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  #181  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2019, 7:28 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
The exterior stairwell would be a dead giveaway that the building isn't in NYC. The show couldn't have pulled that off in the social media era. They would've been called out from every direction.

Ironically, exterior stairwells were non-existent in pre-war NYC, and hardly any existed in the 90s, but they are becoming common now in new construction buildings.
Well, it's just a resemblance, which is what we're talking about. I bet aside from astute urbanists and people on this forum, 99% of the world would never know or imagine it was anywhere else besides in NY. I sure thought nothing of it until a few years ago when it was pointed out in some thread on SSP, and I've been on this site for almost 20 years.

Nothing will ever be exact in 2 different cities unless architectural/building plans are copied and used in two different places.
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  #182  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 4:16 AM
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Originally Posted by PHX31 View Post
Well, it's just a resemblance, which is what we're talking about. I bet aside from astute urbanists and people on this forum, 99% of the world would never know or imagine it was anywhere else besides in NY. I sure thought nothing of it until a few years ago when it was pointed out in some thread on SSP, and I've been on this site for almost 20 years.

Nothing will ever be exact in 2 different cities unless architectural/building plans are copied and used in two different places.
That’s an awesome anecdote and similar to my own experience: I learned that many outdoor Seinfeld shots were filmed in Downtown LA in the very first thread I ever read on this forum, back in 2000. That thread was the reason I got hooked; I also learned Dark Angel was filmed in Vancouver.
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  #183  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 12:09 PM
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i guess i just became better at spotting LA shots, but i feel like they did a much better job hiding it with seinfeld compared to other sitcoms...maybe I was just too young. the effort on The Office was horrible, i remember seeing palm trees. It’s Always Sunny gets sloppy, too. sometimes i can just tell due to the light...
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  #184  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 12:21 PM
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Question: What two cities do you find most similar in nearly every respect?

- Layout
- Architecturally
- Climatically
- Aesthetically
- Population size

SSP Answer:
Los Angeles and Detroit because they both have cars and roads and maybe once had a similar city population 70 years ago.
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  #185  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 12:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Centropolis View Post
i guess i just became better at spotting LA shots, but i feel like they did a much better job hiding it with seinfeld compared to other sitcoms...maybe I was just too young. the effort on The Office was horrible, i remember seeing palm trees. It’s Always Sunny gets sloppy, too. sometimes i can just tell due to the light...
After that thread, I became hyper aware of it in all shows I watched. It’s Always Sunny in particular. I loved another FX series The League, which was supposed to take place in Chicago, but was so clearly LA so often.
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  #186  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 2:49 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sun Belt View Post
Question: What two cities do you find most similar in nearly every respect?

- Layout
- Architecturally
- Climatically
- Aesthetically
- Population size

SSP Answer:
Los Angeles and Detroit because they both have cars and roads and maybe once had a similar city population 70 years ago.
Why are you so triggered by the comparison?
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  #187  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 3:04 PM
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Another similarity that L.A. and Detroit share is industry, particularly the auto industry. L.A. was the North American home of all of the major Japanese automakers. I think only Honda of America is left after the recent departures of Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi. Ford even briefly moved Lincoln-Mercury to L.A. from Dearborn in the late 1990s.

As for other industries, I think the story of Motown moving to L.A. is well known.
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  #188  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 3:14 PM
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Originally Posted by PHX31 View Post
Well, it's just a resemblance, which is what we're talking about. I bet aside from astute urbanists and people on this forum, 99% of the world would never know or imagine it was anywhere else besides in NY. I sure thought nothing of it until a few years ago when it was pointed out in some thread on SSP, and I've been on this site for almost 20 years.

Nothing will ever be exact in 2 different cities unless architectural/building plans are copied and used in two different places.
I think what helped fool audiences is that the tree obscured the stairwell in the shots. I don't think anybody who really knows NYC would have been fooled if the stairwell was more prominent. It's a huge tell.

Also, if they had panned out just a little bit, it would not have looked like NYC at all because of the space between buildings on that city block. It was convincing enough from a particular angle, with the stairwell de-emphasized, but I don't think that the entire streetscape of that block would have fooled people into thinking it was NYC.
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  #189  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 3:37 PM
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Originally Posted by Sun Belt View Post
Question: What two cities do you find most similar in nearly every respect?
I know you're constantly triggered in the name of bleak desert cul-de-sacs but it's not an unpopular opinion, most people I talk to who have lived in LA says this. I don't really agree and dont like the comparison but maybe I just have to visit one day to understand.
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  #190  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 5:03 PM
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The reason L.A. and Detroit is an interesting comparison is that they're in very different areas.

