Should there be any doubt that LA belongs among the big 6 urban US cities?

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by LA21st

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0617335,...XqEv2_k0fAg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

This is one block north of that. Koreatown isn't SF or NYC, but it's well above any other sunbelt city. Western Ave isn't a "walkable" street in Koreatown, and nobody has ever said that.
Koreatown has a mix of smaller commercial streets and then streets like Western, Vermont, Olympic.

I wouldnt take walkscore seriously for anywhere.
Little Havana is in the 90s! lol

Yeah, this was more meant to slag on walkscore than Los Angeles. LA (and Miami) are the two places that the Walkscore formula really breaks down. It's good at distinguishing the difference between postwar sprawl and intact 19th century urban neighborhoods, but seems a poor judge of intermediate build areas like most of LA.

Two things, IMHO, hold back the most urban portions of LA from really achieving full walkability.

1. Although LA went all-in on densification as early as the 1990s, it was late to change its zoning to allow for mixed-use. This meant in a lot of the areas like Westlake/Koreatown bungalows were replaced by mid-sized apartment complexes, but these back streets, now dense, stayed strictly residential. At the same time, true mixed use on the commercial corridors was rare until about 20 years ago, so you had lots of strip-mall-like crap on the main thoroughfares wherever office districts didn't spring up. It's catching up here, but it's going to take time.

2. The main roads are all too friggin wide. I know why - it was laid out with the streetcars in mind, which meant that when they got torn up, the streets were like two lanes wider than they needed to be. But the result is these overbuilt, near highway-width avenues running through the city - awful places to be a pedestrian, even if there's a sidewalk. The whole city needs massive road diets/sidewalk widening/complete streets.

[mhays]

It's all a hybrid. LA is big, and has large areas of good density, but is also extremely car-oriented. Miami is the best comparison.

I define the big six in urbanity by the ability to live without a car most of all. Seattle is #7 in that regard. LA is down the list a ways.

LA deserves added credit for diversity, international connections, prominence, etc. It's clearly the #2 city in the US by some definitions. Just not urbanity.

If I had to rank it, maybe #8. If others value density and size more, then #7 is defensible.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Yeah, this was more meant to slag on walkscore than Los Angeles. LA (and Miami) are the two places that the Walkscore formula really breaks down. It's good at distinguishing the difference between postwar sprawl and intact 19th century urban neighborhoods, but seems a poor judge of intermediate build areas like most of LA.

Two things, IMHO, hold back the most urban portions of LA from really achieving full walkability.

1. Although LA went all-in on densification as early as the 1990s, it was late to change its zoning to allow for mixed-use. This meant in a lot of the areas like Westlake/Koreatown bungalows were replaced by mid-sized apartment complexes, but these back streets, now dense, stayed strictly residential. At the same time, true mixed use on the commercial corridors was rare until about 20 years ago, so you had lots of strip-mall-like crap on the main thoroughfares wherever office districts didn't spring up. It's catching up here, but it's going to take time.

2. The main roads are all too friggin wide. I know why - it was laid out with the streetcars in mind, which meant that when they got torn up, the streets were like two lanes wider than they needed to be. But the result is these overbuilt, near highway-width avenues running through the city - awful places to be a pedestrian, even if there's a sidewalk. The whole city needs massive road diets/sidewalk widening/complete streets.

Def a work in progress, but I think much of LA main streets will look like this by 2030-2033 or so.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1017731,...DRQWOmh7ahw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

This is East Hollywood, which is urbanizing more quickly.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0981589,...zRsSLWRv7eQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

And Hollywood, which will look very different in 10 years.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Before living here in LA for residency, I remember years ago on another thread that the only major cities in the country that still retained much of their prewar built environment and seemed urban were NYC, SF, Chicago, Boston, Philly, and DC. LA was sometimes included in this group but was seen as still distinct from those “big 6”.

