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Urban Sprawl, Which Large City Defines It?


monsoon

Urban Srawl, Which City Defines It?  

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  1. 1. Urban Srawl, Which City Defines It?

    • Atlanta
      129
    • Chicago
      14
    • Detroit
      29
    • Other (explain)
      34


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Atlanta's definitely sprawling out but in the past few years people have been moving back into the cities urban core. Rows and rows of townhomes and many aprtment buildings have been popping up all over downtown and midtown and selling space quicker than you could ever imagine. This is a relief to people who have spent the last few years afraid of all the suburban sprawl. The City is going to continue to spread out but at least the urban core is getting a piece of the action!

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Wow, that list of three leaves out many-a-city. What about San Antonio? It's horribly spread-out with a core that's scarcely worth mentioning. The Baltimore-Washington-Arlington-Northern Virginia area is horrendously sprawled out. The whole metro is about the size of New Jersey and then some. Hampton Roads is also spread out horrifically. The population density of Chesapeake, Va is well under 1000 per/sq/mi and in Suffolk it's less than 500. Detroit is pretty bad in sprawl, and it's put a veritable strangle-hold on the inner-city, which is truly unfortunate. ATL is notorious for its sprawling proportions, but I still think that Pheonix at least as bad. In today's America with the suburban dream, I don't think there's any clear-cut winner.

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Ok the real picture is this.  More than 1/2 of Charlotte's metro lives in the city, and it is not losing people either.  But I didn't bring Charlotte into this conversation as its population is simply too small to be considered as 700K pales to the 6 million living in suburban Chicago.   

I am not sure what you are asking about Atlanta Detroit, etc.  Here is the opening thread again since it is apparent that some might not have seen it.  I would say that Charlotte, Nashville & Raleigh simply do not have these problems.

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City of Charlotte 614,330 people, population density is 2528 people per square mile

Urbanized area Chicago is 8,307,000 people, population density is 3913 people a square mile.

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Definitely Atlanta...Atlanta is one of the most spread out poorly planned metropolis' in the US....People are gobbling up some of the most beautiful parts of N. Georgia in a most unbelievable unregulated way...it's truly a sad American story...sooner or later things will have to come back "into check."

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^ I think it's in Virginia Highlands, one of the streetcar suburbs inside of Atlanta. Not really the best example of an urban neighborhood in Atlanta - but really not that far off. Typically in southern cities that did not develop fully until 100 years ago, the concept of what 'urban' is, is quite relative. Though I live in a neighborhood in Atlanta far more dense than that example, I won't argue that 'intown' Atlanta isn't denser than most urban areas of the northeast / midwest. Simply b/c 100 years ago there wasn't a need to develop densely.

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That's the intersection of Park Dr and Monroe Dr. It's completely inside the city limits of Atlanta and is actually about 2 miles from the Peachtree Center.

The Detroit "suburb" is the city of Hamtramck which is nearly completely surrounded by the city of Detroit. Hamtramck is about 4 miles from Downtown Detroit.

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That's the intersection of Park Dr and Monroe Dr.  It's completely inside the city limits of Atlanta and is actually about 2 miles from the Peachtree Center.

Correctamundo - as I said it is Virginia Highlands (well - technically it's Boulevard Park but this is in the middle of VaHi & Midtown) which is in the city. The city core is primarily streetcar suburbs, the 'urban core' of the city is really only a 1 to 1.5 mile area surrounding downtown (centered at Five Points, south of Peachtree Center).

But Boulevard Park is a pretty typical streetcar suburb, developed in the 1920's I believe. Single family bungalows centered around a streetcar line on what was then North Boulevard & is now Monroe Dr on the edge of Piedmont Park. On the bottom left of the image is where a light rail line is planned (as well as a large condo development - but that is another topic).

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I read that Atlanta has the lowest density of any major urbanized area in the entire world. I assume they're using some minimum figure, like 2 or 3 million people.

Seattle is one that always gets overlooked for some reason. The city isn't very dense (less than 7000 per square mile), and the urbanized area is less than 3000 per square mile. The Seattle region sprawls all the way to north of Everett, and all the way south/southwest past Tacoma. This is a very, very long distance given it's moderate population.

Detroit and Pittsburgh are probably the worst in one way: increasing sprawl with roughly stagnant populations.

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Ten densest urbanized areas in North America:

(http://www.demographia.com/db-uauscan.htm)

1. L.A.

2. Toronto

3. San Francisco

4. San Jose

5. New York

6. New Orleans

7. Montreal

8. Honolulu

9. Las Vegas

10. Oxnard

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Wow, LA, the thought-of-as sprawl king is number one.... I guess this goes to show that the the sunbelt suburbs are much denser than the suburbs of the rustbelt/older cities that have denser inner cities. It all evens out when you look at the whole urbanized area.

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Southern California is a different animal though - along with Las Vegas even. These areas are still sprawling in one manner - they are not primarily dense around a CBD but the density is dispersed over a larger area. Also - they are more limited than southeastern sunbelt cities because of utility needs.

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That's because Los Angeles's exurban sprawl is across the mountains in places like Riverside, San Bernardino, Thousand Oaks, etc. and due to the geography, they are counted as separate urban areas. Granted, even then land is cheap in Southern California so you won't find very much exurban sprawl.

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Actually - I was reffering to the higher density multiple-nodes that I would say constitutes as sprawl. But that might be an arguement that I may be backing down from, based on arguements from another forum. Essentially - the arguement regarding single node high density core - the classic city model from the past, may simply be outmoded for today's world. Or not, I don't know - I'm starting to doubt myself - we'll see if J Church convinces me or not.

