What is the second most urban city in the United States?

[SFBruin]

I was thinking that it would be either Chicago or Philadelphia. I have never been to Philadelphia (other than driving through once to get a cheesesteak) so I kinda wanted to hear people's thoughts on it.

Also, I realize that the US is extremely big, so this is inherently a hard question to answer.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

SF and Boston aren't getting enough love in this thread. The Tenderloin and the North End are the most urban neighborhoods in America outside of NY.

If you're want endless horizontal expanses of urbanism, then yes, Chicago and Philly are clear numbers 2 and 3. And that's a legit way to measure. But if you want peak urban experience in a single location--a different but no less legit measurement--then Tenderloin and North End are 2 and 3.

Yeah good call, this sounds about right to me from a individual neighborhood perspective and overall city perspective.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Segun

It's still hard to compare it when you walk any direction for more than 1 hour in Los Angeles and you see 5 or 6 people on your whole walk.

Never been to any of those cities, but I bet you spend 5 minutes in the center and you'll get a glimpse of why they're so large, and you'll still see it. In LA, you gotta spend significant time (or go on a city exploring binge).

Umm, what? Where in la are you only seeing 6 pedestrians in a hour , exactly?

Even in the car oriented sections like Venice Blvd in Culver City, I see more than that in 5 minutes. So ..

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

SF and Boston aren't getting enough love in this thread. The Tenderloin and the North End are the most urban neighborhoods in America outside of NY.

I don't think there is really anything special about the Tenderloin. It's pretty usual American gridded 20's urbanism of which Chicago has tons of. It's not in the same tier as the North End.

[samne]

Boston or Montreal would be most urban. They have the most seamless urban fabric IMO.

I dont know Philly though.

[bossabreezes]

I would probably go with San Francisco.

The Tenderloin actually is pretty special, even though it's currently hard to walk there without stepping in a pile of feces or a used drug needle. It has outrageous potential to get better, but it's built environment is just about as urban as possible.

San Francisco is very urban, although not uniformly so. The downtown and financial district areas have a big city feel, similar to some parts of New York or even Philadelphia. The neighborhoods are very diverse, very dense, although have a markedly different feel than northeastern city neighrborhoods. There are more single family neighborhoods on small lots, or even conjoining houses than you see in most cities, let alone western cites.

SoMa, the large formerly industrial neighborhood adjacent to Downtown and The Tenderloin is undergoing significant redevelopment, and substantial densification. I believe we'll see this neighborhood blossom into one of the densest and most urban neighborhoods on the West Coast very shortly. Lots of space to build up, and that's currently already happening throughout the neighborhood.

The cool thing about SF, in my view, is that there is still a lot of possibility to build upwards and urbanize, even though it's already the densest city in the US other than New York. It's growing too, and will likely hit 1M people over the next 10-15 years. That's a lot of people in 25 square, hilly miles.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by The North One

I don't think there is really anything special about the Tenderloin. It's pretty usual American gridded 20's urbanism of which Chicago has tons of. It's not in the same tier as the North End.

Yes, this is so typical and that is not even the Tenderloin.

[homebucket]

The Tenderloin flows seamlessly to many other urban neighborhoods. Heading East or North you can walk to Mid Market, Union Square, Chinatown (I think it’s the most dense neighborhood outside of Manhattan), FiDi, North Beach, the Embarcadero, SoMA, South Beach, Mission Bay, Dogpatch. Heading South or West, you’ve got Hayes Valley, the Mission, the Castro, Lower Haight, Haight-Ashbury, and then you land at Golden Gate Park, probably the best urban park outside of New York.

All of the above neighborhoods are highly urban, extremely walkable, and it could easily take a day or half day just exploring that neighborhood itself. You could pretty much walk from the Ferry Building to the Academy of Sciences (a distance of 4.6 miles) and encounter no dead zones. You could easily walk from one neighborhood to the next and not realize it unless it’s obvious like Chinatown or North Beach.

Even the suburbs of SF like the Sunset and the Richmond are very walkable. And if not, there’s a bus stop within 2 blocks of any residence. Not only is peak SF urbanism intense enough to be second in the country, it’s actually quite well distributed throughout its city limits. It’s a fabulous city for just wandering around.

