why is LA's skyline not as large as NYC's or Chicago's?

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

well ive always wondered why LA does not have nearly as many buildings as NY or Chicago?do waterways at geography play a part?can anyone answer this for me?and will LA ever come close to its sister cities kind of development in terms of skyscrapers and skyline growth?


MODERATOR EDIT - UNSOURCED IMAGE REMOVED

[plinko]

This is going to be extremely ugly...

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

This is going to be extremely ugly...

srry i guess i just like to start wars :D

[vid]

I'm pretty sure Los Angeles is larger than Chicago...

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

I'm pretty sure Los Angeles is larger than Chicago...

im talking in terms of skyscrapers and skyline not land area

[dktshb]

It is just a different city I wouldn't say geography or proximity to water really has anything to do with it as all 3 metros sprawl beyond their cores in a similar fashion. LA like NY and Chicago all have dense census tracts. LA just isn't and never will be a massive skyscraper city. In fact prior to the early 80's there really were no skyscrapers in Los Angeles.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

It is just a different city I wouldn't say geography or proximity to water really has anything to do with it as all 3 metros sprawl beyond their cores in a similar fashion. LA like NY and Chicago all have dense census tracts. LA just isn't and never will be a massive skyscraper city.

though doesnt LA have one of the highest city populations in the U.S.?

[Crawford]

LA is nearly twice the size of Chicago. It's huge.

Why does it have fewer skyscrapers than other major cities? It has a smaller downtown, because it's much more multinodal. Multinodal cities, especially in the U.S., tend to have fewer skyscrapers.

But LA certainly doesn't lack building height. It has one of the largest collections of tall buildings in the U.S.

But I would never think that skyscrapers have much to do with a city's size. Even small Brazilian cities have tons and tons of skyscrapers, while some of the world's greatest cities (London, Paris, Rome, many others) have relatively few.

[JDRCRASH]

Going along with what Crawford wrote, part of it has to do with it's huge lack of a widespread rail transit network.

[mhays]

I hear that LA's parking requirements are pretty heavy too. If a lot of parking is required, the economics of going tall become much, much tougher. (Even if almost completely ignored in SSP discussions)

[JDRCRASH]

Yeah, something needs to change on that, mhays. I'm sick of seeing floor after floor after floor dedicated to parking. But this needs to happen as the transit network grows.

[Steely Dan]

the short answer:

New York and Chicago are probably the two most intensely centralized major metros in the nation. LA is the most thoroughly decentralized major metro in the nation.

[plinko]

Not to mention it's in a seismic zone 4 (without the geographical restrictions of San Francisco).

But Crawford touched on something. I once did a thread of the height of the 40th tallest building in cities. LA does suprisingly well.

[Crawford]

Isn't LA #3 or #4 in the U.S. in 500+ foot highrises? It's definitely no slouch.

Think of it this way: LA has far more 500+ foot highrises than London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Barcelona combined.

But I would have a much broader definition of highrise. Maybe not quite as inclusive as Emporis, but to me, a 20-floor building is a highrise.

[Mr Downtown]

It's not a one-word answer, unless the word is history.

Los Angeles was not a 19th-century port like New York or San Francisco, nor an early 20th-century railroad & industrial center like Chicago. Before the Second World War, it was a secondary financial, industrial, agricultural market, and moviemaking city. You'll notice that only one of those economic sectors really makes use of tall buildings. In addition, seismic concerns limited the height of buildings in LA until the 1960s. Abundant land and the salutary climate encouraged early citybuilders to deliberately create a city of single-family homes and backyard gardens, free of tenement houses. The same factors made it an early center of automobility.

The history of the region as an archipelago of small factory and fruitpacking towns tied together by interurban railway lines gave rise to a vision of the polycentric city, a vision that could be fulfilled by a visionary freeway plan and widespread prosperity. So by the time LA became a major financial center, overtaking San Francisco, the buildings were spread among several secondary centers, from Warner Center to Century City to LAX, rather than concentrated near a couple of commuter train stations or ferry terminals.

[Policy Wonk]

I have a one word answer: insurance

The high cost of earth quake insurance on commercial properties has seen old towers demolished and discouraged building new ones.

[SpongeG]

maybe the business there? they don't require the office space

[DaveofCali]

L.A. especially has one of the largest collections of office highrise buildings in the United States.