Now that I have spent some time driving, walking, and taking public transit around the city, I have to say that LA is pretty urban at its core and various other nodes, such as Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire, etc. It’s still very car centric with small strip malls and some larger ones anchored by grocery stores like Ralph’s and local supermarkets. However, it’s still is walkable though many of those nodes and many of its urban parts are prewar or at least interwar/ early postwar.

In many neighborhoods, there isn’t only single family homes. A lot of small garden apartments, dingbats, duplexes/triplexes as well as legit large apartment buildings among them. Even the SFHs are on small lots which gives both a sense of independence but also fosters some level of community, unlike the newer suburbs in Texas or Florida. Overall the built area reminded me of parts of Brooklyn ( outside of the brownstones) and Queens. It’s not as intense as Manhattan (although nowhere in this country is) but it wasn’t built with that in mind.

I guess what I’m trying to say for this thread is that despite its faults, LA is legitimately one of the most urban cities in the country and belongs with the other 6 prewar cities. It still has a lot to improve upon but it does belong up there along with NYC, Chicago, and SF.

LA can't be compared to any of those cities because it's of a different era. It came of age in the interwar period while the other cities all came of age in the 19th century or earlier. It belongs more in the category of 20th century sunbelt sprawlers, maybe as its inaugural member. But that's all academic. On the ground, on the street, LA actually feels more urban than some of the cities in the big 6. The incredible urban energy and streetlife at the neighborhood level, and the sheer volume of it spread over such a vast area, is in a category all its own. It's hard for me to say a place is more "urban" than LA when it honestly feels sleepy in comparison to it, unless your definition of urban is simply a checklist of physical characteristics.

[LA21st]

Well NYC feels more urban than LA lol. And a good of chunk of Chicago and SF. Not all of Chicago, because the bungalow belt or southside can feel sleepy.

DC beats LA in places, but it def has sleepy areas. Capitol Hill, while classcial urban, is quiet. Even places on Wisconsin Ave or Conn ave in northwest feel quiet to LA's more urban areas.

Its hard to compare.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by eschaton

LA has a pretty unique typology for the U.S. Put simply, it's dense (both structurally and in terms of population) but the walking infrastructure is subpar, and the massively polycentric nature of the region makes it really hard to cobble together a functional transit system.

To give a concrete example, this area has a 97% score on Walkscore. 97%! No one would look at it and say that it's highly walkable. But it's dense with commercial amenities, and has a high population density. Just good luck trying to cross the street on foot - or have a pleasant stroll along the sidewalk.

I like to look at walkscore as a necessary but not sufficient condition for good urbanism, as all it does is measure the density of amenities. But it's actually a good thing for that ugly stretch of Western Ave (a state highway btw) to have a high walkscore. It's not a bad thing at all, considering what most sunbelt arterials look like. It means that people in that area are able to live a functionally urban lifestyle, just without all the niceties like ornate preserved buildings and street trees and cute sidewalk cafes, the things we usually associate with high walkscores. That's for the rich folks across town.

[Prahaboheme]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Well NYC feels more urban than LA lol. And a good of chunk of Chicago and SF. Not all of Chicago, because the bungalow belt or southside can feel sleepy.

DC beats LA in places, but it def has sleepy areas. Capitol Hill, while classcial urban, is quiet. Even places on Wisconsin Ave or Conn ave in northwest feel quiet to LA's more urban areas.

Its hard to compare.

While residential areas of DC can be “quiet” they are most certainly urban. In fact, they are some of the most intact urban neighborhoods in the country. You rarely have to get in a vehicle let alone leave your own neighborhood in DC to go about daily activities. And when you do, a metro stop is typically within a quarter mile.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Yeah, this was more meant to slag on walkscore than Los Angeles. LA (and Miami) are the two places that the Walkscore formula really breaks down. It's good at distinguishing the difference between postwar sprawl and intact 19th century urban neighborhoods, but seems a poor judge of intermediate build areas like most of LA.

