Urbanism In North America: Sadly, F Tier Is Insufficiently Bad
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- Опубліковано 22 лис 2024
- Why merely rank the urbanism of North American cities when you can organize them into arbitrarily stratified tiers? Yeah, that's what I did -- so prepare for the worst!
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How would New Orleans and Pittsburgh fare?
As a lifelong Chicago resident I totally agree with agree with your placement. There's too much car centric, suburban style development in the city for it to be any higher. and the things that make Chicago great like the public transit and parks are very underfunded and undervalued by the local government so that's great.
Charlotte is CLT not CHA =/
Detroit's so bad you have it in there twice! The Denver picture was actually Detroit. Great list! Love your channel
Lumping the Sunbelt into its own tier below "F" was spot on.
Letting Atlanta be slightly better in F tier also feels spot on
@@rashidkhwaja959 agreed. I was a little confused about Charlotte being tossed in with the other sun belt cities because it really wants to be Atlanta and feels like it. But that ranking is sensible for sure
I had to pause the video for a whole minute after that one to breathe 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That actually made me laugh out loud
In gaming nomenclature:
Sun belt cities are specced into an automobile build that is weak against traffic and not competitive with bus and train builds used by other cities on the server.
Now that you've surpassed stadium capacity in subscriber count, you should start working from small cities upwards as a metric.
Haha yes awesome idea!
+
That's a good idea, actually, given the theme of this channel.
Or cars per day for a highway interchange
Gotta say, I'm really missing the sub count visits.
"S class" means "special class" and it comes from japanese media, the idea being that A is doing everything right, but S is uniquely amazing. The difference between getting a high score and the top score, if you will.
The S also means "spezial/special" or "super" with the Mercedes Benz S-Class since 1949.
Mercedes S-Class = Sonderklasse
It actually also appears in school systems, among them the Indian and (unsurprisingly) the Japanese one (AA and the like also come from that). Which is of course where Japanese games got it from. Which is where tier lists got it from. Which is where it's now creeping into urbanism.
So if some city planner one day talks about S-tier bike infrastructure we know whose fault it is ...
Yes, it's a tier above A and it comes from Japanese culture which was then popularized through Japanese video games. As an example, in Devil May Cry, S tier is the highest rank for both combos and a score for a level. However, it is not exclusive to video games, just the way you are most likely to experience this.
There is also a triple SSS ranking in gaming.
Examples of SSS cities: London, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
I live in Dallas- aka urbanist hell. Fun fact: Arlington, which is nestled between Dallas and Fort Worth, is the largest city in the world with ZERO public transportation. Zero. 400,000 people, and not even a single bus. People here wonder why traffic is so bad and then shit on the very limited light rail network in the same breath. If you want to live a decent life, DO NOT MOVE HERE
From what I've seen Arlingtonians are weirdly proud of that fact. Also, it makes quite the distinction between Arlington, Texas, and its namesake in Virginia.
S comes from the Japanese grading system, which uses the same A, B, C, D, and F as the US, but adds an "S" for *impressively* good work beyond what the teacher expects from the assignment and is thus rarely given. It appeared in a lot of games with scoring systems that rate your performance in a given level, and was kinda "sold" to the US market (so they wouldn't have to adjust the rating system in localization) as a "secret" rating that wouldn't be mentioned in the manual but if you're good enough at the game you just might discover and tell all your friends about.
That’s really interesting actually
Today I learned
Ace Combat and Naval Ops Warship Gunner are both Japanese games and have that same rating system. Very Cool.
First time I saw S tier was in the WCW wrestling games made by Aki for N64. I always thought it was Super tier, lol
Yeah no. This is complete BS. S is only a thing in video games. Most Japanese schools don't even use the alphabet grading system.
If the number of Cheesecake Factories per capita is not a part of the decisionmaking, we riot.
I like Cheesecake Factory. Always makes me a little sad that people use it as a go to for restaurants to make fun of, lol
Canadian cities in shambles
just invert the tiers and there's your answer
@@lematindesmagiciens8764 i have 2 chocolate shops on my strip. And no cheesecakeFactory in my region
I think you mean "fine dining establishments"
As a lifelong New Yorker, you're making me cry. As a retired transit worker, I'm forced to move out of town due to rents being so frigging high. If I had my way, I'd stay till I die and have my remains spread at Yankee Stadium.
