes for a sort of dead zone, and the NE portion of these borders is basically an island isolated by the highway.

As I said I dont know Vancouver well enough to make a comparison but residential is generally not conidered to be short in CC (again with the excpetion of the parkway and area from Market to SG and 9th to Delaware ave., a dead zone mostly industrial) Edit to the post above, I would agree lonely in the area you reference and it is pretty isolated and mostly industrial in the area severed by the Vine Street Expressway 676, lonely to me sounds to be correct, not much foot traffic and much can be too sparce to feel safe at all hours if that makes sense end edit

One aspect to me where Philly really excels in this area (meaning the DT) is an overall combination of commercial, residential, retail, restaurants, museums, nightlife that flow seemlessly into each other, all in a pretty organic fashion

on the aprking lots, they are really going away pretty quickly in the past 15 years and continue that way

Also compared to say a Boston or Chicgao or SF most would say it is more residential focused and less so commercial when compared so on the whole that comment kind of surprises me

Additional edit: Again I dont know Vancouver well at all, very limited time there but why is an area that has a good work/live/play balance to also be a high commuter area considered a bad thing. It may only add to the vibrancy, just am curious on that thought

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by testa50

So you disagree that there are some lonely walks (my actual words) within City Center? I wandered north of the Vine St Expressway with my GF and the area definitely didn't feel welcoming and vibrant for pedestrians. But maybe we just hit a couple bad blocks or something?.

Definitely. I would absolutely agree that the area around the VSE tends to be a dead zone, at least until you hit the Benjamin Franklin Parkway -- but that area tends to be one of the few exceptions to the rule.

Originally Posted by testa50

Stanley Park is just a different animal than all of these. No comparison imo..

If you're arguing for more impressive natural surroundings in Vancouver, I will absolutely concede. However, in terms of "urban respites," Center City does pretty darn well.

Originally Posted by testa50

Yeah, I said that people live all throughout the neighborhood, which is great. And it's definitely one of the best in the US--definitely on a different level than anything in the Sunbelt. But I'd still argue Vancouver's live/work/play environment is better. Again, it just feel less commuter-focused.

Not that you have any reason to know, but Center City actually has a lack of jobs for a city of Philadelphia's size. Compared to San Francisco, Boston and DC, Philly's downtown is not nearly as much of an employment hub as other major US cities, so I'm reluctant to agree with that.

Nevertheless, there is still a large employment base downtown going on volume alone, and based on the plethora of residential areas in Center City, I personally see a pretty good balance between suburban commuters versus city residents.

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by testa50

Central Philly has way more office and commercial activity, which makes it feel less residential-focused to me. Vancouver seems a lot more balanced between the live/work/play aspects, while Philly feels very geared towards the work aspect. 45 million SF of offices means lots of commuters and office-focused businesses, far out of proportion of a typical neighborhood of 57,000 people. DT Vancouver has 20 million SF of office space, which is a lot more modest by comparison.

Given you have been here, you are fully entitled to your impressions. I have different ones. 57,000 folks actually live in Center City and play after hours. During business hours, they are joined by the commuters that work in this office space you refer to, and the energy is further upped by the students from adjacent Penn, Drexel and Temple campuses who pour into CC for shopping and entertainment. This is likely why I have the the impression of more bustle in CC than in Vancouver.

As for your comment in a separate post that the certain blocks north of Vine are "lonely", no argument here. You are aware that Vine is considered the northern boundary of CC, therefore you have ventured out of the Center City at that point. That area was cleared for the construction of the I476 highway which you likely crossed over. Venture a few more books north and you will again be in fairly dense residential neighborhoods: Fairmount to the west and Northern Liberties to the east.

As a final comment, I fully concur with your impressions of Stanley Park. It is one of the best urban parks I have visited and is one of Vancouver's top amenities, IMO.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by jm02

To me, it is what a sunbelt city could be, in the city planners and residents were interested in density and human scale v getting folks from place to place via automobile.

Originally Posted by kidphilly

This is the most intersting point thus far, I think think this shows that newer construct can be vibrant if done correctly

The thing is though Vancouver redeveloped a core that was fairly dense to begin with--and a lot of old industrial land. The core area and parts of the West End was built up prior to the automobile era to begin with--it's just that much of it was redeveloped since the 80s. Not much different than what a lot of other old port cities have done. Vancouver feels dense and vibrant in part because of the location of the city. The downtown/West End is surrounded on three sides by water on a fairly compact peninsula. The rest of Vancouver has occasional pockets of activity, but it feels fairly suburban. Canadian cities usually have more random high rise residential construction though even in the more suburban parts.

On the other hand comparing a city like Vancouver to Sun Belt cities is a different story--since a lot of those cities had a surplus of cheap land and no geographic boundaries to build new business districts in outer neighborhoods or suburbs and exurbs for miles... Vancouver is a city that like San Francisco is pretty geographically constrained.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by rainrock

The harbor and mts are pretty to look at but it's not very practical to live, not very centrally located, not amenable to growth.

It's the primary(or basically only) major port of Canada on the Pacific ocean, which makes it pretty important to Canada... It's the closest Canadian city to Asia and the most closely connected...being "centrally located" doesn't mean that much in this day and age, considering the economic drivers of Western Canada(and the best economic region in the country) are in the oil rich prairies of Alberta to the east.