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

[Docere]

Is there anything meaningful about the number six specifically? If it's limited to six (don't see why it has to be) and L.A. needs to be included which city gets bumped off the list?

[Cirrus]

I think LA is similar to a larger version of Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Saint Louis, in the sense that it has plenty of good walkable areas, but its rapid transit doesn't cover enough of the region, resulting in it not being mainstream. Obviously LA is bigger, and its urbanism looks a lot different than those old brick cities, but the point is that the ratio of what's covered by transit results in car-based vibes.

This IMO puts LA solidly in that second tier. It does have great urbanism, and lots of miles of Metro. But the ratio still results in car-based vibes. Or at least, middle-tier vibes.

Anyway, there should obviously be doubt. Even if you think it belongs with the Big 6, it's debatable.

[Quixote]

Does it matter how attractive and “fine-grained” a cityscape is if the streets of it’s prime areas are devoid of people and amenities? Objectively it can thrive as an urban environment, especially if it has transit, but what’s the point of focusing on form and beautify if it’s desolate? That’s pretty much what DC was when I visited in June (CBD and adjacent nabes).

SF’s troubles have been well-documented. Don’t know what’s going on in Chicago, Boston, and Philly.

I visited NYC in June as well, and it was absolutely bustling. But much of the vibrancy was due to it being the peak season for tourists. I saw comparatively few people walking around in business attire during rush hour, unlike in London (which I visited in February for work) where there were throngs of people in suits frenetically making their way through Liverpool Station (way more bustling than Grand Central) and the streets of the City.

The OP isn’t asking whether LA’s built environment is akin to the pre-war form of the six cities. It’s obviously not. That’s a classic case of the heuristic mechanism of substitution, where a difficult question is replaced by a somewhat related question that’s much easier to answer. Instead, we should be discussing what it means to be “functionally urban.”

[38 Geary]

I don’t think it’s anything about the number 6 specifically. It just happens that there are 6 cities that have separated themselves as being noticeably more urban than the rest. It could easily expand to top 7 or top 8, whenever LA and Seattle are ready to make the jump.

The only way any of the current top 6 would fall off is if they suddenly stopped running or expanding public transit and started expanding their freeways and started razing high density for parking or something. From what I’ve seen most if not all the cities have a pretty good idea on how to continue urbanizing in the right direction. Seattle does a better job than LA in that area, as far as minimizing autocentricity. LA I think is going to remain autocentric for quite some time given the vastness of the region and the length of time it takes to expand public transit infrastructure.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I visited NYC in June as well, and it was absolutely bustling. But much of the vibrancy was due to it being the peak season for tourists. I saw comparatively few people walking around in business attire during rush hour, unlike in London (which I visited in February for work) where there were throngs of people in suits frenetically making their way through Liverpool Station (way more bustling than Grand Central) and the streets of the City.

Do you mean in Midtown? NYC has tons of foot traffic throughout the city that is absolutely not because of tourists lol.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The only way any of the current top 6 would fall off is if they suddenly stopped running or expanding public transit and started expanding their freeways and started razing high density for parking or something.

Yeah, there would be another 4 - 5 cities on the "big urban" list had those places not gone down the path of sprawl based development at the expense of their urban cores, and I think they'd all land above modern day Los Angeles in that alt-universe. Those cities: Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, maybe Pittsburgh.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Does it matter how attractive and “fine-grained” a cityscape is if the streets of it’s prime areas are devoid of people and amenities? Objectively it can thrive as an urban environment, especially if it has transit, but what’s the point of focusing on form and beautify if it’s desolate? That’s pretty much what DC was when I visited in June (CBD and adjacent nabes).

SF’s troubles have been well-documented. Don’t know what’s going on in Chicago, Boston, and Philly.

I visited NYC in June as well, and it was absolutely bustling. But much of the vibrancy was due to it being the peak season for tourists. I saw comparatively few people walking around in business attire during rush hour, unlike in London (which I visited in February for work) where there were throngs of people in suits frenetically making their way through Liverpool Station (way more bustling than Grand Central) and the streets of the City.

The OP isn’t asking whether LA’s built environment is akin to the pre-war form of the six cities. It’s obviously not. That’s a classic case of the heuristic mechanism of substitution, where a difficult question is replaced by a somewhat related question that’s much easier to answer. Instead, we should be discussing what it means to be “functionally urban.”

Chicago looks better than what it was in 2021. That was bad. The tourist areas are looking somewhat normal now. But the Loop? Ways to go.

Ive commented a few times about DC. This forum likes to focus on SF or LA problems but downtown DC look to be in real trouble.

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

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

I was being regional with my answers. Can't forget about SF, and especially SF being the nexus of the Bay Area as well as being close to Silicon Valley, but I had to choose LA simply because it's the biggest CA city!

Also, Boston and Philadelphia are both highly dense cities on the East Coast, but NY was chosen because like LA, it's the biggest urban city in the US as well as in the East Coast. Once again, my answers are all related to the particular regions!