Fellow NYer here, I wouldn't leave NYC no matter how high the rents get, it is just the greatest life.
Trust me u would prefer your NYC salary over an lower cost of living area salary
@@trapmuzik6708 Unfortunately they are retired so no more NYC salary
@@trapmuzik6708 You better believe it, when you take your family to Disney or anywhere for that matter, its the same price no matter where you live in the country. So making six figures plus comes in mighty handily.
it's sad that the people who helped build NYC into the city it is today are being forced out
As a Vancouverite, thank you for putting our city in it’s proper place. Vancouver’s urbanism is WAY over-hyped. People look at downtown, where a studio apartment can easily run you $2.5-3k a month, and think that Vancouver is some kind of walking/biking paradise. Most who live down there are all so rich that they have cars too, and they use them to go anywhere outside of downtown. Downtown even has a handful of car-af streets that are essentially mini-highways, funnelling cars in and out.
Just one look at the sad excuses for density around the majority of skytrain stations is all you need to see. Nanaimo station, a fifteen minute ride from the heart of downtown, is almost entirely surrounded by single family houses with lawns. Pathetic.
As a Vancouverite as well, totally agree. For our size we definitely punch above our weight class, but at the same time we have some serious work to do to go up to A or S, particularly outside of downtown, which in turn would improve affordability. B tier is a good take.
I in Surrey, and we’re getting some good density around KG, tho prices are not reasonable. $2000 for a 2Bd1Bath is crazy
It's easy to overhype it when most other cities in BC are absolutely awful. Looking at you, Kelowna.
I'd argue that the bike network outside of downtown/False Creek/Broadway corridor is better than B-tier, but there are definitely large swathes of the city proper that are still low-density suburbs with all the degraded walkability that comes along with it.
And the lack of density at all the East Van Skytrain stations after almost forty years is criminal. If all those areas had moderately densified we would not be stuck in this 40-story-highrise-or-bust malaise we're in now.
There are almost enough terrible land uses directly adjacent to sky train stations to make a top 10 list. I'm thinking things like car dealerships, gas stations, surface parking lots, and auto repair shops.
As a Mexico City native I’ve always appreciated your analysis including us. Sometimes you feel disheartened at the direction the city is going (the absolute disaster the airport situation has become, the recent incidents on the subway network), but then you remember that there are things done right, like the Cablebus and the ongoing restoration of long forgotten sections of Chapultepec Park. It’s not all black or white.
just took 2 mexibus from aifa to ciudad azteca to take the b line... tbh if I don't have too much luggage it's not as bad as people say. when suburbano is completed the situation would be much better.
As an Australian I really fell in love with CDMX and will sing it's praises. CDMX is just amazing! The culture, walkability, transport, food, nightlife, history, museums, parks, art, colour and friendly people who really love foreigners and are proud of their city. In my opinion CDMX should rank much higher on global rankings and anyone out there who believes the American propaganda should visit Mexico and CDMX for yourselves and change your mind on Mexico. With the new Airport I'd love to see direct Mexico City to Australia flights. Australian's would love the Mexican culture and I think the Mexican Tourism Authorities should target Australia and NZ more. I say NO to direct Australia LA and YES (SI) to Australia - Mexico direct.
MC is the best urbanist city in NA most American cities solution is to keep widening hwys untill its 12 lanes gridlocked
@@harry12 I'm actually of the opinion that the most realistic way to fix the situation right now is to expand AIFA with the other terminal + the satellite and finish all ground connections. This should enable the city airport to be finally closed and put out of its misery.
@@jasontempest4233 nice words, tks. I've been to Australia and the trip was gruelling from Mexico City. I didn't have a US visa at the time and needed to take a flight via Vancouver AND Tokyo to arrive to Sydney. A direct flight from Mexico to Australia would be a dream and I really think it would have a good demand.
I'm surprised Montréal isn't higher on this list. As a native of NYC I was surprised at how clean their metro was. Also they have the RÉSO, a series of underground interconnected tunnels which make the city navigable in the winter time
I agree. I've been to Montreal and my car sat in the parking garage of the hotel.