Just look at the proportion of office and residential highrise buildings in NYC and Chicago vs in L.A. Chicago and NYC have at least more residential highrise buildings than office highrise buildings, and L.A. has mostly office highrise buildings, with only three skylines (out of more than 30 in the metro) composed mostly of residential highrise buildings (plus a significant concentration in the city of Long Beach.)

L.A. has a low proportion of residential highrise buildings in part due to L.A.'s preference for suburban housing historically, though in the last decade urban highrise living has become more popular.

[TonyAnderson]

It seems pretty obvious. LA developed more around the time of the automobile, so it never had to condense itself the way NYC and Chicago did.

Next question.

[DaveofCali]

And yes, L.A. metro is the most decentralized metro area in the U.S. L.A. makes Houston look centralized (where Houston's three major satellite skylines are only within a few miles from downtown Houston) and makes Atlanta look centralized (along with Downtown and Midtown, has three major satellite skylines (Buckhead, Sandy Springs, and Cumberland) and not much more.

L.A.'s satellite / suburban highrise business districts:


WILSHIRE / WEST OF DOWNTOWN

Century City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_city)
Wilshire Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilshire_Center)
Miracle Mile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mile,_Los_Angeles,_California)
Westwood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westwood,_Los_Angeles)
Hollywood
Brentwood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brentwood,_Los_Angeles)
Beverly Hills
Olympic Corridor
mini: Santa Monica downtown
mini: West Hollywood
mini: Westwood Gateway


SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

Glendale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendale,_ca)
Warner Center (Woodland Hills) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Center)
Burbank Media City
Ventura boulevard (Sherman Oaks / Encino)


SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Pasadena


SOUTH BAY / LONG BEACH

Long Beach
El Segundo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Segundo,_California)
Airport Area / Century blvd


ORANGE COUNTY:

North Irvine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California)
South Coast Metro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Coast_Metro)
Newport Beach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Beach)
mini: South Irvine
mini: Santa Ana


INLAND EMPIRE:

mini: Riverside

[bobdreamz]

Isn't LA #3 or #4 in the U.S. in 500+ foot highrises? It's definitely no slouch.

Think of it this way: LA has far more 500+ foot highrises than London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Barcelona combined.

But I would have a much broader definition of highrise. Maybe not quite as inclusive as Emporis, but to me, a 20-floor building is a highrise.

I think it's 5th after New York, Chicago, Houston & Miami. LA has 22 buildings over 500ft./ 152 meters and built only one building over 500 ft. in the last decade which is the LA Live tower.

[RAlossi]

High-rise constructions becomes much more expensive the higher you go. LA has enough land that five- to ten-story buildings spread over a larger area seems to work. I'm fine with LA being mid-rise. I'd rather have five mid-rises than one high-rise tower. Plus, our Downtown skyline with Wilshire, Century City, Westwood and Brentwood aren't exactly tiny.

Anyway, what's with all the insecurity about needing a lot of high-rise buildings anyway? If the sheer number of 500ft-plus buildings was the measure of a city's greatness, most major European cities would qualify as nothing more than remote cow towns in some of these people's opinions. Of course, I see the irony of my statement since this is called "skyscaper"page, after all.

[Quixote]

Tall buildings are overrated. Nice, but overrated.

[DJM19]

The reason it isn't so tall is because it built outward relatively quickly.

There is a lot of density, even between its various business centers.

And its not all automobiles that made LA vast. The old red cars and yellow cars (rail systems) where very vast and thorough in their coverage of Los Angeles (at one point the largest rail system in the nation), and this was for a city not as important as New York or Chicago or elsewhere by an order of magnitude at the time. Those systems were supported by selling real estate along side them.

Also, Downtown is pretty far from the ocean, so building up the area between downtown and the port to the south, and Santa Monica to the west is inevitable. And LA annexed the San Fernando Valley so it could reach the aqueduct, that too is inevitable lebensraum.

Its unfortunate that the SF valley didn't have its agriculture industry more preserved. Could have been nice.

[Quixote]

Can we just shut this thread down before it gets too out of hand. Haven't we learned anything by now? Nothing good can come out of contrasting LA with NYC and Chicago.

