4 ms·

I've lived my whole life in two different metropolitan areas: Chicago and Los Angeles. The former has most of its businesses in or near the Loop, the downtown a

by dhosek 5y ago

I've lived my whole life in two different metropolitan areas: Chicago and Los Angeles. The former has most of its businesses in or near the Loop, the downtown area.¹ The latter has them more scattered like you argue in favor of. I find with businesses concentrated, it's much easier to make decisions about housing. In Los Angeles, it was difficult to predict where my next job might be. It could be downtown, it could be Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey, the valley, Pasadena, Orange County, etc. I could face a 90 minute drive or a ten minute bike ride to get to work. Even if I didn't change jobs, a company might move from one side of L.A. to the other (and this did happen to both my wife and me while we lived in L.A. although her location change was less dramatic than mine). Dispersed job centers often meant passing up on jobs because the location was inconvenient. In contrast, in Chicago, the key thing is being able to get to downtown reasonably quickly by public transportation (or, when I was single, I had an apartment that allowed me to easily bike or walk to and from the Loop if I so chose and the weather wasn't awful). One thing I noticed was that in the 90s, many tech companies were located in those outer suburbs and living anywhere but near downtown made commuting challenging. In contrast, since I moved back to Chicago 11 years ago, almost all tech jobs are downtown, which seems a likely consequence of the fact that being close to competitors makes it easier to find employees. ⸻ 1. There are, of course, bits of exceptions to his with some scattered business areas in some of the suburbs, most notable Oak Brook, Evanston and Schaumburg being the primary examples in my experience.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Understanding and sympathising with this viewpoint, the issue is far more one of urban planning and transit than it is of structure height per se. San Francisco hasn't been known for its soaring towers (though recently the leaning sort are making headlines), but it is centralised and well-served by transit both within the city and from surrounding communities. To this extent, it resembles Chicago. At the same time, the Bay Area as a whole strongly resembles Los Angeles, with various tech hubs ranging from San Jose to San Francisco, and including Sunnyvale, Fremont, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park Redwood City, and Oakland. If you find yourself job hopping between these spots, commutes get long fast, and there's no one best place to live. Chicago was built around rail with both the urban CTA and regional Metra rail service. Suburbs first emerged as points on spokes radiating out from downtown. Those have since filled in considerably, and inter-suburban commutes are both real and every much as horrible a mess as you'd imagine them to be. Los Angeles grew up as an automobile city with boulevards and freeways, and looks it. Absent the constraints of terrain, what defines Los Angeles is a grid-pattern of both streets and freeways. Whilst Chicago does have a street grid, that grid does not define the city in the same way Los Angeles does. If LA had instead opted to build distributed clusters of both high-rise (office/commercial) and low-rise (residential) towers, on a hub-and-spoke transit system, it might offer a far more reasonable set of commute and living options. There's no strict need for towers, so much as there is for connections between them. Arguably, another element that defines much of Chicago is its greystone and bungalow residential styles. These don't reach the density of 5--6 story apartment construction typical of Europe, but are far denser than the predominantly single-story fully-separated housing of the Los Angeles area. As with elsewhere, density makes transit service, whether bus or rail, far more viable.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Los Angeles grew up as an automobile city with boulevards and freeways, and looks it. LA is the way it is due to the history of how it was developed. It's a desert city and they had to develop large tracts at one time to finance the water infrastructure to bring water in from elsewhere. LA was spread out like it is before it became the poster child for the cult of the car. It was like that when it was served by trolleys and foot traffic. I don't know what the solution is going forward, but planning around cars is not how that got started in the case of LA.