[cabasse]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I've not been to New Orleans, but based on a quick Google Street View exploration, I find its core extremely impressive in terms of the quality of its urban fabric and its geographic expanse--especially for a metro of its size (1.2 million). Charleston and Savannah don't belong in the same sentence, and neither does Miami/Miami Beach.

The French Quarter and CBD together cover 1.5 square miles. As a comparison, Chicago's Loop spans about 1.6 square miles (but like 40% of it is park space), while Boston's core (CBD, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, West End, North End) is also roughly the same size. Although this geographic area has a tiny residential population and there are spotty parts, it has fantastic bones throughout.

I personally find NO's core more impressive than that of other cities (i.e. Baltimore, Pittsburgh) that tend to get more love in the urban category simply because of Rust Belt legacies.

the historic core of savannah is about 1 square mile, (from the river to park ave, the southern end of forsyth park, and MLK to broad st) or easily more if you factor in some of the more residential areas south. it might not be as purely commercial as new orleans but many of the streets in that square mile have storefronts of various types.