Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
Modal share and density, while helpful stats, aren't really definitive. Calgary has significantly higher density and transit share than, say, Philly. Would anyone seriously argue Calgary is more urban than Philly? How about Winnipeg more urban than Boston or Chicago?
Urbanity is a subjective concept largely based on street-level feel. Minneapolis, IMO, doesn't quite have it.
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I think we'd really need to specify if we were talking about aesthetically urban which would be the domain of appearance and "feel", or functionally urban which would pertain to how people move around and interact with their environment. Functional urbanism would very strongly rely on stats such as population density and transportation modal share while largely ignoring appearance, while the opposite would be true of aesthetic urbanism. Of course there's a correlation between places that appear urban aesthetically and places that function in an urban manner, but as you pointed out it's not a direct relationship.