Originally Posted by LA21st

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.

Miami with only 36 sq. mi. is denser than Chicago, LA, DC, and Philadelphia, and only NY, SF, and Boston are denser than Miami. South FL is basically spread out with three county seats (Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach), and smaller edge cities like Hialeah, Doral, Kendall, Miami Beach in Miami-Dade, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Davie, and Hollywood in Broward, and Boca Raton and Palm Beach Gardens in Palm Beach County, so all of South FL seems spread out, but Miami, even with it's small land mass is pretty urban with vibrant communities like Little Havana, Overtown, Coconut Grove, and Little Haiti. And let's not forget that Miami is a fairly youngery than NY, SF, Chicago, and LA, give it a break!!!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

Is there anything meaningful about the number six specifically? If it's limited to six (don't see why it has to be) and L.A. needs to be included which city gets bumped off the list?

I don't think there's anything meaningful about six. It just happens there's general agreement that there are six U.S. cities that seem to meet some minimum standard of traditional urbanity, walkability and transit orientation over a sizable geography.

It likely makes more sense to talk about a big five. NYC is more dissimilar from the other five than the other five are dissimilar to, say, Seattle and Denver. But six meet a threshold.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I visited NYC in June as well, and it was absolutely bustling. But much of the vibrancy was due to it being the peak season for tourists.

Summer is the low season for tourists. That's easily the emptiest time of year. Peak season for NYC is September-December, by a longshot. Midtown is a madhouse those four months.

Originally Posted by Quixote

I saw comparatively few people walking around in business attire during rush hour, unlike in London (which I visited in February for work)

European business has dress codes, U.S. doesn't. Also Europe works primarily in-office, U.S. doesn't. And in summer, at least in NYC, even investment banks and law firms throw the post-pandemic rules out the window. I could work from Marbella every summer.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

I was being regional with my answers. Can't forget about SF, and especially SF being the nexus of the Bay Area as well as being close to Silicon Valley, but I had to choose LA simply because it's the biggest CA city!

Also, Boston and Philadelphia are both highly dense cities on the East Coast, but NY was chosen because like LA, it's the biggest urban city in the US as well as in the East Coast. Once again, my answers are all related to the particular regions!



Miami with only 36 sq. mi. is denser than Chicago, LA, DC, and Philadelphia, and only NY, SF, and Boston are denser than Miami. South FL is basically spread out with three county seats (Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach), and smaller edge cities like Hialeah, Doral, Kendall, Miami Beach in Miami-Dade, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Davie, and Hollywood in Broward, and Boca Raton and Palm Beach Gardens in Palm Beach County, so all of South FL seems spread out, but Miami, even with it's small land mass is pretty urban with vibrant communities like Little Havana, Overtown, Coconut Grove, and Little Haiti. And let's not forget that Miami is a fairly youngery than NY, SF, Chicago, and LA, give it a break!!!

Lol some of those areas arent vibrant or urban to la
Dallas, maybe
Give me a break

La's core 36 sq miles would beat miami. So....

[Altoic]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

I was being regional with my answers. Can't forget about SF, and especially SF being the nexus of the Bay Area as well as being close to Silicon Valley, but I had to choose LA simply because it's the biggest CA city!

Also, Boston and Philadelphia are both highly dense cities on the East Coast, but NY was chosen because like LA, it's the biggest urban city in the US as well as in the East Coast. Once again, my answers are all related to the particular regions!



Miami with only 36 sq. mi. is denser than Chicago, LA, DC, and Philadelphia, and only NY, SF, and Boston are denser than Miami. South FL is basically spread out with three county seats (Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach), and smaller edge cities like Hialeah, Doral, Kendall, Miami Beach in Miami-Dade, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Davie, and Hollywood in Broward, and Boca Raton and Palm Beach Gardens in Palm Beach County, so all of South FL seems spread out, but Miami, even with it's small land mass is pretty urban with vibrant communities like Little Havana, Overtown, Coconut Grove, and Little Haiti. And let's not forget that Miami is a fairly youngery than NY, SF, Chicago, and LA, give it a break!!!

If you just do a quick google street view around South Miami Dade cities like Naranja and Homestead you can see a weird pattern of suburban development. It isn't single family homes that's only sprawling but also 5 over 1s and townhomes. I assume it's because of the urban development boundary but it's really cool to see density in pretty rural spots (and as you said Miami is fairly young). Soon, South Dade's TransitWay will be done which will give reliable bus service to the whole region.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Quixote

we should be discussing what it means to be “functionally urban.”

It means neighborhoods outside of downtown where it's mainstream to walk more often than drive for daily tasks.

Most cities have urban downtowns. What makes an urban city is its neighborhoods.

You are correct that post-covid, a lot of office downtowns are struggling, including in the Big 6 Urban Cities. What's different about the Big 6 Urban Cities is that their downtowns are only a tiny part of what makes them urban/walkable, not the main part.