I'm not familiar with the data sources, but I bet they include the whole metropolitan area, or even just the whole of Montreal Island, which drags us down. The West Island, Laval, and South Shore are pretty car-centric, and even east Montreal is not super walkable (edit: also Lasalle and VSL). If it were only downtown and environs, we'd be S-tier, no question. Most of my friends don't own cars.
Housing is cheap here BTW.
@@WilliamAndreathis x100. Montrealer all my life. If you live within 15 mins walk of a metro station and most of the places you go to are within 15 mins of a metro station life is amazing. Try visiting family at the far end of RDP or Laval and have fun spending 2+ hours walking/taking the metro/ making multiple bus transfers for what would otherwise be a 30-60 min drive depending on traffic.
Montreal should have ranked higher just by virtue of having that huge arts/entertainment district in the middle of the city.
I recently moved to Montreal, and it's seriously impressive. I wouldn't even think about owning a car, the neighbourhood (Le Plateau) has hundreds of restaurants, shops, entertainment, schools, everything you could wish for, at a walkable distance, and there's greenery and parks of all sizes everywhere. Public transportation is accessible, but you barely need it because everything is a lovely walk away. It is as good as some of the best European neighbourhoods in some regards. But yes, the airport accessibility and the situation in more peripheral neighbourhoods probably drags the score down significantly.
It started as a tier list but turned into a tear list.
Now I'm annoyed I didn't come up with that
S tier comes from Japan. Their highest letter grade is S, and S is used outside of school to mean highest level such as Cars and Ticket quality. The literal translation is 'Saikyo' which is japanese for 'strongest'. I believe it is also used in other Asian countries at least to a certain degree.
I always assumed it meant "Superior." Good info.
Thought it was just "super" but I’m not surprised it’s Japanese
Would love to see something similar for Western Europe. If a subway train don't come every 45 seconds, or a bus don't come every 6 minutes, then it might come in at the F tier.
In Western Europe there would be a special bottom tier - British Isles (outside of London maybe)
I'm thirsting for a callout video for whatever the columbus ohio equivalents are for europe as a whole. you might be surprised because if the people on the other side of the iron curtain knew anything, it was how to build public transport!
@@m1nekji165 and Ireland
we all know what s-tier for trains is
@@asdfghyter and it begins with S?
As an Atlanta tourist in San Francisco, I was blown away by the transit options all around me. Tons of bikes (and dedicated bike lanes), robust bus and trolley system, a metro, and plenty of walking space. Atlanta has such a young and diverse population, I wish we could make the changes we want to see faster.
Unfortunately the connectivity in SF is still poor for residents imo. The trolleys and metro are only available in tiny part of SF. The buses don't have a priority lane in most parts of the city and get stuck in traffic. The bike lanes are also only available in a tiny portion of the city. The rest is scary to travel on bike.
Yeah, there’s a lot of service in SF, but reliability is really poor outside of BART, and BART doesn’t go to most of the city. The political situation is also extremely polarized around the affordability crisis and neighborhood control, which makes it hard to build desperately-needed transit improvements (Geary “BRT” is a great example, sadly…).
As someone who grew up in Dallas, lived in Houston and currently lives in Baltimore, you're spot on. Baltimore is bad thanks to its long-term decline and rampant crime, but it's still better than either of the Texan cities. Absolutely awful places to live in even if you own a vehicle.
Baltimore hasn't improved as much as it started to because of 3 people: former governor bob ehrlich, former mayor of Baltimore then governor of Maryland martin o'malley, and former governor larry hogan.
It's just unfortunate that people come to the conclusion that walkable, vibrant cities are automatically more expensive instead of the much more sensible and accurate conclusion that the cities being walkable does a lot to heighten demand. There's nothing innately expensive about a walkable city, as most of the non-Anglophone world demonstrates.
We're so desperate for something like that, we'll pay almost anything to live there. Sounds like something we should make more of...
I say the same thing every chance I get! Usually to anti-urbanists who all claim to be free-market supporters, yet refuse to consider what property values say about supply-demand curves!
The jokes about the worldwide server and Tokyo and Paris scoring critical hits were funny, thank you for retaining them.