[The North One]

No urban area In San Francisco is anywhere near as "intense" as what you'd find in Boston or Philly. It's very typical gridded stuff on wide streets and it has an unfortunate unique flaw of having so many front facing garages that are disengaging and unpleasant for pedestrians. I don't think there is any other city in the world with so much street facing garage development, none of this is peak urbanism.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by The North One

No urban area In San Francisco is anywhere near as "intense" as what you'd find in Boston or Philly.

This is obviously untrue as evidenced by you're the only one saying this, bruh.

[SFBruin]

At risk of contradicting my earlier comment, I would almost consider San Francisco as more urban than Chicago. There is a more uniform concentration of apartment buildings, especially inhabited by young professionals, in the Northeastern quadrant of SF than there is in any part of Chicago that I can recall.

Chicago is more vertical, and has pockets of density way farther out from downtown than does San Francisco, but it seems that, at it's peak, San Francisco's density and activity is more concentrated than Chicago's.

It is really a close comparison imo.

[SFBruin]

The most urban area of Chicago is definitely in the Near North Side somewhere, though I don't know exactly where I would put it.

[Crawford]

I think the varying responses confirm that the answer is "any of four or five cities, depending on subjective criteria".

I don't even know the answer to "what is most urban neighborhood outside NYC". It could be North End-Boston, or Tendernob/loin-SF, or Near North Side-Chicago, or Rittenhouse-Philly.

[dc_denizen]

Chicago differs from a lot of other cities in that it doesn’t have a favored suburbanesque single family home quarter close the the center of the city (eg like northwest dc or those areas north of downtown toronto, rosedale or whatever it is)

The wealth in the city is mostly in rowhouses and apartments , in neighborhoods spreading linearly north and north-northwest.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think the varying responses confirm that the answer is "any of four or five cities, depending on subjective criteria".

Yep.

Just as there was no definitive answer for what is the Midwest's most urban city after chicago, there's no definitive answer for what is America's most urban city after NYC.

in both cases there is an absolute clear-cut alpha that stands head and shoulders above the crowd, but after that, the waters get extremely murky.

This thread could go on for another 800 pages, and we would still be right back where we started with Crawford's first post in this thread.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

The question is pretty self-explanatory: What would generally be regarded as the second most urban city in the United States?

This has nothing to do with overall size or cultural influence, but just to do with the level of activity and infrastructure within the core of the metro.

Los Angeles
San Francisco
Philadelphia
Boston
DC

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by The North One

I don't think there is really anything special about the Tenderloin. It's pretty usual American gridded 20's urbanism of which Chicago has tons of. It's not in the same tier as the North End.

Isn't the Tenderloin the most densely populated neighbourhod in the country outside of NYC? It's probably the most Manhattanesque, as least (in the "true" sense of having contiguous blocks of wall-to-wall tenements, as opposed to skyscraper canyons).



https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/84020349271714137/


Agreed with some of the assessment that the Tenderloin and Boston's North End are probably the single most urban non-NY neighbourhoods, but that Chicago and Philly are more urban than San Francisco and Boston, overall. Of the five commonly cited cities DC would be at the bottom - though between it's well-used metro system, extensive rowhouse neighbourhoods, successful downtown, and outlying centres - it still has urban accoutrements aplenty.

I'd place Los Angeles at the top of the next tier, which would otherwise include successful but less intensive newer cities like Seattle and Portland.

[IrishIllini]

SF has a nice buzz downtown, but it doesn’t feel more urban than Chicago to me.

Chicago’s unique in the sense that the Loop is kind of like an island within the city. The river forms a hard barrier to the north and west. The Kennedy (I90/94) forms another barrier just a bit further west of the river. The South Loop hasn’t matured into a genuinely urban neighborhood just yet and further south the Stevenson (I55) forms another barrier between the South Loop and Chinatown and Bronzeville.

The river is great to have. It gives the city some space to breathe and breaks up the steel and concrete jungle. At the same time, it inhibits a soft transition from CBD to more mixed-use/residential neighborhoods.

[Crawford]

Built form for Tenderloin is pretty fantastic. But should get major demerits for too-wide streets and aggressively gross environment.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by park123

But if you park your car and get out, almost anywhere in LA feels sleepy.

Right. Go do this ^ at the intersection of Hollywood Blvd and Highland and get back to us.