Great Lakes Cities

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've never been to Milwaukee, but looking on population density maps, almost all of the hyper-dense tracts (15,000+ PPSM) are in Latino neighborhoods on the southern side of the city. The built vernacular there isn't incredibly urban. It looks like lots of cottage-style detached wood framed structures with a few larger homes mixed in. Many of them are split into two-units, and it looks like in some cases there might be houses in the alleys. But overall, I'm guessing the relatively high population densities come from a mixture of minimal urban blight (e.g., very few vacant lots or abandoned buildings) and a high number of people per household.

If other Midwestern cities besides Chicago and Milwaukee experienced substantial Hispanic migration, we'd probably see unusually dense neighborhoods of this sort in them as well.

yeah, i mean i don't think that those densities really come into play when people speak of milwaukee in a positive way. there's nothing spectacular about the architecture (which is quite average for the midwest) or density or any of those things individually. it's how those things come together and are arranged in a cohesive, vibrant enough swath on the lakefront. nice neighborhoods tumble into downtown, at least from the north, in a way that isn't necessarily the norm in the midwest. not to mention the quirky midwestern (great lakes) culture of the place.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've never been to Milwaukee, but looking on population density maps, almost all of the hyper-dense tracts (15,000+ PPSM) are in Latino neighborhoods on the southern side of the city.

milwaukee has 35 census tracts with a population density over 15,000 ppsm:

- 20 are clustered on the mostly latino SW side

- 8 are clustered on the mostly white east side.

- 5 are clustered around marquette university on the mixed-race west side.

- 2 are located on the mostly black north side




20 out of 35 (57%) is hardly "almost all".

semantics aside, in comparison to most other midwest cities, milwaukee exhibits very respectable population density in various places around the city.

yes, a very significant part of that equation has been the latino influx into SW side neighborhoods, but it's certainly not the only part of the equation.

the density clusters on the east side and on the west side around marquette university are also a big part of milwaukee's overall density picture as well.



outside of chicago, you don't find clusters of 15,000+ ppsm tracts of white yuppie playgrounds like milwaukee's east side in too many other midwest cities.

minneapolis' uptown area and columbus' short north are the closest parallels, statisitcally speaking.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by JManc

Too late...

I've know that Milwaukee is the Best since I was about 15 years old.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ you should probably add buffalo, Hamilton, and rochester.

Chicago is noticeably brickier than the other US great lakes cities because fire.

Also, chicago and detroit are pretty dead flat, but the others all have much more varied topography with deep ravines, lakeshore bluffs, valleys, rolling hills etc.

Now, no one is gonna mistake them for San Francisco or Hong Kong, but only chicago and detroit exhibit that true pancake flat topography.

absolutely.

cleveland is a great example of that.

waterfront bluffs, hills --- and most striking it is both circled and cut to pieces via ravines and deep valleys.

for petes sake that is where i learned to ski.

yes, we have snow ski resorts in the cuyahoga valley.





also, while it is certainly similar to other great lakes cities, the last thing one would say about cleveland is that it follows any rigid grid pattern.

in fact just the opposite and its street quirks remain a big part of its charm.

for example, check out this 1833 map of the core.

its obvious that a grid pattern is fighting to get in along with a town square and even a l'enfant or detroit augustus woodward inspired radial down where the city was founded.

and as you can see nothing is winning out very well.

this is mostly due to the crooked river and the valley topography.

anyway there it is.







maybe they will bring back that radial place concept to the forlorn scranton peninsula someday?

or at least redevelop it.

who knows, but there was some talk of lighting it up.

that would be a pretty cool sight.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've never been to Milwaukee, but looking on population density maps, almost all of the hyper-dense tracts (15,000+ PPSM) are in Latino neighborhoods on the southern side of the city. The built vernacular there isn't incredibly urban. It looks like lots of cottage-style detached wood framed structures with a few larger homes mixed in. Many of them are split into two-units, and it looks like in some cases there might be houses in the alleys. But overall, I'm guessing the relatively high population densities come from a mixture of minimal urban blight (e.g., very few vacant lots or abandoned buildings) and a high number of people per household.

If other Midwestern cities besides Chicago and Milwaukee experienced substantial Hispanic migration, we'd probably see unusually dense neighborhoods of this sort in them as well.

