Photogenic SEATTLE

[mtaylor444]

Photos taken from Queen Anne Hill, West Seattle, the Waterfront, Gasworks Park, and the Seattle Center.

[Chicago3rd]

Beautiful!

[fflint]

Great photos of a beautiful city

[downtownpdx]

You have a great eye! Nice shots, I really like the skyline with the grass in the foreground (Lake Washington?) Great set.

[Perklol]

Great work!

What is the name of the blueish-black tallest building?

[OhioGuy]

^^ That's the Columbia Center. Almost a supertall, but not quite.

Seattle is definitely a beautifully picturesque city!

[STLgasm]

Now that's a show-stopper.

[dc_denizen]

Gorgeous city, plus a lot of cranes!

[Ant131531]

OMG at that first picture...jesus...sometimes, I'm shocked Seattle's average density isn't over 10k.

Great pictures, but the first one was jaws dropping. May I ask what camera you use? Thanks!

[seaskyfan]

Great set. I really like the shots from Gas Works.

@DowntownPDX - that's Lake Union between the grass and the skyline.

[mello]

Is Seattle the most urbanized core outside of the NE cities, Chicago, and SF? I know LA has tons of midrise chunkiness in its "Historic Core" district but when you look at Seattle from a couple of angles it looks extremely developed and when you peer down there are many smaller buildings packed in amongst the talls.

This is kind of like a thread that showed off the same characteristics of Atlanta's core as well. So maybe ATL, Seattle and LA are in a similar league when it comes to their inner 5 square miles or so.

Here are the differences I see: LA has those few blocks of straight up street walls of 10 to 14 floor old ass buildings from 1915 through the 1930's that make that area of downtown seem very dense.

ATL: Has a very linear shape to its built up CBD due to a freeway running right along side of it and I'm not sure why it didn't spread out on the other side in a more circular manner, someone from there can answer that.

Seattle: Buildings are more oriented towards the waterfront because that is the only one of the 3 I'm discussing that has one. So building heights are kind of terraced up the hill from Puget Sound. Best mix of residential thrown in to the CBD, compared to the others.

[ColDayMan]

Wonderful photos!

[mhays]

Originally Posted by mello

Is Seattle the most urbanized core outside of the NE cities, Chicago, and SF? I know LA has tons of midrise chunkiness in its "Historic Core" district but when you look at Seattle from a couple of angles it looks extremely developed and when you peer down there are many smaller buildings packed in amongst the talls.

This is kind of like a thread that showed off the same characteristics of Atlanta's core as well. So maybe ATL, Seattle and LA are in a similar league when it comes to their inner 5 square miles or so.

Here are the differences I see: LA has those few blocks of straight up street walls of 10 to 14 floor old ass buildings from 1915 through the 1930's that make that area of downtown seem very dense.

ATL: Has a very linear shape to its built up CBD due to a freeway running right along side of it and I'm not sure why it didn't spread out on the other side in a more circular manner, someone from there can answer that.

Seattle: Buildings are more oriented towards the waterfront because that is the only one of the 3 I'm discussing that has one. So building heights are kind of terraced up the hill from Puget Sound. Best mix of residential thrown in to the CBD, compared to the others.

Based on the NYT population maps from 2010, LA had a lot of density, often in the 30,000-60,000/sm range on the downtown fringes (mostly west) but Atlanta had very little, topping out around 20,000/sm around Midtown but typically 1/2 or 1/3 of that. Seattle probably averages similarly to LA...around 20,000/sm in maybe three square miles in 2010, peaking a little over 50,000. I'm sure all of three are adding tons of housing right now.

That said we have tons of room to grow. Today is a huge boom (the photos show last year's version) but we'll need another boom or two to even approach the best cities.

[mello]

Originally Posted by mhays

Based on the NYT population maps from 2010, LA had a lot of density, often in the 30,000-60,000/sm range on the downtown fringes (mostly west) but Atlanta had very little, topping out around 20,000/sm around Midtown but typically 1/2 or 1/3 of that. Seattle probably averages similarly to LA...around 20,000/sm in maybe three square miles in 2010, peaking a little over 50,000. I'm sure all of three are adding tons of housing right now.

That said we have tons of room to grow. Today is a huge boom (the photos show last year's version) but we'll need another boom or two to even approach the best cities.