Two things, IMHO, hold back the most urban portions of LA from really achieving full walkability.

1. Although LA went all-in on densification as early as the 1990s, it was late to change its zoning to allow for mixed-use. This meant in a lot of the areas like Westlake/Koreatown bungalows were replaced by mid-sized apartment complexes, but these back streets, now dense, stayed strictly residential. At the same time, true mixed use on the commercial corridors was rare until about 20 years ago, so you had lots of strip-mall-like crap on the main thoroughfares wherever office districts didn't spring up. It's catching up here, but it's going to take time.

2. The main roads are all too friggin wide. I know why - it was laid out with the streetcars in mind, which meant that when they got torn up, the streets were like two lanes wider than they needed to be. But the result is these overbuilt, near highway-width avenues running through the city - awful places to be a pedestrian, even if there's a sidewalk. The whole city needs massive road diets/sidewalk widening/complete streets.

I find sidewalk widths too far too small in much of LA... especially with the e-scooters littered about everywhere (maybe that's better now than when I was last there?)

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Before living here in LA for residency,

Im confused, LA has been the "second city" of the USA for at least 30 years.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Prahaboheme

While residential areas of DC can be “quiet” they are most certainly urban. In fact, they are some of the most intact urban neighborhoods in the country. You rarely have to get in a vehicle let alone leave your own neighborhood in DC to go about daily activities. And when you do, a metro stop is typically within a quarter mile.

Core DC, maybe. Upper Northwest and Northeast are pretty suburbanish and no different than parts of Pasadena or something.
I said Capitol Hill was classical urban. It's just "sleepy". I was there a few weeks ago. My Uncle lives near Stanton Park. I bet people there like the quietness of that area.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I'm kind of making a metric out of thin air, but if you wanted a definition of what separates those big 6 cities from the rest, it would be:

- Can a million people or more live a reasonably middle class life in walkable neighborhoods that are all connected to one another by decent public transit? Could these million + people ditch their cars without experiencing a huge drop in quality of life?

The middle-class part of your metric is where I think almost all US cities fail. New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia are likely the only cities that fulfill your criteria. The other cities either don't have a million people in the kind of neighborhoods that you describe, or if they do, too many of the neighborhoods are unaffordable to the middle class.

Like, would you travel from Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice to downtown Pasadena by public transit given other choices the way that traveling from Downtown Berkeley to the Mission seems like a no-brainer with BART?

We've got at least one forumer who says he made that very trip by public transit. So it's definitely possible. That said, I would likely drive it to save time. I wonder how many Americans--in any city, including New York--regularly make 50-mile round trips on public transit. I mean, with commuter rail it's possible in many cities (including Los Angeles), but how many actually do so?

Originally Posted by mhays

It's all a hybrid. LA is big, and has large areas of good density, but is also extremely car-oriented. Miami is the best comparison.

I define the big six in urbanity by the ability to live without a car most of all. Seattle is #7 in that regard. LA is down the list a ways.

LA deserves added credit for diversity, international connections, prominence, etc. It's clearly the #2 city in the US by some definitions. Just not urbanity.

If I had to rank it, maybe #8. If others value density and size more, then #7 is defensible.

Although I think it is easier to get around LA without a car than many think, I'll concede that it is too often an unappealing option for those who have alternatives. For example, as soon as California allowed undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses, LA's transit ridership plummeted and never fully rebounded. That proves your point that the metropolis is indeed car-oriented, but it also shows that transit is available--people just don't want to use it.

[Docere]

L.A. is very polycentric.

Have to find the stats, but California had much higher car registration in the 1920s than elsewhere.

But it's strange to think it's not in the "big 6" (whatever that means).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

L.A. is very polycentric.

Have to find the stats, but California had much higher car registration in the 1920s than elsewhere.

But it's strange to think it's not in the "big 6" (whatever that means).

Yeah.

I've always considered LA to be part of the "Big Urban 7"*.