No one is going to be surprised that any particularly urban area of Trois-Rivières can pass off as a Montreal neighborhood or that any particularly urban area of Wilmington can pass off as a Philly neighborhood; I'd even go as far as to say that's not something that's of interest.
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  #191  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 8:27 PM
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I would definitely agree that the historical bones of LA are most closely aligned with that of Detroit, which is hardly surprising given that those are the only two major cities that came of age in the early 20th century and developed interurban streetcar networks as the auto industry began to take off. Similarity of genetic profile will always be there.

However, LA’s undergone a lot of (botched) plastic surgery since then and today it has just as many things in common with other places, most notably the Bay Area and Houston. Besides the obvious historical connection and the concomitant development patterns, the commonalities between the two are that their metros have an orthogonal grid structure, suburban-centric wealth, and are in a general state of transition.

One thing that I completely disagree with is the assertion that Downtown Detroit’s historic stock resembles anything remotely like LA’s Historic Core. The pre-war skyscrapers (mostly Art Deco and Beaux-Arts) look very NYC/Chicago/Philly, and it's a vernacular that only LA lacks (150 feet was the height limit). You can even find prewar skyscrapers exceeding the 150-foot threshold in places like Houston, Dallas, Denver, and Seattle.
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  #192  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 10:37 PM
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Allow me to pile on. The Detroit - Los Angles comparison is thoughtful and apt. One the one hand you have the last great American city of the prewar era, and on the other the first great American city of the postwar era. Their commonality is a two decade period from the 1930s through the 1950s when both supported robust urban-lite multi-family housing and zero setback commercial corridors built around streetcar networks, and at the same time ravenous suburban development facilitated by a burgeoning freeway network.

That one city continued to grow after the 1960s while the other began to recede is not really relevant. The essential fabric of expansive gridded streets and linear urbanism (consider Woodward and Wilshire as fraternal twins) is striking. The fact the the two cities took divergent paths in the late 20th century makes the comparison all the more fascinating, and the fact that their similarity is apparently too obscure for some of this forum’s less sophisticated contributors makes it all the more fun.
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  #193  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 11:38 PM
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post
I know you're constantly triggered in the name of bleak desert cul-de-sacs but it's not an unpopular opinion, most people I talk to who have lived in LA says this. I don't really agree and dont like the comparison but maybe I just have to visit one day to understand.
I have yet to meet one person that has said or thinks Los Angeles resembles Detroit.

Where in Detroit is the Venice Boardwalk, Hollywood Boulevard, Miracle Mile Wilshire, San Pedro, Koreatown, Griffith Observatory, Hollywood Hills, Pacific Palisades...
not to mention the density levels in the inner city?

This is 3.8 miles from the center point of Downtown Detroit along Detroit's premier boulevard: Woodward.
https://goo.gl/maps/8mxGdt72fjVMZ4fC6

Once you venture off Woodward, the empty lots are abundant. You won't find this in Los Angeles.

This is approximately the same distance in Los Angeles along Wilshire:
https://goo.gl/maps/zFMipA6vDGyghjpb6

Last edited by Sun Belt; Aug 24, 2019 at 11:46 PM. Reason: Auto correct Woodard
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  #194  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Why are you so triggered by the comparison?
It's a stretch of the imagination.
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  #195  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2019, 11:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sun Belt View Post
Question: What two cities do you find most similar in nearly every respect?

- Layout
- Architecturally
- Climatically
- Aesthetically
- Population size

SSP Answer:
Los Angeles and Detroit because they both have cars and roads and maybe once had a similar city population 70 years ago.
I'm guessing you aren't aware of the posts before on other threads that compared the streetcar suburb densities of Detroit, LA, and other cities back in the 1920s- 1950s era. This era, while not the prewar greatness that most people praise as the highest standard, was still a great hybrid for modern American cities.

Other cities that were built then were Miami ( which is why I wonder why it was immediately associated with Phoenix, which really developed afterward), Western SF, and maybe every other US city that was still developing at that time like NYC with the Bronx and suburban Queens.


Yeah, not everything will be the same between both cities, but that shouldn't stop some reasonable comparsions.
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  #196  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2019, 12:14 AM
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Originally Posted by DenseCityPlease View Post
Allow me to pile on. The Detroit - Los Angles comparison is thoughtful and apt. One the one hand you have the last great American city of the prewar era, and on the other the first great American city of the postwar era. Their commonality is a two decade period from the 1930s through the 1950s when both supported robust urban-lite multi-family housing and zero setback commercial corridors built around streetcar networks, and at the same time ravenous suburban development facilitated by a burgeoning freeway network.