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Water absolutely shaped Los Angeles's development, and also explains why there are few similarly-scaled cities anywhere near it (San Diego being the principle exception). Los Angeles's watershed extends 1,500 miles eastward, to the front-range of the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River. That said, Chicago formed as a transportation hub, first based on the Great Lakes and rivers (the Des Plaines connects to the Mississipi), providing a transit point between the middle of the US, from Minneapolis to New Orleans and via the Missouri and Ohio river systems about 2/3 of the continent, to the East Coast via the St. Lawrence Seaway and Erie Canal. Railroads were built to outlying suburbs by 1850, at which time there were no automobiles at all. Chicago's population as of 1900 exceeded 1 million. Remember that mass adoption of the automobile in the US only began in 1901 with Ford's Model T, and wasn't substantial for another two to three decades. Los Angeles by contrast had no natural harbour (the San Pedro breakwater was completed in 1910), was largely a ranching and orchard region through the early 20th century, and was by far secondary to San Francisco in importance to California until 1906, the year of the Great Earthquake and Fire. Following that event, with increased oil exploration in Los Angeles (there remain many operating wells within the city itself), and especially growth during WWII, Los Angeles eventually grew. But it had only 100,000 souls in 1900, surpassing 1 million in 1930, at which point automobile use was strongly established. The General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy put an end to what public transit remained from 1938--1950. Chicago's suburban commuter rail was spared by virtue of the fact that it uses freight rail rights-of-way, which couldn't be dismantled (though some lines did fold, especially after the Interstate Highway System was built). Chicago's El similarly survived though I'm not familiar with the specific history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... Chicago 1906 map showing well-developed rail trasnportation network. https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?qvq=&trs=&mi=&lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~34147~1170881 https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMed... By contrast, Los Angeles at about the same time, dominated by streets: https://slippyjenkins.com/four-ridiculously-hi-res-maps-of-los-angeles-in-the-early-1900s/ https://slippyjenkins.com/four-ridiculously-hi-res-maps-of-l...
tagoregrtst 5y ago
I want to make clear, since everyone appears to have taken issue with what I said. My ideal model is not suburbia - thats what “LA” is to me. Nor is it NYC a city that has grown way beyond breaking even with return to scale My ideal model is, for all its problems, Thessaloniki or Bilbao. That is smaller, forgotten European cities. There your Dr.’s office can be a short walk from home because 6 story buildings are in fact very high density. If need be most inhabitants can walk downtown, but dont need to because public transport can be plentiful and cheap because the city is dimensionally small.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  this is what most of SF is like, outside FiDi
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > Nor is it NYC a city that has grown way beyond breaking even with return to scale There is no way to support this statement on any economic grounds. If New York City wasn't almost as committed to not building as San Francisco it could be have a far greater population. The constant run up in property prices shows that even with the efforts to stop people moving they still want to. If Tokyo can grow 50% in a decade in a country with declining population NYC could grow much more. People want to live in NYC. Let them.
- AmpsterMan 5y ago
  Bilbao is one of those cities I would love to live in. Pre-Pandemic, I spent a considerable amount of brain power trying to figure out how I can migrate.