[sopas ej]

Los Angeles doesn't have a lot of "skyscrapers" because from 1904 to 1957, LA had a 150-foot height limit on all buildings, which is about 13 stories; exceptions of course were government buildings, like the current City Hall (which had to be put to a vote, there were actually many Angelenos who didn't want a tall city hall) which rises 28 stories (built to provide a synecdochic landmark that LA otherwise lacked at the time-- and LA kind of still does lack such a landmark); the old Hall of Justice building which is 14 or 15 stories; and the old County Hospital which is about 14 or 15 stories, I think.

Contrary to what many people believe, LA imposed a height limit, NOT because of the fear of earthquakes, but because of aesthetic reasons; in the early 20th Century, during the start of the "City Beautiful" movement that was sweeping the nation at the time, LA city leaders didn't want a high-rise city that cast dark shadows on the streets (which in their minds hearkened to the crowded, east coast slum-ridden cities); they wanted LA to be a "garden city" with detached homes and bungalows, courtyard apartments, and low-rises; there were to be no dark shadow-ridden slums in Los Angeles.

You have to remember that even San Francisco built a number of 20-30 story buildings in the 1920s and 1930s, so earthquakes weren't a factor for buildings that height.

If you look at these early 20th Century, height-limit buildings in downtown LA, you can see that what the buildings lacked in height, they made up for it with mass; many of these buildings are actually very massive and squat.

The height limit was abolished in 1957-- by which time, LA's population had already surpassed the 2 million mark. And, even though LA was already the largest city on the west coast by the 1920 census, LA was still seen as a cultural backwater, with San Francisco being considered the premiere, cosmopolitan city of the west coast. By the 1950s, with its relative lack of "culture" like art museums and performing arts centers, LA city leaders started having ambitious plans for LA, with plans for such cultural amenities and becoming the premiere port of the Pacific rim (all of which would come to fruition in the following decades); they also started seeing the height-limit buildings of downtown as being anachronistic, so, in addition to all of those goals, it was thought that LA should also have a downtown well-defined by skyscrapers (and hence being more in line with other American large cities), even though, by the 1950s, downtown had long lost its place as the focal point of LA, which had started to decentralize in the 1920s.

In the 1980s, there were actually plans for many skyscrapers to be built downtown, but many never got built because of the real estate slowdown and recession of the late 1980s/early 1990s. And of course those were all going to be office buildings; I don't recall any plans for highrise housing in downtown LA back then. The ones that did get built during this period contributed to the glut of vacant office space downtown in the 1990s.

Until fairly recently, there really was no reason to build really tall buildings in LA, apart from developer ego. But now that LA has really become built out, the only way is up.

[bobdreamz]

Can we just shut this thread down before it gets too out of hand. Haven't we learned anything by now? Nothing good can come out of contrasting LA with NYC and Chicago.

Why Westside? The original poster asked a legitimate question and so far it hasn't descended into a flame war.Some people may not know the history of how LA developed.

[J. Will]

Why does "SkyscraperOfNewYork" keep starting threads in "City Discussions" that belong in one of the regional forums. How many is that over the last two weeks alone?

[M II A II R II K]

Los Angeles doesn't have a lot of "skyscrapers" because from 1904 to 1957, LA had a 150-foot height limit on all buildings, which is about 13 stories; exceptions of course were government buildings, like the current City Hall (which had to be put to a vote, there were actually many Angelenos who didn't want a tall city hall) which rises 28 stories (built to provide a synecdochic landmark that LA otherwise lacked at the time-- and LA kind of still does lack such a landmark); the old Hall of Justice building which is 14 or 15 stories; and the old County Hospital which is about 14 or 15 stories, I think.


Then why not have more street density like Paris with European midrise streetscapes.

[10023]

New York and Chicago are older.


/thread



Also, do not feed the trolls.

[Vangelist]

New York and Chicago are older.

/thread

Also, do not feed the trolls.


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand scene.

We need to answer these overfamiliar questions in a FAQ

[Minato Ku]

Isn't LA #3 or #4 in the U.S. in 500+ foot highrises? It's definitely no slouch.

Think of it this way: LA has far more 500+ foot highrises than London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Barcelona combined.

But I would have a much broader definition of highrise. Maybe not quite as inclusive as Emporis, but to me, a 20-floor building is a highrise.