I'm not necessarily talking about population density but overall built density of how many square feet of building space is packed in to the core of Seattle, ATL, LA (Which are clearly a tier below Nor East, CHI, SF). Of course LA has large population densities due to tons of immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala being packed in to Westlake/McArthur park and living 8 or 10 people to every 2 bdr apartment.

I'm just talking about the actual downtown cores not the neighborhoods like just west of Downtown. I have been analyzing photos of these cities and I am trying to get some perspective from PWright because he has lived in both SEA and LA.

[pdxtex]

im glad kids are still skateboarding at gasworks. that lake union view is one of my favorites. i had no idea capitol hill was so dense too. 50k plus in some census tracts. awesome! i think my 14k tract is a big deal in portland

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by mello

Is Seattle the most urbanized core outside of the NE cities, Chicago, and SF? I know LA has tons of midrise chunkiness in its "Historic Core" district but when you look at Seattle from a couple of angles it looks extremely developed and when you peer down there are many smaller buildings packed in amongst the talls.

This is kind of like a thread that showed off the same characteristics of Atlanta's core as well. So maybe ATL, Seattle and LA are in a similar league when it comes to their inner 5 square miles or so.

Here are the differences I see: LA has those few blocks of straight up street walls of 10 to 14 floor old ass buildings from 1915 through the 1930's that make that area of downtown seem very dense.

ATL: Has a very linear shape to its built up CBD due to a freeway running right along side of it and I'm not sure why it didn't spread out on the other side in a more circular manner, someone from there can answer that.

Seattle: Buildings are more oriented towards the waterfront because that is the only one of the 3 I'm discussing that has one. So building heights are kind of terraced up the hill from Puget Sound. Best mix of residential thrown in to the CBD, compared to the others.

LA is more developed than Seattle in the inner 5 square miles, but Atlanta definitely isn't more developed than Seattle in it's core...Atlanta is still one of the more developed cores in the South, but not moreso than Seattle or LA.

LA > Seattle > Atlanta IMO, but Seattle probably has the most walkable core and best downtown of those 3.

[mello]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

LA is more developed than Seattle in the inner 5 square miles, but Atlanta definitely isn't more developed than Seattle in it's core...Atlanta is still one of the more developed cores in the South, but not moreso than Seattle or LA.

LA > Seattle > Atlanta IMO, but Seattle probably has the most walkable core and best downtown of those 3.

Did you see the thread about 2 months ago max that showcased a lot of shots showing how built up Atlanta is? That really changed my perspective and got me wondering where it and a place like Seattle rank when it comes to US cities. I can't think of another place that would come before Atlanta after SEA, not Minneapolis, or Texas cities....

[pallo]

Originally Posted by mtaylor444

Photos taken from Queen Anne Hill, West Seattle, the Waterfront, Gasworks Park, and the Seattle Center.

I took a photo from here too when I went in December 2009, but the weather was awful unfortunately

[mhays]

Originally Posted by mello

Did you see the thread about 2 months ago max that showcased a lot of shots showing how built up Atlanta is? That really changed my perspective and got me wondering where it and a place like Seattle rank when it comes to US cities. I can't think of another place that would come before Atlanta after SEA, not Minneapolis, or Texas cities....

That was a "PR" thread designed to make things look good, not an accurate overview. Of course that's common on SSP...I might do the same. Looking at bing/google maps the urbanism of those areas was pretty skimpy and scattered. It also involved a lot of above-grade parking garages that reduce the usable square footage vs. what's the massing suggests.

Compared to the Texas cities, sure. Minneapolis might be denser than Atlanta in its core, and it's a large difference if you look at the city average. Minneapolis doesn't have the long skyline and its core residential density is about 10,000/sm, with the same problem Atlanta has regarding lots of above-grade parking that reduces density. Denver was similar in residential density and has a pretty cohesive office district.

[mtaylor444]

@ Ant131531 - I use a Nikon D5100

Interesting discussion comparing Seattle with similar cities. Decided to check out this site's data on it's total number of indexed highrises, lowrises, and towers for these cities (either built or under construction) and the total square miles of land for each city.

Of course this does not tell us much about density within the downtown core, since these numbers are for anything within city limits, but here are the totals, with Seattle falling below Atlanta (but with far less land area) and above Denver and Minneapolis.

Atlanta - 309, 131 sq miles
Seattle - 255, 83 sq miles
Denver - 245, 153 sq miles
Minneapolis - 205, 54 sq miles

Would be interesting to see the data broken down to the downtown core level.