I obviously have a soft spot for Ann Arbor. But much like your Cincy resident, I currently live near El Camino Real in San Bruno. It is almost ideal from an urbanist perspective - San Mateo Ave has more karate and dance studios than bars and coffee shops - with parks, grocers, dentists, schools, parks a library and everythin I need less than a mile away.
The one blight is El Camino Real - 6 travel lanes and a turn lane, it's basically a highway that cuts thru. Has a great bus route on it but the buses sit in traffic. It is intimidating to cross, and is the main reason I question how independent my kid can be.
In my journey into understanding urbanism I really dug into some population density statistics of cities that I’ve lived in or visited to get a more intuitive sense of what different densities /feel/ like. Obviously these stats are heavily influenced simply by how expansive city limits are—Portland has plenty of land to sprawl whereas SF or Seattle city limits stop at the water, for example. That caveat aside
Manhattan: ~60,000 ppl/square mile
Brooklyn: ~38,000 ppl/square mile
San Francisco: ~19,000 ppl/square mile
Seattle: ~9,000 ppl/square mile
Portland: ~5,000 ppl/square mile
For contrast, Phoenix: ~4,500 ppl/mile
Watching the density almost literally HALVE going down that list, when all of these are considered desirable, walkable cities by “urbanist” types goes to show that density alone does not create walkability. Portland and Phoenix is an enlightening contrast.
It’s also pretty shocking that SF is the second densest city in the country behind NYC, and it is not even anywhere close to the density of any borough of NYC except for Staten Island. There is so much room for infill development in all these NIMBY cities that complain they’re full. SF NIMBYs bemoaning the “Manhattanization” of San Francisco should try the Brooklynization of San Francisco on for size before they get all up in arms.
"There is so much room for infill development in all these NIMBY cities that complain they’re full. SF NIMBYs bemoaning the 'Manhattanization' of San Francisco should try the Brooklynization of San Francisco on for size before they get all up in arms."
The demonization of Manhattan is something I both viscerally understand - I had no desire to live there myself - but also something that's led to the LA-fication of most of our outer suburbs and newer cities. The sunbelt is filled with smaller versions of LA, with terrible traffic to even just get to the corner store. There is a way for most cities/metros to grow without LA's traffic or Manhattan's skyscrapers - it would look like what the Cincy resident is describing, and as it grows it maybe resembles New Orleans and then Chicago long before it turns into Manhattan. Or you could just be painfully exclusive and turn into San Francisco, with more distant suburbs turning into LA anyway.
The reality is that there’s an argument to be made that Manhattan is “full,” in some senses. Certainly more mid-rises CAN be replaced with high rises over time, but it is incredibly costly compared to infill in lower density cities. And the rents there reflect that lots of people DO want to live in Manhattan, or a place like it.
Cities like San Francisco and Boston moving towards being more like Manhattan would help defray some of the demand for living at that level of urban intensity. We then just need other cities to move towards the San Francisco/Boston level of intensity, because that is obviously highly desired too.
Well said. Not just cities but for a place like Manhattan, the suburbs should definitely get a bit more dense to take up some of the slack needed in housing. And this is true of many of our cities.
As your stats show, SF is a long way away from being like Manhattan. And Manhattan and NYC in general really are an outlier - one of the 3 largest cities/metros in the Americas by almost any measure. "Fear of being Manhattan" is alarmist and misplaced.
Additionally, the only metro and city in America or Canada that comes close to NYC and NY metro is LA (especially if combined with the Inland Empire). I know I'm belaboring this point, but the problems of living in LA are for more relevant to considerably smaller cities and metros than the problems of Manhattan-level density. Even for the NY metro, which generally has great transit connections to Manhattan but not within and amongst themselves, the problems of LA are more relevant than Manhattan.
This isn’t the gotcha you think it is…? High density has virtues and drawbacks. Low density also has virtues and drawbacks.
We’ve lived through decades of low density being the only thing that can be built, and the market clearly shows that many more people would like to live in higher density cities, if they could afford it. So while low density places can continue to exist, we should increase the housing supply of high density places so that more of the people who want that lifestyle can choose it.
No one is going to force you to move to the city. But people are currently being forced to live in the suburbs because they’re priced out of the city where they want to live.
You know, this post helped me clarify the topic for a community walk through of my neighborhood later this month with our Strong Towns local conversation group: "What does it mean to live in a walkable city neighborhood in 2024?"
Judging from my own community, in terms of traffic, the answer is: there's the worst of both an urban AND a suburban environment.
On the urban side, our older streets and major arteries weren't built for the level of traffic in 2024. We all have our workarounds to avoid the inevitable tie ups during busy times, but there's no shortage of frustrated drivers who regularly run red lights or disobey no right turn on red signs in their haste to cut their commute time.
On the suburban side, we have commuters using our major arteries the way they would in their newer suburban or exurban environments. They expect to barrel through at speeds that aren't safe in our more urban environment. Our narrower streets make these cars dangerously close as we walk our sidewalks. It's one of the reasons few parents allow their children to walk to our two K-6 neighborhood schools alone.
So -- an interesting discussion. For many suburbanites in my city, even a suburban-light neighborhood like mine is still too urban. For those who want to live closer to the city center, it's not urban enough.
