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

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Ideally for whom?

For those who think mid-rises represent the perfect balance of efficient land use, human scale urbanism, and population density levels that can support more amenities across a given area.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

And more preferable for raising kids, IMO.

Central Barcelona is cool as fuck, but no way in hell would I want to be raising my family in the thick of that kinda density.

I'll gladly keep my neighborhood chicago middle urbanism, thank you very much.

I actually love the sort of Anglo urbanism you have in Chicago, but as someone parenting in a European block neighborhood (it's not Barcelona, but it's similar)... it has some good things to it.

The photo below isn't my area, but it's a similar part of inner Stockholm. The thing at that level of density is that everything is VERY close. The school, the grocery store, the subway station... it's all easily within a 10 minute walk, usually 5. Your whole daily life world is easily inside the photo.

Those courtyard spaces inside the buildings are great for small kids, too, and often have swings or sandboxes or similar.

The downside is that the price per square foot is usually very high, favouring smaller apartments.

I'm not married to this way of living, but it's not child-unfriendly. We don't really have these blockhouses in the US, Canada or the UK, so they're a little foreign, but they have some nice advantages.

[sopas ej]

Ah, Stockholm! I love that city. An ex bf of mine was from Bromma, on the outskirts of Stockholm---and it was very cookie-cutter blah!

But central Stockholm is great.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I actually love the sort of Anglo urbanism you have in Chicago, but as someone parenting in a European block neighborhood (it's not Barcelona, but it's similar)... it has some good things to it.

The photo below isn't my area, but it's a similar part of inner Stockholm. The thing at that level of density is that everything is VERY close. The school, the grocery store, the subway station... it's all easily within a 10 minute walk, usually 5. Your whole daily life world is easily inside the photo.

Those courtyard spaces inside the buildings are great for small kids, too, and often have swings or sandboxes or similar.

The downside is that the price per square foot is usually very high, favouring smaller apartments.

I'm not married to this way of living, but it's not child-unfriendly. We don't really have these blockhouses in the US, Canada or the UK, so they're a little foreign, but they have some nice advantages.

That looks much better than what I lived in until I was 5 years, old, which was around here somewhere: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4809827,26.0994121,353m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu (although with the extreme density, things were very close too)

The closest thing in Chicago is actually probably Lakeshore East (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8867074,-87.6177924,560m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) which is kind of like that super-scaled. I often take my toddler to that park when the closer Maggie Daley park is too crowded...

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The thing at that level of density is that everything is VERY close. The school, the grocery store, the subway station... it's all easily within a 10 minute walk, usually 5. Your whole daily life world is easily inside the photo.

I have a close semblance of that where I'm at in Chicago, but this city does require one to be a bit more conscious in their home location decision making.

I might have set the world record for time spent on Google maps sorting out walking distances to dozens of local amenities from a hundred or so different properties we considered over the year-long process to find our "forever home" here in Chicago.

My wife was more "home" oriented, but I went full-on 100% anal-retentive on "location". After untold hours upon hours of careful study, we finally found one "good enough" for both of us.

But as I said, you have to do your homework in neighborhood Chicago because locational advantages such as those you mentioned are not the pre-ordained default. Understanding locales on the micro-level becomes vitally important. fortunately, I had been bumming around the entire Northside of Chicago for my entire adulthood as an urbanist nerd, so my lay of the land understanding was already quite high.

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The downside is that the price per square foot is usually very high, favouring smaller apartments.

Yeah, above all else, that's where neighborhood Chicago really shines. you don't even wanna know how much I spent per square foot for our home (it was <$200/SF).

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Ah, Stockholm! I love that city. An ex bf of mine was from Bromma, on the outskirts of Stockholm---and it was very cookie-cutter blah!

But central Stockholm is great.

As a North American I simply can't imagine such a thing.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The "Big 6" referred to in this thread can all compete with this specific type of European density. That's why I say leave it at 6.

Screenshot by David Z, on Flickr

[38 Geary]

Yeah, SF has similar high density neighborhoods as seen in the Boston and Stockholm examples, although not quite the same uniformity of architecture, as well as more variance of heights, as those other examples. But functionally just as urban.

[kool maudit]

I didn't mean that Stockholm represents some sort of level of urbanity unheard of in North America. Of course it doesn't, it's just that those courtyard blocks are not really used in the English-speaking countries.

Those SF and Boston shots look more like Kensington or Mayfair. That's just our DNA, I think.

[38 Geary]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I didn't mean that Stockholm represents some sort of level of urbanity unheard of in North America. Of course it doesn't, it's just that those courtyard blocks are not really used in the English-speaking countries.

Those SF and Boston shots look more like Kensington or Mayfair. That's just our DNA, I think.