by dhosek 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago

Understanding and sympathising with this viewpoint, the issue is far more one of urban planning and transit than it is of structure height per se. San Francisco hasn't been known for its soaring towers (though recently the leaning sort are making headlines), but it is centralised and well-served by transit both within the city and from surrounding communities. To this extent, it resembles Chicago. At the same time, the Bay Area as a whole strongly resembles Los Angeles, with various tech hubs ranging from San Jose to San Francisco, and including Sunnyvale, Fremont, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park Redwood City, and Oakland. If you find yourself job hopping between these spots, commutes get long fast, and there's no one best place to live. Chicago was built around rail with both the urban CTA and regional Metra rail service. Suburbs first emerged as points on spokes radiating out from downtown. Those have since filled in considerably, and inter-suburban commutes are both real and every much as horrible a mess as you'd imagine them to be. Los Angeles grew up as an automobile city with boulevards and freeways, and looks it. Absent the constraints of terrain, what defines Los Angeles is a grid-pattern of both streets and freeways. Whilst Chicago does have a street grid, that grid does not define the city in the same way Los Angeles does. If LA had instead opted to build distributed clusters of both high-rise (office/commercial) and low-rise (residential) towers, on a hub-and-spoke transit system, it might offer a far more reasonable set of commute and living options. There's no strict need for towers, so much as there is for connections between them. Arguably, another element that defines much of Chicago is its greystone and bungalow residential styles. These don't reach the density of 5--6 story apartment construction typical of Europe, but are far denser than the predominantly single-story fully-separated housing of the Los Angeles area. As with elsewhere, density makes transit service, whether bus or rail, far more viable.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Los Angeles grew up as an automobile city with boulevards and freeways, and looks it. LA is the way it is due to the history of how it was developed. It's a desert city and they had to develop large tracts at one time to finance the water infrastructure to bring water in from elsewhere. LA was spread out like it is before it became the poster child for the cult of the car. It was like that when it was served by trolleys and foot traffic. I don't know what the solution is going forward, but planning around cars is not how that got started in the case of LA.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Water absolutely shaped Los Angeles's development, and also explains why there are few similarly-scaled cities anywhere near it (San Diego being the principle exception). Los Angeles's watershed extends 1,500 miles eastward, to the front-range of the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River. That said, Chicago formed as a transportation hub, first based on the Great Lakes and rivers (the Des Plaines connects to the Mississipi), providing a transit point between the middle of the US, from Minneapolis to New Orleans and via the Missouri and Ohio river systems about 2/3 of the continent, to the East Coast via the St. Lawrence Seaway and Erie Canal. Railroads were built to outlying suburbs by 1850, at which time there were no automobiles at all. Chicago's population as of 1900 exceeded 1 million. Remember that mass adoption of the automobile in the US only began in 1901 with Ford's Model T, and wasn't substantial for another two to three decades. Los Angeles by contrast had no natural harbour (the San Pedro breakwater was completed in 1910), was largely a ranching and orchard region through the early 20th century, and was by far secondary to San Francisco in importance to California until 1906, the year of the Great Earthquake and Fire. Following that event, with increased oil exploration in Los Angeles (there remain many operating wells within the city itself), and especially growth during WWII, Los Angeles eventually grew. But it had only 100,000 souls in 1900, surpassing 1 million in 1930, at which point automobile use was strongly established. The General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy put an end to what public transit remained from 1938--1950. Chicago's suburban commuter rail was spared by virtue of the fact that it uses freight rail rights-of-way, which couldn't be dismantled (though some lines did fold, especially after the Interstate Highway System was built). Chicago's El similarly survived though I'm not familiar with the specific history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... Chicago 1906 map showing well-developed rail trasnportation network. https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?qvq=&trs=&mi=&lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~34147~1170881 https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMed... By contrast, Los Angeles at about the same time, dominated by streets: https://slippyjenkins.com/four-ridiculously-hi-res-maps-of-los-angeles-in-the-early-1900s/ https://slippyjenkins.com/four-ridiculously-hi-res-maps-of-l...

tagoregrtst 5y ago

I want to make clear, since everyone appears to have taken issue with what I said. My ideal model is not suburbia - thats what “LA” is to me. Nor is it NYC a city that has grown way beyond breaking even with return to scale My ideal model is, for all its problems, Thessaloniki or Bilbao. That is smaller, forgotten European cities. There your Dr.’s office can be a short walk from home because 6 story buildings are in fact very high density. If need be most inhabitants can walk downtown, but dont need to because public transport can be plentiful and cheap because the city is dimensionally small.

vineyardmike 5y ago
this is what most of SF is like, outside FiDi
barry-cotter 5y ago
> Nor is it NYC a city that has grown way beyond breaking even with return to scale There is no way to support this statement on any economic grounds. If New York City wasn't almost as committed to not building as San Francisco it could be have a far greater population. The constant run up in property prices shows that even with the efforts to stop people moving they still want to. If Tokyo can grow 50% in a decade in a country with declining population NYC could grow much more. People want to live in NYC. Let them.
AmpsterMan 5y ago
Bilbao is one of those cities I would love to live in. Pre-Pandemic, I spent a considerable amount of brain power trying to figure out how I can migrate.