Agreed
Born in Paris, live in Tokyo. Definitely, if walkability and not being car centric are the criteria, those are top notch. Funny how Tokyo managed it through actual urban planning and Paris by just being a museum city where you can't add new car infrastructure without running every 100 meters into a piece of cultural heritage 😂
he was somehow both funny and made me cringe at the same time
Would like another worldwide video or 2- European one and Asian one
r/outside might be right up your alley then. borderline terrible jokes about real life being an mmorpg
As a person living currently in Orlando, I have to say that you were very kind with the rating... we deserve a special place at the very bottom of the sunbelt category. I lose all hopes of seeing improvement here, when I see all new construction being more of the same.... well maybe a slightly increase on density, but with the same spacing and zoning, zero walkability, inexistent transportation, less vegetation, and worse affordability
Orlando is a mess. I have no hope for this city, with the city doing projects like the Robinson diet to make it safer for pedestrians that doesn't include a bike trail in the Milk District, and the bike trail on the downtown portion of the redesign is unprotected. It absolutely blows. While there are a couple of decent neighborhoods like Colonial Town that have every amenity within walking distance, they're extremely expensive and only are walkable within their own bubble and completely unconnected to other good neighborhoods.
nah fr it’s so bad here, only thing here that is remotely walkable is downtown or some of winter park. you have to pay to drive which makes it worse!
And arguably the state made it worse with its I-4 Ultimate freeway widening project which I'm sure created an even bigger barrier and dumped still more cars downtown.
@@blade7506 the most toll roads of any county in the US
@@Dipsoid I'd only ever live in College Park if I had to move back to Orlando. The 2 travel and bike lanes on Edgewater is semi decent, esp compared to the much wider portion of Colonial Drive in Colonial Town. But definitely agree with it being like living on a tiny island in a dense archipelago.
I am genuinely astonished you have Vancouver above Montréal
Houston and Dallas are hellscapes. Poor ppl who can't afford a car or whose car breaks down end up spending huge amounts on Uber
Been living in Chicago for nearly a decade. I love this city, but I think your grade is completely fair. There's so much more we could do here, and I think a lot of folks here are starting to realize that. I think that's part of why the latest mayoral race also had a fair amount of discussion about the state of the CTA, amongst other topics. I really hope it gets expanded in my lifetime...
especially post pandemic, the CTA has been kind of rough. I'm sure most Chicagoans have noticed and are wanting improvements to be made.
Agreed. My biggest gripe is that it’s incredibly unsafe to bike in the city.
Agreed. Chicago is great, but it has the potential to be so much greater. The state of the CTA post-pandemic saddens me.
@@BenjiBlabs i completely agree, I've considered getting a bike many times but i always just end up sticking to walking/ using the CTA. just cant imagine feeling safe biking though most of the city, we need bike lanes split from regular vehicle traffic BAD.
I moved back to Chicago from Atlanta last year and I wished I had done it sooner. I think I said I could live in Atl because everyone was saying it's the place to be but compared to Chicago and other way more live-able/walkable it's really not. With that being said, beyond being grateful for being in Chicago now I do see where I would do some improvements. All of these boulevards with medians that are underutilized by the public and no lightrail? CTA needs to get on that. Buses are expensive because they're subject to fluctuating gas prices and put a toll on roadway infrastructure. Lightrails have a larger capital cost but hold more people per driver and run on electricity. Idk why Chicago, like a lot of other American cities INCLUDING New York, cannot grasp that there's a transit middle ground between buses and heavy rail. Slap a dedicated light rail on Western Avenue (since it connects to most if not all the L lines). Ashland. Please.
As a Philadelphian I'm honestly more offended at being referred to as "East Coast Chicago" than Philly's placement on the Tier List :P
I’m mostly bothered by being placed on the same level as Seatle and below DC. Both of those cities have been harder to navigate without a car in my experience
If it makes you feel any better, as a Chicagoan, I felt the same way for the inverse reason ;)
Both Philly and Chicago should be at least B tier, if not A.