But the city is also so unapologetically polycentric.

That's both a good thing and a bad thing.

As are all of the things.




LA is in the club

But she's different too.

How could she be anything else?

I mean, this is L... A...



(*) NYC, Philly, Boston, DC, Chicago, SF, and LA

[Prahaboheme]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Core DC, maybe. Upper Northwest and Northeast are pretty suburbanish and no different than parts of Pasadena or something.
I said Capitol Hill was classical urban. It's just "sleepy". I was there a few weeks ago. My Uncle lives near Stanton Park. I bet people there like the quietness of that area.

I just find the connection between "quiet" or not as a barometer for things being more or less urban a little confusing. In many, many suburban areas in the country, people have highways running through the yard. That is noisy and very ex-urban.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

LA is regarded as one of the Big 3 amongst American cities along with NY and Chicago. If I could extend it to three more showcase cities, it would have to be Miami, Houston, and DC, with Miami being the showcase city of the Southeast, Houston being the showcase city of TX, and DC being the nation's capital!

ranking Houston's urbanity above Boston and Philadelphia? What about San Francisco?

[mhays]

Some people are forgetting that the reference wasn't "big 6" but "big 6 urban." Obviously LA is big.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Prahaboheme

I just find the connection between "quiet" or not as a barometer for things being more or less urban a little confusing. In many, many suburban areas in the country, people have highways running through the yard. That is noisy and very ex-urban.

Quiet in the way it's urban but not alot of pedestrians. Like my Streeterville opinion, you would assume it would be busier considering it's more urban and walkable.
But that's just not the case. Why? Who knows. An older population? Maybe more people prefer to drive places. I dont know. My Uncle and Aunt drive everywhere and prefer it.

Yes, Capitol Hill is urban and walkable. Vibrant? Eh....

[iheartthed]

NYC and LA are still on different poles of "urban" places. I just don't think we're having a realistic conversation if we're saying otherwise lol.

I don't even know if I'd rank LA above Miami in terms of urbanity. I think there's a debate to be had, and I don't know if there's a clear winner either way. I guess the only reason L.A. "urbanity" might look good on paper is because so many other places in the U.S. are just absolutely terrible. And this is not to knock L.A. It does what it does well.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

NYC and LA are still on different poles of "urban" places. I just don't think we're having a realistic conversation if we're saying otherwise lol.

I don't even know if I'd rank LA above Miami in terms of urbanity. I think there's a debate to be had, and I don't know if there's a clear winner either way. I guess the only reason L.A. "urbanity" might look good on paper is because so many other places in the U.S. are just absolutely terrible. And this is not to knock L.A. It does what it does well.

No idea how Miami would be more urban. Highrises dont mean shit at street level. Just empty condos with massive podiums.
There's nothing in Miami even remotely close to LA"s historic core. To say nothing of Hollywood, Koreatown etc. Little Havana, with it's 90 walk score (lol) would just be another place in the interior Valley or San Gabriel Valley for fucks sake. There isn't even a Westlake or Pico Union in Miami. Or Echo Park. It's not the same. Miami might be more urban than Dallas or Houston or Phoenix, but LA? No.

Aventura, with all its highrises, looks like a ghost town in every video I've seen it. Nobody walking around. Its creepy honestly.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Yes, Capitol Hill is urban and walkable. Vibrant? Eh....

When I lived in Capitol Hill 20 years ago, I kind of boggled at how little there was to walk to within a 10-minute radius of my apartment, despite the area clearly being 19th century and having good walking infrastructure. For most of my shopping needs I either biked to Eastern Market, walked to the mini-mall in Union Station, or took the Metro to another part of the city which was more active.

About 5 years ago, I discovered why. Capitol Hill used to be packed with corner stores, but in 1958 the city converted the area to use-based zoning, which all-but eliminated them. So you have blocks and blocks of single-use residential housing - nice, historic single-use residential housing, but nonetheless.