Downtown Parking Lot Maps

[MrSatNight]

Originally Posted by atlantaguy

There is a certain segment of the forum that repeatedly seems to take great pleasure in using Atlanta as the poster child for this, and it's been going on for years now.

Hard to imagine that a long time member could have possibly missed this somehow...

Maybe that's because Atlanta is in fact the poster child for this?

It's true that virtually every large city in America sprawls to some degree. But there is a difference. Some cities have a large and thriving urban core surrounded by sprawl. Some cities have a small and weak (but still existing) urban core surrounded by sprawl. And then there is Atlanta. In Atlanta, the sprawl starts basically as soon as you leave the CBD. You can drop a Google street view pin right across the freeway from Georgia State Capitol or on the other side of Piedmont Park and feel like you are in suburbia. So the issue is not the mere existence of sprawl; the issue is that there is almost nothing but sprawl.

That's why comparisons to a city like Chicago (or almost any large non-sunbelt city) are off-base.

I have crunched the numbers using this database: http://mcdc.missouri.edu/websas/caps10c.html

Compare:

3 mile radius from CBD: Chicago's density -- 20,600 per sq mile. Atlanta's - 5400 psm.
5 miles: Chicago - 17,800 psm. Atlanta -- 4,000 psm.
10 miles: Chicago - 14,800 psm. Atlanta - 2,700 psm.

It gets even worse after that.

The highest density that I was able to find for Atlanta was the 2 mile radius, clocking a whopping 6,400 psm.

That goes a long way to explain why Atlanta is seen as the poster child of sprawl.

If it makes you feel any better, Houston and Dallas are almost as bad as Atlanta. Almost, but not quite. The Texas cities still sport a higher density at most radius points, though not by a ton.

[memph]

Atlanta is one of the least dense major metro areas by weighted density too. I think the biggest metro area that has a lower weighted density is Charlotte, so basically the second biggest city in that region. The only other metros of 1mil+ with lower weighted densities are Birmingham, Nashville, Jacksonville and Raleigh, again, all cities in the Southeast. There are a few midwestern cities that aren't much denser though, like Indianapolis of Kansas City although these are still significantly smaller.

The least dense metros (weighted density by census tract) of over 3 million are

Atlanta: 2173 ppsm
Minneapolis: 3383 ppsm
Detroit: 3800 ppsm
Dallas: 3909 ppsm

Most cities either have a more substantial core (as MrSatNight said), or denser suburbia (Florida and Western sunbelt incl TX).

Now, does the fact that Las Vegas has 3 times higher weighted density mean it's less sprawled out? I would say so, although it's not such a great thing since it's still very autocentric. For many people, if you're going to have to drive everywhere anyways, they'd rather have a big yard with lots of trees.

Chicago's metro area weighted density is 8613 ppsm and for DC it's 6388 ppsm, about 4 and 3 times denser respectively.

If instead of looking at weighted density, you look at the non-weighted density of the urban areas, Atlanta is still very low density. Atlanta's urban area is 50% bigger than LA's despite the fact that LA's urban area has 2.7 times the population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...es_urban_areas

Atlanta's urban area is large enough to hold LA+Riverside-San Bernadino's urban areas, and then more than half of Toronto's urban area on top of that. It's urban area's non weighted density is only denser than Charlotte's (Raleigh, Jacksonville, Birmingham and Nashville are a bit denser) among major urban areas. Even urban areas that are barely denser, like Indianapolis, still have a street grid.

Tulsa has a bit of a higher urban area non-weighted density, although the weighted density of the metro area is a bit lower. Maybe the metro area includes a bit more rural land?

I would say that Atlanta sprawls more than any other city it's size (and yes all cities in the US sprawl a fair bit), so even if there are smaller cities that are just as low density, Atlanta is more well known.

[heyerdahl]

Originally Posted by Shasta

You people have it all wrong.

The worst part about Tulsa isn't the surface parking downtown or the lack of bus routes... it's the fact that they only serve near-beer.

Tulsa needs more alcohol content.

You can get beer of any alcohol content in Tulsa bars, restaurants, and liquor stores. Some places choose to only get low-point licenses if they don't want to serve liquor or wine.

[L41A]

First off, it is what it is. But one must know or recognize the definition of "urban" area as defined by the Census before extrapolating some of the things that they extrapolate.

The census defined the urban area in 2000 as a place having a population density of 1,500 ppsm contiguous with areas with an area having population density of 500 ppsm. Those numbers speak more to "suburban" area in this forum or in normal every day nomenclature. The above definition seem to have been even more loosen in defining "urban" area in Census 2010.

The definition more so quantifies the density of the suburban area or surrounding areas of an MSA than the urban core or central areas. For example, the MSAs of LA and SF metro are more dense than NYC with NYC metro being more in line with Las Vegas or Honolulu than with LA or SF.