Paris : 14
London : 12
Barcelona : 2
Berlin : 0
Rome : 0

Total : 28

I think it's 5th after New York, Chicago, Houston & Miami. LA has 22 buildings over 500ft./ 152 meters and built only one building over 500 ft. in the last decade which is the LA Live tower.

[Crawford]

Paris : 14
London : 12
Barcelona : 2
Berlin : 0
Rome : 0

Total : 28

Well, I was thinking city limits, not metropolitan area skyscraper counts.

If you take only city limits for these five cities, there are only 15 500+ buildings, which is fewer than in LA city limits.

[vid]

Well, I was thinking city limits, not metropolitan area

Dude, when does anyone here who is serious about debates "think city limits, not metropolitan area"? How many times have we gotten into the argument about how worthless the former is for statistical comparisons?

[Crawford]

Dude, when does anyone here who is serious about debates "think city limits, not metropolitan area"? How many times have we gotten into the argument about how worthless the former is for statistical comparisons?

I have no problem with metropolitan area comparisons; however I do have a problem with apples-to-oranges comparisons. IMO you are attempting to compare a city with a metro.

Clearly the thread is about the City of LA compared to NYC and Chicago. If the thread were about metro areas, then the thread is pointless, as the differences between the cities under discussion are no longer relevant.

[M II A II R II K]

Constricted islands always has an advantage to become dense and build up like Manhattan and Vancouver. Both Chicago and L.A. have a coastline but L.A. does have an extra natural barrier with the mountains to the east.

[Steely Dan]

If you take only city limits for these five cities, there are only 15 500+ buildings, which is fewer than in LA city limits.

according to the diagrams database on this website, your figures for city proper only seem to be off.

500+ footers:

london: 9 + 5 U/C
paris: 11 + 1 U/C
barcelona: 2
berlin: 0
rome: 0

total: 22 + 6 U/C



LA: 22 + 0 U/C

[JDRCRASH]

Mark makes an interesting point. Alot of high-rise cities like NYC, Chicago, Hong Kong, etc, all have "barriers" close to their central cores. LA does have barriers, and will contiue to get more, but those are way out in the suburbs.

Still, more people around the world probably want to come here (LA Metro) than anywhere else in America, other than New York.

[JDRCRASH]

As far as how much tall skyscrapers (+30 floors) impact the importance of a city, I think it affects modern cities GREATLY because it may be viewed as a sign of prosperity. But for some reason, that doesn't apply in older cities like London, Paris, Tokyo.

[vid]

I have no problem with metropolitan area comparisons; however I do have a problem with apples-to-oranges comparisons. IMO you are attempting to compare a city with a metro.

Clearly the thread is about the City of LA compared to NYC and Chicago. If the thread were about metro areas, then the thread is pointless, as the differences between the cities under discussion are no longer relevant.

You really think someone dumb enough to ask the question of this thread would be smart enough to exclude all of the mini-skylines in LA's suburbs? I don't think LA proper to Paris proper is a very fair comparison either, to be honest.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

You really think someone dumb enough to ask the question of this thread would be smart enough to exclude all of the mini-skylines in LA's suburbs? I don't think LA proper to Paris proper is a very fair comparison either, to be honest.

its was just an honest question,you dont have to post and please dont post if your going to insult me over a simple question.

[Crawford]

according to the diagrams database on this website, your figures for city proper only seem to be off.

500+ footers:

london: 9 + 5 U/C
paris: 11 + 1 U/C
barcelona: 2
berlin: 0
rome: 0

total: 22 + 6 U/C

LA: 22 + 0 U/C

Then the city diagram is wrong.

Paris has only 1 500+ foot building- Tour Montparnasse.

All the others are in La Defense, which is a suburban district covering three or four jurisdictions.

Now if La Defense is counted for Paris, that is totally fine, BUT then the diagram should be covering metros, IMO.

[uaarkson]

You really think someone dumb enough to ask the question of this thread would be smart enough to exclude all of the mini-skylines in LA's suburbs? I don't think LA proper to Paris proper is a very fair comparison either, to be honest.

What is the point of making comments like this? How can you complain about the contributions posters make to this forum when all you add is venom?

[Steely Dan]

@ crawford: i don't know the first thing about the various municipal divisions within paris, i was only going by what the diagram database on this website returns when you type in the word "paris".

[Crawford]

Paris has height limits and a very tough regulatory environment. Tour Montparnasse was the one 500+ tower built in Paris.