Yeah the shared courtyard style residential isn't really seen much here in SF, where you have a group of buildings that share a common inner area. If there is open space in the center, it's usually separated by fencing to delineate the property lines.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

....it's just that those courtyard blocks are not really used in the English-speaking countries.

The beauty of Boston is that every neighborhood offers something different. It's a big part of the city's charm. For instance, South Boston strongly resembles a typical San Francisco residential area. Regarding the courtyard blocks, Harvard has them.

Harvard Screenshot by David Z, on Flickr

[Crawford]

I think that midrise Euro typology has pretty wide variability. Barcelona is a lot denser than Berlin, but they're both characterized by blocky midrise residentials with similar height. I don't think Barcelona would have larger household sizes, so the ground coverage must be much higher. Do the Club Med countries typically have the generous courtyards?

Outside of Paris, which stands alone, the most impressive midrise typology is in Central Europe, IMO. Vienna, Prague, Munich and Budapest have very substantial and imposing form. If anything they need a little more green space or at least street trees.

Also interesting that the early 20th century Euro professional classes adopted apartment living, while it was generally rejected in the British Isles, Benelux, Northern Germany and the U.S. outside of NYC. Protestantism? Catholic Germany looks more like Central Europe.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think that midrise Euro typology has pretty wide variability. Barcelona is a lot denser than Berlin, but they're both characterized by blocky midrise residentials with similar height. I don't think Barcelona would have larger household sizes, so the ground coverage must be much higher. Do the Club Med countries typically have the generous courtyards?

Outside of Paris, which stands alone, the most impressive midrise typology is in Central Europe, IMO. Vienna, Prague, Munich and Budapest have very substantial and imposing form. If anything they need a little more green space or at least street trees.

Also interesting that the early 20th century Euro professional classes adopted apartment living, while it was generally rejected in the British Isles, Benelux, Northern Germany and the U.S. outside of NYC. Protestantism? Catholic Germany looks more like Central Europe.

I think the standard apartment block density in Barcelona and Berlin seems about the same, but Barcelona has a few densely built neighborhoods from the Medieval Era. Berlin doesn't have anything like that. Berlin also has more open space for parks and industrial uses than Barcelona.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by DZH22

The beauty of Boston is that every neighborhood offers something different. It's a big part of the city's charm. For instance, South Boston strongly resembles a typical San Francisco residential area. Regarding the courtyard blocks, Harvard has them.

Harvard Screenshot by David Z, on Flickr

I used to work at an independent shop and a restaurant in this area. They're both gone.

The thing about Harvard Square up until about 2000 was that a few of the restaurants were grandfathered in and didn't have bathrooms.

I think that Bartley's might be the only one left that doesn't have a bathroom:
https://www.mrbartley.com/mrbartleys-gallery.html

Natalie Portman asked me to use the employee bathroom at the place where I worked and I said NO.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I used to work at an independent shop and a restaurant in this area. They're both gone.

The thing about Harvard Square up until about 2000 was that a few of the restaurants were grandfathered in and didn't have bathrooms.

I think that Bartley's might be the only one left that doesn't have a bathroom:
https://www.mrbartley.com/mrbartleys-gallery.html

Natalie Portman asked me to use the employee bathroom at the place where I worked and I said NO.

If it was a #2 I would have said no as well.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Natalie Portman asked me to use the employee bathroom at the place where I worked and I said NO.

Originally Posted by UrbanImpact

If it was a #2 I would have said no as well.

I had a roommate who was completely obsessed with Natalie. If it was a #2 he probably would have told her not to flush and still have it saved on his mantelpiece 25 years later.

Me:

Him:

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Yeah, SF has similar high density neighborhoods as seen in the Boston and Stockholm examples, although not quite the same uniformity of architecture, as well as more variance of heights, as those other examples. But functionally just as urban.

The difference with Boston having Beacon Hill and SF the Tenderloin is that those are not representative neighborhoods. That’s like saying the UWS is representative of NYC.

I also don’t think Stockholm is a good example of the mid-rise typology. Berlin is, in the sense that it has that scale across over a dozen square miles, and incorporates the bucolic/verdant component of Anglo rowhouse urbanism, as opposed to harder-looking Paris.

[DZH22]

More "Big 6" density, this time Philadelphia.

Philly-Screenshot by David Z, on Flickr

[38 Geary]

Originally Posted by Quixote

The difference with Boston having Beacon Hill and SF the Tenderloin is that those are not representative neighborhoods. That’s like saying the UWS is representative of NYC.

The Sunset is also not a representative neighborhood either.

That's the beauty of SF. You can have varying degrees of urbanism.

[kool maudit]

Philadelphia is very imposing.