Another example to further my point is that the metros of Salt Lake City and Lexington, Kentucky being more densely populated that Boston and Philadelphia using the Census urban area definition.

I am not saying the Census definition is bad. But how some people are using it is extrapolating to much in it because they see the term "urban". To me it's akin to the list in another thread that quantify exports by MSAs but then is extrapolate to become the most valuable cities. Geography and natural resources have as much to do with the population of surrounding areas of MSAs than the condescending implications some suggest.

[vid]

What is the density of New York City, minus Staten Island?

[fflint]

NYC without Staten Island is roughly 7,865,969 people in 244 square miles: that's 32,238 persons per square mile.

[dc_denizen]

That's roughly the population of London, in about 1/3 of the area. Or, the same square mileage as Toronto or Chicago, but with 3 times the population.

Isn't the inner 250 sq miles of Paris comparably dense? I think Minato Ku counted 6,958,034 inhabitants in 2010 on 728 km² or 281 sq mi.

[ssiguy]

Where do you guys find these maps?

[photoLith]

I made them originally and then others made some.

[seamusmcduff]

So I stumbled across this thread, and there was a lot if talk about how much better Canadian cities are doing than American ones. Thought I'd make this to show that isn't always the case. I think its because our prairie cities have a lot in common with most of the American cities that aren't on the coast. Unlimited room to spread, and car is king.

So anyways, ended up doing one for Edmonton. Ended up being a lot more depressing than I had realized. I knew Edmonton had a long way to go, but I don't think I'd ever grasped just how far. Anyway, obviously not all encompassing, missing a lot of proposed buildings and probably some parking lots but oh well, you get the picture.

Red=Parking Lot/Parkade, Empty Lot

Yellow= Proposed

Green=Under construction

[IMG]

[dktshb]

Delete....

[nei]

Originally Posted by seamusmcduff

So I stumbled across this thread, and there was a lot if talk about how much better Canadian cities are doing than American ones. Thought I'd make this to show that isn't always the case. I think its because our prairie cities have a lot in common with most of the American cities that aren't on the coast. Unlimited room to spread, and car is king.

So anyways, ended up doing one for Edmonton. Ended up being a lot more depressing than I had realized. I knew Edmonton had a long way to go, but I don't think I'd ever grasped just how far. Anyway, obviously not all encompassing, missing a lot of proposed buildings and probably some parking lots but oh well, you get the picture.

Red=Parking Lot/Parkade, Empty Lot

Yellow= Proposed

Green=Under construction

[IMG]

Still better than many de-centralized American cities, there are blocks of downtown without much parking. Considering Edmonton is a very new city, it's not that bad. And impressive how much transit ridership there is given the surface lot coverage. Has there been a map posted of Calgary?

[seamusmcduff]

Not that I've seen. Calgarys core has a much larger area without parking because of the massive size of their CBD. But outside of that it still has the same issues of a spattering of parking through the core, and large swaths of parking on the fringes.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

That's roughly the population of London, in about 1/3 of the area. Or, the same square mileage as Toronto or Chicago, but with 3 times the population.

London has 8,538,689 inh. (2014), growing at a 120,000/year pace.

[LouisVanDerWright]

This is one did for the near West Loop in Chicago for another thread:

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Holy mega updates batman. Thanks guys! Really capturing the volume of construction now!

Since this conversation doesn't really belong anywhere else, I'm posting the following to illustrate my point about lots in the Near West Loop:



All red boxes indicate large lots not tied to a condo board or back lot for a specific business. All blue outlines are sites with a serious proposal by credible developers. All green outlines are completed buildings since the recession. All yellow outlines are under construction.

As is obvious, we've wiped out maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of all surface lots in this area in the past 8 or 9 years. IF we continue at this rate, there were be only a handful of lots remaining after the next cycle comes an goes (probably about 10 years). Sam can claim I'm "excessively exuberant " until he's blue in the face, but I'm just observing facts that literally anyone with eyes who has been in the near West Loop over the past few years can see. I have a feeling that we will start seeing taller buildings proposed for the few remaining half and full block parcels in the next cycle now that all the like sites along and East of the river have been wiped out. As it is right now, including lots West of the freeway occupied by nasty auto oriented retail, there are only 6 or 7 quarter block + sites remaining. Anyone who thinks there will be more than 3 or 4 such sites come 2026 is delusional.

Edit: Also interesting is that almost all of these large lots are not contained to a nine square block box roughly bounded by Jefferson, Adams, Halsted, and Washington. Most of the lots to the North and to the South of these have been eradicated.

[ssiguy]

Love these maps, keep em coming.

