Quote:
Originally Posted by Segun
There's also Pittsburgh.
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Pittsburgh can definitely give you a dose of that tight, urban jungle feeling in certain areas. Though I don't think it's on that
"seamless stream of pedestrian activity from street to street, meaning you can wander in any direction and find it" level, if I understand what you're getting at.
Pittsburgh's very dense neighborhoods (like eschaton mentioned above) generally have a "main drag" of commercial activity which is very active, but as soon as you turn onto one of the side streets, it turns pretty quiet fast. Not that the side streets aren't dense... they're VERY tightly-packed rowhouse blocks... but they are always nearly 100% residential (there are corner businesses, but you generally don't have the ground-level commercial space throughout the block). You don't get the same level of sidewalk/street vibrancy from block to block off the main drag in Pittsburgh that you see in Brooklyn or Philly.
Flat land is just at such a premium in Pittsburgh that the side streets (and sidewalks) are narrow as goddamn hell. I guess there was just not enough room to lay out a street grid with normal-width side streets, and thus, you don't really get a
"network of intersecting commercial streets".
So, in the really dense areas, like Lawrenceville/Bloomfield and the South Side, there's REALLY long, dense commercial strips (Butler St, Penn Ave, Liberty Ave running through Lawrenceville/Bloomfield areas; E Carson St running through the South Side) which serve the very dense surrounding residential blocks.