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Actually - I was reffering to the higher density multiple-nodes that I would say constitutes as sprawl.  But that might be an arguement that I may be backing down from, based on arguements from another forum.  Essentially - the arguement regarding single node high density core - the classic city model from the past, may simply be outmoded for today's world.  Or not, I don't know - I'm starting to doubt myself - we'll see if J Church convinces me or not.

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I think you were right about LA and LV though. It seems to be more evenly distributed urban developments, whereas the classic city model is one core and suburbia around it, like a Detroit or a Chicago or Atlanta. Areas like Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and my own Hampton Roads, however, have several or even many nodes.

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I think you were right about LA and LV though.  It seems to be more evenly distributed urban developments, whereas the classic city model is one core and suburbia around it, like a Detroit or a Chicago or Atlanta.  Areas like Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and my own Hampton Roads, however, have several or even many nodes.

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But Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, and to a lesser extent Chicago doesn't follow the classic model due to edge cities. Basically, imagine the classic model & where there is suburbia add a couple of sporadic small circles for the commercial edge cities. And especially for Atlanta - outside the suburban circle, add some small circles in the rural outside zone for exurban areas.

In LA's case, the suburban core would have more evenly spaced commercial centers rather than a single CBD core. That is arguable if that is a good model - but it is in the direction of something similar to Tokyo - a very large & significant urban core. But in the meantime it means much high density sprawl. But I am rethinking of the consequences of this...

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Is "inner-city" Atlanta supposed to feel inferior about this?  Because people are moving rapidly into this

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Umm, I don't think anyone should feel inferior because of where they live.

Personally, I think most people in America would prefer the lower density of places like Atlanta, although I don't at all. That kind of low density development over vast areas leads to a whole host of problems (do I really need to define the problems associated with sprawl, or do we all know this by now?)

One of the main reasons I hate sprawl, as I've said many times on this site before, is it makes people fat. This may seem odd to some, but it's true and its just another reason why sprawl sucks.

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Is "inner-city" Atlanta supposed to feel inferior about this?  Because people are moving rapidly into this

While people are leaving this in droves

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think there was any intention of making Atlanta feel "inferior" to Detroit, those pictures were simply meant to be representations of Atlanta's sprawling nature.

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I don't think there was any intention of making Atlanta feel "inferior" to Detroit, those pictures were simply meant to be representations of Atlanta's sprawling nature.

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First of all, Atlanta has many examples of sprawl but this IS NOT one of them. You will find very few examples of the Detroit pic ANYWHERE in the south, not just Atlanta for the simple reason that Detroit was a major city in a much earlier time period than Atlanta and any other southern city. Secondly that pic is of a inner city neighborhood of Atlanta which means that the residents of the area would have just as much access to transit, neigborhood shops and businesses, etc as residents of the area in the Detroit pic. So what are the urban advantages of single family homes (or duplexes) packed so closely together other than being able to hear your neighbors' conversations?

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First of all, Atlanta has many examples of sprawl but this IS NOT one of them.  You will find very few examples of the Detroit pic ANYWHERE in the south, not just Atlanta for the simple reason that Detroit was a major city in a much earlier time period than Atlanta and any other southern city.  Secondly that pic is of a inner city neighborhood of Atlanta which means that the residents of the area would have just as much access to transit, neigborhood businesses, etc as residents of the area in the Detroit pic.  So what are the urban advantages of single family homes (or duplexes) packed so closely together other than being able to hear your neighbors' conversations?

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The old Granby district of Norfolk looks similar to that. Baltimore has many sections that look like that, as does Richmond, Fort Worth and other major cities. There are advantages and disadvantages irregardless of where you live. Suburbia has major disadvantages because of the distances between things and the neccessity of cars over mass transit. The inner city is far more prone to crime and is more expensive tax-wise.

I know that in the case of Newport News' East End area, many homes were built in that style because it was cheaper and more efficient. They crammed everyone into a ghetto-like atmosphere due to the huge population influx at the time (which, similarly to Detroit, has reversed). Other than that it's rather pointless unless there's no land upon which to build, but that isn't the case with Detroit and CERTAINLY not with Atlanta...

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What's the point of this augument? What does the winner get? Cookies? Who cares, the whole U.S. is one giant sprawling wasteland. It's legacy of manifest destiny. Wide open spaces, unlimited land to own and exploit, the constitutional right of property ownership. The perception that a house with land and space is more desirable than being packed in like sardines. The prosperity of the greatest generation and baby boomers folllowing WWII, we now had a huge middle class with the means to own homes as opposed to renting in the city. Not to mention the legacy of racism in this country, the civil rights movement and race riots. Not to mention the proliferation of cars and wasted highway infrastructure as opposed to mass transit.

That is the legacy we've been left with. How do we change it? That would be a valuable forum topic. Duh.

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Well. All I can say is I don't consider the last 4 or 5 comments an argument, but alright. To each his own (opinion, that is).

I think that your cynical view of America is a bit contorted, but has some valid points. If you see America as a "vast sprawling wasteland", then you could move to another country... I hear Singapore is rather dense. It's also pretty small. The Vatican is as small and unsprawling as they come, but I guess that would only work if you were a Catholic Bishop...

As far as the racism topic, that really isn't relevant as you said it was because this is a topic regarding which city most typifies urban sprawl. In fact, it's a poll asking that question so the idealogy that has left America a "vast sprawling wasteland" is fairly irrelevant. If you're going to storm into a forum and say that people's opinions are stupid then make a new threadline to discuss this. Just my humble opinion.

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