Certainly the amount of parking {and especially parking lots} is a reflection of a downtown's health and vitality but a lot also depends on where those parking lots are situated.

It is FAR better to have several complete and vital streets with parking behind of around the corner than it is too have the same amount of parking but located all around the core so that not even 2 blocks put together can be seen without a barren parking lot. Even parking structures are far superior to empty lots as they may have {or can certainly be made into} vibrant streetscapes.

[ssiguy]

Edmonton is probably the best example of the undesirable above lack of streetscape that plagues the city after decades of shockingly poor urban planning.

In the last decade Edmonton has seen a soaring downtown population, many of the ugly parking lots filled, and many new commercial developments and even with the oil boom gone, the construction continues.

Don't get me wrong as all of the above is nothing but good news and downtown Edmonton is leap years ahead of what it was just 15 years ago. Unfortunately the decades of poor planning has still left downtown Edmonton {and a LOT of US cities} with very disjointed streetscapes. There are less surface lots but even with the new infills you are still left with streets with concrete office buildings, parking garages, glass boxes, money marts, an old building that looks out of place, a government office, a bank building, thin sidewalks not made for pedestrians, streets lined with on-street parking, and maybe two restaurants or cafes............repeat cycle 10 times to cover entire city core.

In short.........there's no where to just grab a coffee and watch the crowds go by. All the streets may have some pedestrians after 6pm but none that are busy which makes people not only feel isolated but also fearful for their security especially in US cities.

Filling up those ugly surface parking lots is a VERY good start but it will take more than that to bring the city back to it's vital potential and create true streets as opposed to just more sterile blocks but just with less parking.

[eschaton]

I realized Pittsburgh didn't have one of these:



Red: Surface Parking

Green: Parking Garages (only counting public garages, not buildings which have parking components underground, or a few older buildings which have been converted to parking.

As you can see, Downtown Pittsburgh has very little in terns of surface parking, instead relying upon structured parking for most of its needs. In the last few years a few projects in the heart of downtown (new hotel, parking garage, and university building) have gotten rid of the last surface lots in the core of downtown.

Surface parking within downtown is limited to two fringe areas.

The areas to the north are in the cultural district - a historic area with a high concentration of many of the theaters. Most of the surface lots are owned by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a consortium of Pittsburgh foundations. There were plans to develop these lots prior to the recession which the Trust pulled out on. They are still promising to develop this area eventually, but because they do not pay property taxes there is no hurry. The two lots closest to the convention center were meant for a hotel which was never built, and are going out to bid again.

The remainder of the lots are on the far southern side of Downtown. The two closest to the Point are for tourists and employees of a local newspaper respectively. Then there are many small lots scattered around the sub-neighborhood of First Side. A few of the larger lots have been marketed before, but I've heard nothing about any serious projects recently.

If I expanded the map to include areas near downtown - Station Square, the North Shore, and the Lower Hill - there would be substantively more red on this map.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Love these maps, keep em coming.

Certainly the amount of parking {and especially parking lots} is a reflection of a downtown's health and vitality but a lot also depends on where those parking lots are situated.

It is FAR better to have several complete and vital streets with parking behind of around the corner than it is too have the same amount of parking but located all around the core so that not even 2 blocks put together can be seen without a barren parking lot. Even parking structures are far superior to empty lots as they may have {or can certainly be made into} vibrant streetscapes.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Edmonton is probably the best example of the undesirable above lack of streetscape that plagues the city after decades of shockingly poor urban planning.

In the last decade Edmonton has seen a soaring downtown population, many of the ugly parking lots filled, and many new commercial developments and even with the oil boom gone, the construction continues.

Don't get me wrong as all of the above is nothing but good news and downtown Edmonton is leap years ahead of what it was just 15 years ago. Unfortunately the decades of poor planning has still left downtown Edmonton {and a LOT of US cities} with very disjointed streetscapes. There are less surface lots but even with the new infills you are still left with streets with concrete office buildings, parking garages, glass boxes, money marts, an old building that looks out of place, a government office, a bank building, thin sidewalks not made for pedestrians, streets lined with on-street parking, and maybe two restaurants or cafes............repeat cycle 10 times to cover entire city core.

In short.........there's no where to just grab a coffee and watch the crowds go by. All the streets may have some pedestrians after 6pm but none that are busy which makes people not only feel isolated but also fearful for their security especially in US cities.

Filling up those ugly surface parking lots is a VERY good start but it will take more than that to bring the city back to it's vital potential and create true streets as opposed to just more sterile blocks but just with less parking.

That's something a lot of US cities seem to be missing. A place to just people watch and be amongst the crowds.

[RST500]

No Vacancies in California? Housing Report Begs to Differ


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...a-sf.html?_r=0