It was so controversial that the city basically ended major highrise construction.

There are some highrise districts in Paris, but mostly residentials, and mostly outer neighborhoods.

The 500+ office buildings referenced in the diagram are in Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux, which are suburbs.

[Chico Loco]

LA is nearly twice the size of Chicago. It's huge.


It's not nearly twice the population of Chicago.

Los Angeles: 4,000,000 (approx.)
Chicago: 3,000,000 (approx)

[uaarkson]

It's not nearly twice the population of Chicago.

Los Angeles: 4,000,000 (approx.)
Chicago: 3,000,000 (approx)

Metro populations, dude. That said, it is not twice the size of Chicago.

Chicago: 9 million
LA: 15 million

[Chico Loco]

Metro populations, dude. That said, it is not twice the size of Chicago.

Chicago: 9 million
LA: 15 million

As Crawford said:

"Clearly the thread is about the City of LA compared to NYC and Chicago. If the thread were about metro areas, then the thread is pointless, as the differences between the cities under discussion are no longer relevant."

[pj3000]

Please stop dumbing down this forum with these inane questions.

[Cirrus]

It seems pretty obvious. LA developed more around the time of the automobileObvious, but wrong. LA developed around streetcars.

"Clearly the thread is about the City of LA compared to NYC and Chicago. If the thread were about metro areas, then the thread is pointless, as the differences between the cities under discussion are no longer relevant."Hardly. The fact that so many of LA's employement centers are in edge cities outside the city limits of LA is of extreme importance to this topic.

If Chicago had 30 Evanston's floating around, downtown Chicago would be much smaller.

[10023]

If Chicago had 30 Evanston's floating around, downtown Chicago would be much smaller.

There are probably a few dozen suburbs around Chicago with more shopping and office space than Evanston.

Evanston has a nice, compact downtown, but places like Schaumburg, Oak Brook, Hoffman Estates, Arlington Heights, Downers Grove, Naperville, etc. draw a lot more business activity away from downtown Chicago.

Not to be snide, but I already answered the question. New York and Chicago have more dense central areas and tall buildings because they're older. They were major cities before the automobile, and LA was not. In the U.S., that's really all it takes.

[Steely Dan]

There are probably a few dozen suburbs around Chicago with more shopping and office space than Evanston.


a few dozen?

no.

and there is no node anywhere in suburban chicago that comes anywhere close to rivaling evanston in office space and shopping integrated in a traditionally urban form. shit holes like schaumburg and oak brook may have more office space and shopping, but it's all in craptacular malls and office parks, zippity-fucking-doo-dah......



sorry to derail the thread, but that statement was factually incorrect, and i have a severe intolerance for letting factually incorrect information about evanston slide. ;)

[SouthmoreAve]

And yes, L.A. metro is the most decentralized metro area in the U.S. L.A. makes Houston look centralized (where Houston's three major satellite skylines are only within a few miles from downtown Houston) and makes Atlanta look centralized (along with Downtown and Midtown, has three major satellite skylines (Buckhead, Sandy Springs, and Cumberland) and not much more.


LA makes Houston look more centralized, but Houston has multiple highrise districts. Of course, LA has considerably more, but Houston has way more than 3 business centers.

Outside of the 3 main skylines: Downtown, Uptown, and the Texas Medical Center, there's still:

Greenway Plaza
Greenspoint
Westchase
The Energy Corridor
Museum District/Hermann Park
Upper Kirby/River Oaks
Allen Parkway
The Woodlands*
Galveston*

Note on the actual thread, why is any city not as large as New York or Chicago.

[Minato Ku]

Hardly. The fact that so many of LA's employement centers are in edge cities outside the city limits of LA is of extreme importance to this topic.
If Chicago had 30 Evanston's floating around, downtown Chicago would be much smaller.

True.
In 2006 half of Chicago office space was located in the downtown.

[Crawford]

As Crawford said:

"Clearly the thread is about the City of LA compared to NYC and Chicago. If the thread were about metro areas, then the thread is pointless, as the differences between the cities under discussion are no longer relevant."

I was referring to skyscrapers, not relative references to city sizes.

LA has about 18 million in its CSA, and Chicago has about 10 million, so is nearly twice the size.

[MolsonExport]

title refers to size; topic to # skyscrapers. Please change one or the other.