If we were to rank just the best downtowns in the US, ignoring the rest, more than 6 cities would be in the conversation.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by mhays

Seattle's a tweener between that group and the urban six.

Its peak density is much higher. It's transit and walking commute shares are much higher. It's far more on an immigrant center. It has tourist districts (as does only SD).

Activity is in nodes that comprise 20% of the city. Some of these are linear, and others are dotted around town.

But it's true that all of these cities are growing in similar formats.

I haven't been in a decade. I do know they have some of the best well-planned light rail extensions. It would be interesting to see another city join the Sinister Six. I always thought it would be a historic city like Baltimore, but Seattle does surprise me with how much it's growing. Very interesting.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, there would be another 4 - 5 cities on the "big urban" list had those places not gone down the path of sprawl based development at the expense of their urban cores, and I think they'd all land above modern day Los Angeles in that alt-universe. Those cities: Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, maybe Pittsburgh.

Yeah, those were all pretty big fucking deal places back in the day.

In terms of scale of urbanism, Baltimore was probably a notch above the others, perhaps with St. Louis at #2 out of that group?

[jmecklenborg]

A lot of Los Angeles looks and functions like Detroit did at its peak, but instead of its sea of bungalows being interrupted by car factories, it's interrupted by movie studios. And...it's almost entirely intact, whereas 50%+ of Detroit has been demolished.

[38 Geary]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Does it matter how attractive and “fine-grained” a cityscape is if the streets of it’s prime areas are devoid of people and amenities? Objectively it can thrive as an urban environment, especially if it has transit, but what’s the point of focusing on form and beautify if it’s desolate? That’s pretty much what DC was when I visited in June (CBD and adjacent nabes).

SF’s troubles have been well-documented. Don’t know what’s going on in Chicago, Boston, and Philly.

I’m not sure what media you’ve been consuming but the SF “troubles” in the urban context that I’m guessing you’re referring to are largely isolated to one district, the FiDi, which is almost assuredly due to post pandemic commute patterns, and certainly not a feature unique to SF, although SF is very likely the leader there. It’s taking awhile but slowly but surely the FiDi is noticeably more crowded compared to last year.

As Cirrus pointed out, the rest of the city with its high density mixed use neighborhoods have been doing quite well. Crosstown Muni routes are busier than pre-pandemic. Union Square, the district directly adjacent to the FiDi, has been back to its hustling and bustling self this holiday season, and the other outer neighborhoods around the city have been poppin. I’m not sure how one could leave SF and come away thinking it’s desolate if that’s what you’re inferring, but perhaps you’ve been misled by the “well-documented” headlines.

Apocalyptic hellscape anyone?

[craigs]

One of the fun things about Los Angeles is that there are so many people here that somebody is always doing something amusingly stupid. My two-screen experience tonight includes SNL on the one hand, and a high-speed police chase on the other. And when I say "high speed," I mean that the Corvette hit 163 mph on the 101 through the San Fernando Valley, and he's still going about 151 mph.

[Prahaboheme]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Does it matter how attractive and “fine-grained” a cityscape is if the streets of it’s prime areas are devoid of people and amenities? Objectively it can thrive as an urban environment, especially if it has transit, but what’s the point of focusing on form and beautify if it’s desolate? That’s pretty much what DC was when I visited in June (CBD and adjacent nabes).

SF’s troubles have been well-documented. Don’t know what’s going on in Chicago, Boston, and Philly.

I visited NYC in June as well, and it was absolutely bustling. But much of the vibrancy was due to it being the peak season for tourists. I saw comparatively few people walking around in business attire during rush hour, unlike in London (which I visited in February for work) where there were throngs of people in suits frenetically making their way through Liverpool Station (way more bustling than Grand Central) and the streets of the City.

The OP isn’t asking whether LA’s built environment is akin to the pre-war form of the six cities. It’s obviously not. That’s a classic case of the heuristic mechanism of substitution, where a difficult question is replaced by a somewhat related question that’s much easier to answer. Instead, we should be discussing what it means to be “functionally urban.”

DC lacking amenities and being desolate is quite a stretch. The CBD / Penn Quarter area does have issues with crime/drug activity and office vacancy rates that continue to plague the area. It also has a leadership problem with the current City Council.

That doesn’t make it less urban or vibrant than car-centric cities like LA, however. Are we to believe that LA does not have these issues?

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Prahaboheme

DC lacking amenities and being desolate is quite a stretch. The CBD / Penn Quarter area does have issues with crime/drug activity and office vacancy rates that continue to plague the area. It also has a leadership problem with the current City Council.

That doesn’t make it less urban or vibrant than car-centric cities like LA, however. Are we to believe that LA does not have these issues?

Its not really the crime, although dc is worse than la is.

Its how quiet it is.
Ive been back to dc 4 times since covid and the cbd is eerie. Even dupont circle. Wfh has killed dc.

Georgetown is doing fine tho. That said, cbd dc and environs is more urban than la. On a scale tho, no.
Dc isnt tbat urban outside of that core area.