I obviously have a soft spot for Ann Arbor. But much like your Cincy resident, I currently live near El Camino Real in San Bruno. It is almost ideal from an urbanist perspective - San Mateo Ave has more karate and dance studios than bars and coffee shops - with parks, grocers, dentists, schools, parks a library and everythin I need less than a mile away.
The one blight is El Camino Real - 6 travel lanes and a turn lane, it's basically a highway that cuts thru. Has a great bus route on it but the buses sit in traffic. It is intimidating to cross, and is the main reason I question how independent my kid can be.
In my journey into understanding urbanism I really dug into some population density statistics of cities that I’ve lived in or visited to get a more intuitive sense of what different densities /feel/ like. Obviously these stats are heavily influenced simply by how expansive city limits are—Portland has plenty of land to sprawl whereas SF or Seattle city limits stop at the water, for example. That caveat aside
Manhattan: ~60,000 ppl/square mile
Brooklyn: ~38,000 ppl/square mile
San Francisco: ~19,000 ppl/square mile
Seattle: ~9,000 ppl/square mile
Portland: ~5,000 ppl/square mile
For contrast, Phoenix: ~4,500 ppl/mile
Watching the density almost literally HALVE going down that list, when all of these are considered desirable, walkable cities by “urbanist” types goes to show that density alone does not create walkability. Portland and Phoenix is an enlightening contrast.
It’s also pretty shocking that SF is the second densest city in the country behind NYC, and it is not even anywhere close to the density of any borough of NYC except for Staten Island. There is so much room for infill development in all these NIMBY cities that complain they’re full. SF NIMBYs bemoaning the “Manhattanization” of San Francisco should try the Brooklynization of San Francisco on for size before they get all up in arms.
"There is so much room for infill development in all these NIMBY cities that complain they’re full. SF NIMBYs bemoaning the 'Manhattanization' of San Francisco should try the Brooklynization of San Francisco on for size before they get all up in arms."
Love this!
What you state is 50% higher than the actual density for Phoenix. It is density is 3100 people per sq mile.
The demonization of Manhattan is something I both viscerally understand - I had no desire to live there myself - but also something that's led to the LA-fication of most of our outer suburbs and newer cities. The sunbelt is filled with smaller versions of LA, with terrible traffic to even just get to the corner store. There is a way for most cities/metros to grow without LA's traffic or Manhattan's skyscrapers - it would look like what the Cincy resident is describing, and as it grows it maybe resembles New Orleans and then Chicago long before it turns into Manhattan. Or you could just be painfully exclusive and turn into San Francisco, with more distant suburbs turning into LA anyway.
The reality is that there’s an argument to be made that Manhattan is “full,” in some senses. Certainly more mid-rises CAN be replaced with high rises over time, but it is incredibly costly compared to infill in lower density cities. And the rents there reflect that lots of people DO want to live in Manhattan, or a place like it.
Cities like San Francisco and Boston moving towards being more like Manhattan would help defray some of the demand for living at that level of urban intensity. We then just need other cities to move towards the San Francisco/Boston level of intensity, because that is obviously highly desired too.
Well said. Not just cities but for a place like Manhattan, the suburbs should definitely get a bit more dense to take up some of the slack needed in housing. And this is true of many of our cities.
As your stats show, SF is a long way away from being like Manhattan. And Manhattan and NYC in general really are an outlier - one of the 3 largest cities/metros in the Americas by almost any measure. "Fear of being Manhattan" is alarmist and misplaced.
Additionally, the only metro and city in America or Canada that comes close to NYC and NY metro is LA (especially if combined with the Inland Empire). I know I'm belaboring this point, but the problems of living in LA are for more relevant to considerably smaller cities and metros than the problems of Manhattan-level density. Even for the NY metro, which generally has great transit connections to Manhattan but not within and amongst themselves, the problems of LA are more relevant than Manhattan.
This isn’t the gotcha you think it is…? High density has virtues and drawbacks. Low density also has virtues and drawbacks.
We’ve lived through decades of low density being the only thing that can be built, and the market clearly shows that many more people would like to live in higher density cities, if they could afford it. So while low density places can continue to exist, we should increase the housing supply of high density places so that more of the people who want that lifestyle can choose it.
No one is going to force you to move to the city. But people are currently being forced to live in the suburbs because they’re priced out of the city where they want to live.
You know, this post helped me clarify the topic for a community walk through of my neighborhood later this month with our Strong Towns local conversation group: "What does it mean to live in a walkable city neighborhood in 2024?"
Judging from my own community, in terms of traffic, the answer is: there's the worst of both an urban AND a suburban environment.
On the urban side, our older streets and major arteries weren't built for the level of traffic in 2024. We all have our workarounds to avoid the inevitable tie ups during busy times, but there's no shortage of frustrated drivers who regularly run red lights or disobey no right turn on red signs in their haste to cut their commute time.
On the suburban side, we have commuters using our major arteries the way they would in their newer suburban or exurban environments. They expect to barrel through at speeds that aren't safe in our more urban environment. Our narrower streets make these cars dangerously close as we walk our sidewalks. It's one of the reasons few parents allow their children to walk to our two K-6 neighborhood schools alone.
So -- an interesting discussion. For many suburbanites in my city, even a suburban-light neighborhood like mine is still too urban. For those who want to live closer to the city center, it's not urban enough.
If suburban ain't urban, than a village ain't urban.