Oh and the answer? Crack open a history book or 10. Why should others have to do it for you?

[Cirrus]

Not to be snide, but I already answered the question. New York and Chicago have more dense central areas and tall buildings because they're older. They were major cities before the automobile, and LA was not. In the U.S., that's really all it takes.Not to be snide, but you are incorrect. LA became a major city during the streetcar era, and its built form reflects that. The difference between streetcar cities and true automobile cities is every bit as significant as the difference between streetcar cities and walking cities.

Additionally, your answer does not explain why development in downtown Chicago has so overpaced development in downtown Los Angeles during the car era. If cars were the only explanation, downtown Chicago should have ceased developing decades ago.

[JDRCRASH]

I think a lot of LA's building pattern also has to do with the fact that San Bernardino and Santa Ana haven't really evolved yet into major urban cores of their own, causing more people from the IE and OC to commute to LA County, and ultimately the city of LA.

[Steely Dan]

title refers to size; topic to # skyscrapers. Please change one or the other.


good point. i've now edited the title to reflect the true intention of the thread topic.

[10023]

and there is no node anywhere in suburban chicago that comes anywhere close to rivaling evanston in office space and shopping integrated in a traditionally urban form. shit holes like schaumburg and oak brook may have more office space and shopping, but it's all in craptacular malls and office parks, zippity-fucking-doo-dah......
I never said anything about urban form. In fact I specifically called out Evanston's compact downtown.

But those other, craptacular sprawl suburbs and edge cities to the northwest and west have a bigger impact in terms of limiting the amount of office space in downtown Chicago. Corporations haven't left the city for Evanston in recent decades, they've left for places like Oak Brook, Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Arlington Heights, Naperville, Northbrook, etc. Whether it's an office tower or a sprawling corporate campus along the expressway, a million square feet of office space that isn't downtown is a million square feet of office space that isn't downtown.


Additionally, your answer does not explain why development in downtown Chicago has so overpaced development in downtown Los Angeles during the car era. If cars were the only explanation, downtown Chicago should have ceased developing decades ago.
This doesn't need to be explained. Why hasn't Paris or London ceased developing? Once an urban core exists with a certain critical mass, there are lots of reasons for this to continue. Some smaller cities were this way and have since abandoned their cores (Detroit, St. Louis, etc). But there is not a single example, to my knowledge, of an American city that did not reach significant scale prior to the 1930s that has since developed this way. The reason New York and Chicago are the way they are is still due to this historical legacy.

Streetcar or automobile, LA didn't pass 1 million people until the late 1920s. Post-WWII, it was half its present size (and the metro was smaller than that on a relative basis vs. today). On the other hand, Chicago's city population is lower today than at the end of WWII and New York's has only grown marginally. LA "grew up" in the age of the automobile, New York and Chicago grew up before it, and that makes all the difference.

[Steely Dan]

I never said anything about urban form.
i know that. i was just challenging you on your statement of "a few dozen". if you really do think there are a few dozen chicagoland suburbs that exceed evanston in office space and shopping, i'd be very curious to see that list.

after challenging you on that, i then proceeded to laud evanston for its wonderful urbanism while ripping apart other suburban chicago office/shopping concentrations for their overall suckiness.

[10023]

i know that. i was just challenging you on your statement of "a few dozen". if you really do think there are a few dozen chicagoland suburbs that exceed evanston in office space and shopping, i'd be very curious to see that list.

after challenging you on that, i then proceeded to laud evanston for its wonderful urbanism while ripping apart other suburban chicago office/shopping concentrations for their overall suckiness.

Fine, perhaps "a few dozen" was an exaggeration. But according to Cushman Wakefield, there are 94 million square feet of (Class A?) office space in Chicago's suburbs, of which 5.6 million (~6%) are in the "Near North" submarket of which Evanston is a part.

http://www.cushwake.com/cwmbs1q10/PDF/off_chicagosub_1q10.pdf

My point was that Evanston certainly isn't close to the sole suburban commercial center in the Chicago area.

[Cirrus]

This doesn't need to be explained... there is not a single example, to my knowledge, of an American city that did not reach significant scale prior to the 1930s that has since developed this way.Of course it needs to be explained. Your own "critical mass" explanation may well be a valid one, but it is still required, and even assuming it is true it adds a second variable to your own explanation. By your own admission, it is not merely cars that makes the difference, but cars + the attainment or non-attainment of a certain critical mass that is capable of overcoming the inertia of car-oriented development.