Not sure I get what the point of this is... refuting Milwaukee's density? Calling into question it's "urbanism" based on housing type?

My thoughts...

The numbers speak for themselves in terms of densely-populated tracts.

"Urban" vernacular does not directly translate as "attached rowhouses made of brick".

And so what if many of the densely-populated tracts are populated mainly by Latinos? Do those denisty figures require an asterisk or something because of that?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Not sure I get what the point of this is... refuting Milwaukee's density? Calling into question it's "urbanism" based on housing type?

Urbanism is about more than population density. I think that's the general point.

Example- Cincy has no real high density tracts, but the built form in the most urban neighborhoods is extremely high quality:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1096...7i13312!8i6656

Originally Posted by pj3000

And so what if many of the densely-populated tracts are populated mainly by Latinos? Do those denisty figures require an asterisk or something because of that?

It's not because they're Latino; it's indicative of high household sizes.

A random suburban street in Orange County, CA can have high density if a bunch of immigrants are stuffing into tract houses. Few would argue that suburban OC is more urban than Cincy because you have multiple generations in every tract house.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Example- Cincy has no real high density tracts, but the built form in the most urban neighborhoods is extremely high quality:

actually, cincy's OTR + adjacent areas do constitute a decent cluster of 15,000+ ppsm tracts (4 total tracts, 2 over 15,000 ppsm with another 2 oh so barely missing the mark at ~14,800 ppsm).

and yes, the architecture and built-form in that part of cincy is of extremely high quality relative to the midwest.

cincinnati is a true gem.

now i want chili.

[toddguy]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Urbanism is about more than population density. I think that's the general point.

Example- Cincy has no real high density tracts, but the built form in the most urban neighborhoods is extremely high quality:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1096...7i13312!8i6656


It's not because they're Latino; it's indicative of high household sizes.

A random suburban street in Orange County, CA can have high density if a bunch of immigrants are stuffing into tract houses. Few would argue that suburban OC is more urban than Cincy because you have multiple generations in every tract house.

Just a few miles from where I grew up there was a large apartment complex that was built in the 60's-over 1700 2-3 story mostly two bedroom units on 92 acres. At one point when it became a haven for immigrants there were nearly 6,000 people living there. And with it's setback buildings and courts and loops lined with parking spaces it was anything but urban-it did not even have sidewalks and it still doesn't.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

actually, cincy's OTR + adjacent areas do constitute a decent cluster of 15,000+ ppsm tracts (4 total tracts, 2 over 15,000 ppsm with another 2 oh so barely missing the mark at ~14,800 ppsm).

and yes, the architecture and built-form in that part of cincy is of extremely high quality relative to the midwest.

cincinnati is a true gem.

now i want chili.

wait, cinci has nothing to do with the great lakes though. unless you are counting whole states?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

wait, cinci has nothing to do with the great lakes though.

i never said it did.

the recent discussion in this thread had expanded to all midwest cities.

topic drift happens all the time around here. it's ok.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by PaleAle

High speed rail between downtown chicago and downtown milwaukee would be good. NO suburban stops. NONE. Maybe a hyperloop.

That would be a huge waste of money. High-speed rail needs to go through much larger population centers with longer distances. Driving to Milwaukee is already easy and quick.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i never said it did.

the recent discussion in this thread had expanded to all midwest cities.

topic drift happens all the time around here. it's ok.

central west end in st. louis is in that neighborhood. i think as of the last census it was just under 15k ppsm but has mucho new construction these days.

i think topic drift is great so long as it's "ballpark." somehow a sunbelt sideshow erupted in here though which is way worse than bringing up non great lakes midwest cities! in fact it appears to still be going on above...

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Outside of chicago, you don't find clusters of 15,000+ ppsm tracts of white yuppie playgrounds like milwaukee's east side in too many other midwest cities.

minneapolis' uptown area and columbus' short north are the closest parallels, statistically speaking.

I do broadly agree with this. My only point was a lot of the neighborhoods which are dense in terms of population aren't all that dense in terms of built form, or even number of households.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

actually, cincy's OTR + adjacent areas do constitute a decent cluster of 15,000+ ppsm tracts (4 total tracts, 2 over 15,000 ppsm with another 2 oh so barely missing the mark at ~14,800 ppsm).