That one city continued to grow after the 1960s while the other began to recede is not really relevant. The essential fabric of expansive gridded streets and linear urbanism (consider Woodward and Wilshire as fraternal twins) is striking. The fact the the two cities took divergent paths in the late 20th century makes the comparison all the more fascinating, and the fact that their similarity is apparently too obscure for some of this forum’s less sophisticated contributors makes it all the more fun.
I'm assuming/hoping you weren't including me in that group since I basically acknowledged the same commonalities you did. But because I also alluded to the divergence, I'll treat it as a point of contention.

I don't think it's fair to readily dismiss 60 years as being irrelevant to the conversation, especially when that's essentially half of one city's history and a period in which both cities' urban environments changed considerably. LA and Detroit started out as first cousins; the relationship today is now that of second/third cousins. They're still (and will always be) of the same lineage and see each other at family functions every now and then, but the relationship becomes increasingly tenuous as time moves forward.

This LA/Detroit argument:

1) One side is strictly adhering to the premise of the thread, in which case they're obviously correct that there are differences in architecture, climate, and population size.

2) The other side got bored with the obvious comparisons (Savannah/Charleston) and thought LA/Detroit was particularly fascinating because of the obvious superficial differences. Strictly within a 1900-1950 vacuum, the similarities are stunning. And the post-1950 divergence isn't relevant to the premise of the argument, which is about shared growth and development patterns within a specific timeframe only.

Neither side is incorrect.
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  #197  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2019, 12:16 AM
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Originally Posted by jd3189 View Post
I'm guessing you aren't aware of the posts before on other threads that compared the streetcar suburb densities of Detroit, LA, and other cities back in the 1920s- 1950s era. This era, while not the prewar greatness that most people praise as the highest standard, was still a great hybrid for modern American cities.

Other cities that were built then were Miami ( which is why I wonder why it was immediately associated with Phoenix, which really developed afterward), Western SF, and maybe every other US city that was still developing at that time like NYC with the Bronx and suburban Queens.


Yeah, not everything will be the same between both cities, but that shouldn't stop some reasonable comparsions.
None of this has anything to do with the reality that is today. What cities didn't have street car suburbia in the 1920s-30s?

Detroit? Pedestrians, cars, grid, old buildings.
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  #198  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2019, 12:49 AM
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Personally, I find the Detroit comparison very interesting because it's more obscure and considered than the more common/tired analogies to Mexico City or Miami. But like those two, along with Tokyo/Seoul, it's still ultimately a macro-level comparison that completely overlooks the actual physical characteristics and cultural dynamics of one city to the other. Obviously no two places look or behave exactly the same, but that's not the point.
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  #199  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2019, 1:30 AM
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Originally Posted by Sun Belt View Post
It's a stretch of the imagination.
Have you been to Detroit?
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  #200  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2019, 2:06 AM
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Originally Posted by Sun Belt View Post
I have yet to meet one person that has said or thinks Los Angeles resembles Detroit.
Detroit's intact bungalow hoods look very similar (although not architecturally, of course) to what you'll find throughout South LA and much of Mid-City, Beverly Grove, and parts of WeHo. They have nice street widths, not unlike Chicago's vast bungalow and flat nabes, only they are set farther back from the sidewalk and have driveways rather than alleyways. This type of development is also something you see in outer Queens.

Quote:
This is 3.8 miles from the center point of Downtown Detroit along Detroit's premier boulevard: Woodward.
https://goo.gl/maps/8mxGdt72fjVMZ4fC6

Once you venture off Woodward, the empty lots are abundant. You won't find this in Los Angeles.

This is approximately the same distance in Los Angeles along Wilshire:
https://goo.gl/maps/zFMipA6vDGyghjpb6
This is one thing I forgot to mention in response to DenseCityPlease. I fail to see how Wilshire and Woodward are "fraternal twins" in any way. Woodward eventually transitions into a designated highway and essentially transports you across the entire longitudinal axis of Metro Detroit.

Wilshire is the spine of LA's commercial/cultural core that stretches from Downtown to Santa Monica, north of the 10 and south of the SM Mountains... it's our "Manhattan." Never mind the fact that it has a heavy rail subway running below it that will (eventually) terminate at Wilshire/4th.
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