Quote:
Originally Posted by park123
Regarding Philly I just got the sense that huge areas of blight are adjascent to the center city, while in Chicago there's more of a physical separation between the good areas and bad areas. Tale of 2 cities thing in Chicago.
|
I'm sorry to say that this assessment hasn't been accurate for many years now. Center City is wealthy and the adjacent neighborhoods are fully gentrified and quite expensive in their own right. Certainly, one would have to walk for a long time outside Center City before stumbling upon shady neighborhoods.
As for tiers, I would place NYC alone in Tier 1. As it is the case for many of our debates, NYC is its own animal, head and shoulders above any other American city when it comes to urbanity/walkability, transit usage, etc.
Tier 2 would be Philly, Boston, DC, SF, and Chicago; but the differences in terms urbanity/walkability are trivial. I would also add one other place to the Tier 2 list of cities: Hudson County, NJ. Its high-density areas are as big and dense as Philly, Boston, et. al. If the county consolidated into its own city, I don't think its status would be debatable.
After that, there is definitely a drop off. Mostly in terms of size. Places like Cleveland, Denver, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Baltimore, etc. have dense, urban areas but it's just confined to a smaller area relative to the Tier 2 cities.