If cars were the only variable, then Chicago indeed would have to have stopped developing. The fact that it hasn't means something else is at play. Chicago's pre-car critical mass may be the explanation, but it is a crucial part of the explanation and cannot be left out.

Assuming your critical mass explanation is correct, the answer to the question is not "LA was built in the post car-era", but is rather "not enough of LA was built prior to the car era". It may not sound like it, but those are rather dramatically different explanations.

[Steely Dan]

My point was that Evanston certainly isn't close to the sole suburban commercial center in the Chicago area.

that's all true, evanston is certainly not the only significant commercial center in suburban chicago (hell, in terms of office space, it's not even a major center), but in the context of this conversation regarding the built forms of LA vs. chicago and NYC, evanston is probably the only thing in suburban chicagoland that even comes close to approximating the the various commercial nodes found around metropolitan LA that cirrus was originally referencing. LA does commercial nodes all over the place, chicagoland does not. yeah there's a shit ton of office space out in the burbs, but with the exception of evanston, it's predominantly found in shitty-ass corporate office parks strung out along the expressway corridors (I-88, I-294, etc.) or in ugly midrise office towers surrounded by oceans of surface parking along the perimeter of some regional shopping mall (schaumburg, oak brook, etc.). chicagoland is not multi-nodal in the way that LA is because in chicagoland you have downtown and then a bunch of suburban crap (evanston excepted). in LA you actually have real-deal commercial nodes sprinkled throughout the metropolitan area. it's a radically different arrangement.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Given that land is quite expensive in LA to acquire, and as a developer, you need more concrete and $teel to build under $tricter $eismic $tandards, as well as an antiquated parking MINIMUM which requires expensive parking structures, new high rises are much harder to pencil out in LA. It's also why you see many parking podiums in our high-rises because it is STILL less expensive to build a parking structure above ground than to dig below.

Plus, our fledgling downtown is barely, barely hitting the cusp of becoming a true community with amenities that people expect on a daily basis, making Downtown LA a more attractive option for people looking for housing. I mean, we have our issues relating to the larger than average homeless population in Downtown LA's skid row, and a low-end swap meet on our city's most beautiful street (Broadway) that prevent a lot of national retailers from wanting to plant roots in Downtown LA.

So until we have true, walkable, urban communities that warrant more high-rise construction, those ubiquitous SFRs are VERY, VERY enticing to 90% of the people out there in LA.

Downtown LA, Hollywood, Koreatown, etc. are on the right track creating safer streets, planting more trees, building more parks, and adding more restaurants and amenities that will make them more attractive to home buyers that fuel the demand for developers to continue building. We have to continue making these areas truly walkable and comfortable for people until we can be on an equal playing field with SFRs.

[Tom In Chicago]

srry i guess i just like to start wars :D

Are you actually asking to be disciplined? We do have a no-troll policy here at SSP. . . we'd be more than happy to have you banned if you're blatantly proposing to start these types of threads. . . if not, please refrain from doing so in the future. . . thanks in advance. . .

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[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

title refers to size; topic to # skyscrapers. Please change one or the other.

Oh and the answer? Crack open a history book or 10. Why should others have to do it for you?

thanks buddy your input was the most valuable on this thread so far.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

Are you actually asking to be disciplined? We do have a no-troll policy here at SSP. . . we'd be more than happy to have you banned if you're blatantly proposing to start these types of threads. . . if not, please refrain from doing so in the future. . . thanks in advance. . .

. . .

i was joking it was meant as sarcasm in response to another posters statement. and theres no reason to ban me i asked a legitimate question which i was expecting to get a logical and well explained answer to. i have no intent to start conflict,its a simple question and answer thread...

[Tom In Chicago]

i was joking it was meant as sarcasm in response to another posters statement. and theres no reason to ban me i asked a legitimate question which i was expecting to get a logical and well explained answer to. i have no intent to start conflict,its a simple question and answer thread...

Sorry. . . not buying it. . . closing this silly thread. . . not sure why it's gone on for 4 pages without someone shutting it down already. . . city vs. city threads are also not allowed on the forums and that's exactly what this thread - as veiled as you might think - is. . .

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