Looking on Social Explorer at the 2016 ACS data, this is wrong. The five tracts which make up Over-The-Rhine have densities of 14,770, 14,336, 12,252, 7,919, and 7,012.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

That would be a huge waste of money. High-speed rail needs to go through much larger population centers with longer distances. Driving to Milwaukee is already easy and quick.

driving from downtown chicago to downtown milwaukee is about 90 minutes IF TRAFFIC IS CLEAR AND OPEN.

that's a big giant humungous IF in chicagoland, where the expressways are frequently traffic cluster-fucks.

at rush hour, that 90 minute journey could easily translate into 2.5 hours.

true high speed rail (200mph) with no stops could do it in ~30 minutes.

a hyper loop (600mph) could theoretically do it in ~10 minutes.

it might cost a lot of dough to make it happen, but it'd be pretty fucking cool if it did!

[JManc]

It took me about 90 minutes to get to the WI border from Chicago.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

My only point was a lot of the neighborhoods which are dense in terms of population aren't all that dense in terms of built form, or even number of households.

ok. i was really just refuting your "almost all" statement.

yes, many of milwaukee's densely populated tracts are made up of workers cottages on the SW side filled to the gills with latino immigrants.

but that is absolutely not the full extent of milwaukee's respectably dense urban neighborhoods.

Originally Posted by eschaton

Looking on Social Explorer at the 2016 ACS data, this is wrong. The five tracts which make up Over-The-Rhine have densities of 14,770, 14,336, 12,252, 7,919, and 7,012.

i was including "adjacent areas":

tract 26 had a density of 15,872 ppsm.

and i was using older data from 2012, so apparently OTR population density is dropping as it gentrifies (not surprising).

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Urbanism is about more than population density. I think that's the general point.

Example- Cincy has no real high density tracts, but the built form in the most urban neighborhoods is extremely high quality:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1096...7i13312!8i6656


It's not because they're Latino; it's indicative of high household sizes.

A random suburban street in Orange County, CA can have high density if a bunch of immigrants are stuffing into tract houses. Few would argue that suburban OC is more urban than Cincy because you have multiple generations in every tract house.

I get that, and it goes back to what someone's definition of "urbanism" is.

As Steely shows, Milwaukee has high-density, urban tracts. If those densely-populated urban tracts are not "urban" enough for someone's definition because they don't happen to be solely composed a certain architectural style and material, i.e., brick rowhouses or brick apartment buildings, then that's another matter and discussion altogether.

There is a big difference between fully suburban tracts that happen to be densely-populated because of high household size and variations in the urban form. The dense neighborhood's that Steely cites certainly are nothing like suburban (but densely-populated) Orange County, CA.

And, the point should just be made, the example from Cincy's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood is one from a tract that is immediately adjacent to Cincy's downtown... one can find densely-built, high-quality blocks adjacent to Milwaukee's downtown as well, closely resembling "mixed-used" neighborhoods in Chicago, as has been mentioned multiple times in this thread.

Whether or not Milwaukee's high density is based on "a mixture of minimal urban blight (e.g., very few vacant lots or abandoned buildings) and a high number of people per household." and on whether or not "other Midwestern besides Chicago and Milwaukee (have) experienced substantial Hispanic migration" does not somehow make them any less densely populated.

[Centropolis]

yeah i don't think we really need to go down the rabbit hole of the density of census tracts or whatever. milwaukee is just a pleasant city... at least in SUMMER for this st. louisan.

http://www.deeproot.com

[Steely Dan]

^ but apparently it's just a bunch of mexicans living in all of those residential highrises lining the lakefront, so milwaukee doesn't count.

on SSP, only red brick rowhouses filled with white people count.

and if your city's residential vernacular isn't physically connected to each other to form continuous streetwalls, then there's a special circle in hell for you awful, awful hometown to rot in.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I vaguely recall having to stop every 20 minutes or so at toll booths trying to get from Chicago to see my father in Madison. That was back in 2006 (having to figure out what the hell are/were the Eisenhower and Stevenson based off of radio traffic reports is a whole different story). Not sure if that's changed, but it sure as hell took longer than 90 minutes just to get to the Wisconsin border.

And I can only imagine what the census tracts in Cincinnati (my hometown) would look like had Fort Washington Way, I-75 and the Sixth Street Expressway not been constructed. Go anywhere else in Cincinnati and the census tracts/density change because the city sits in a basin in the middle of a river valley with rolling hills...