Same here! It’s so dismissive
i mean, both of them are highly segregated cities with a distinctive local beef sandwich, a diverse population, and are comparatively more affordable than most cities of a similar size within the usa. if i didn’t live in chicago, my second option would be philly. great place.
also the public transit here has gone significantly down the shitter post-covid and the city itself is an entirely different place once you go south of sox 35th. a city can’t be considered highly urban and walkable if you need a car to reliably get around the biggest side of it. which is, ofc, another symptom of how highly segregated the city is. only worse one on that metric is detroit
This list suffers from an issue you usually control for - while the cutoff for ranked cities was for metro area population, it seems like you used city proper data for density and walk score- this helps some cities with smaller footprints dramatically (boston, DC, San Francisco) and hurts others (Chicago, Philly). There are a certainly plenty of neighborhoods in each of these cities/metro areas where people live car free with ease, but due to the footprint of Chicago and Philly having areas that are more car dependent within city limits it throws the list out of whack - in my opinion.
Accurate comment. Even a city like Houston would go way up the tier list if they shrunk the city limits by 50%
Fair point. There are some parts of DC proper that aren't too walkable (NW west of Connecticut Ave, SE of the Anacostia) while Silver Spring and Arlington might be better and are part of the metro area. For the most part I agree that DC is one of the best urbanist cities in the US.
As a suggestion for a more apples to apples comparison (because I hate when people complain without a solution) I would maybe look into how many contiguous square miles have population density above a certain “urbanist” threshold. Could measure this using zip code level data. Boston would pick up zip codes outside the city (think Somerville/Cambridge) where Chicago would lose some less urban areas within the city limits. Could also set a higher threshold for ultra-density that is necessary to qualify for A or S tier which could furthe distinguish NYC and CDMX
Yep, Montreal was also hurt by this. Definately deserves A tier.
Came here to say the same thing, have a + to boost visibility!
Montréal is really a weird mixture of amazing world-class density with increasingly-thorough metro, light rail, and cycling networks, and then sprawling suburbs and exurbs reached only by a massive expressway below a big stroad.
Like the urbanism in the Downtown, Le Plateau, Mile End, the Vieux-Port, and Westmount is totally different from the sprawling suburbia of Hampstead, Côte Saint-Luc, Ahuntsic, and Nouvelle-Bordeaux
All NA cities are like this; if they have a good part, it’s just the core, and it’s surrounded by stroad hell.
@@abcdeshole Or you could live in a city that has no 'good part' and where even the urban core is stroad hell, like Honolulu where I live now (and apparently a lot of other sunbelt cities).
@@katiem.3109 you live in paradise!
@@abcdeshole But the thing is Montreal does have way more medium density neighbourhoods relative to its size. Its much less sprawling and very walkable and bikeable in like 50% of its metro area. It is way more European but does have stroads and suburbs around like North American cities
Montreal's main problem is their laissez-faire attitude about infrastructure maintenance and it's sickening corruption.
I've lived in 3 of the cities in the "Sun Belt" category (Dallas, San Antonio, and Orlando) and of those 3, San Antonio is by far the worst in terms of Urbanism, no contest. Dallas has light rail, >50% sidewalk coverage, and a mediocre bus system. Orlando has a couple bikeways, somewhat ok food density, and ok sidewalks. San Antonio, on the other hand, has no sidewalks where you would really absolutely need them (I'm looking at you Bandera Rd), the bus system is the worst I've used across the country, and I lived at a few addresses there and not a single one of them had a place to buy groceries within 3 miles nor public transportation or full sidewalks to get there.
Denver here, and an E rating is well deserved. During the last few decades, Denver became the last great Urban sprawl with a highway system from the 1960s. Single fam houses cover former farmland to the east and south, oil and gas production and cattle to the north. It still advertises itself as the gateway to mountain recreation. Its gateways are bumper to bumper, rife with breakdowns and accidents. Transportation frustration abound. And yet it's still very expensive to live here, not to mention it made American Lung Association's top 25 most polluted cities (#6 Ozone; #18 Short Term Particulates).
Also from Denver, also agree our sprawl is madness and transit needs a ton of work here. But more than that, I'm wondering which city is used for the image because the Platte River is not that wide lolol. (see @5:44)
In fairness, it's questionable how much farmland should be surrounding Denclver to begin with
@@keepstake Its Detroit unless Denver also has gained Ford Field and GM headquarters, and part of Canada without me knowing.
Denver’s gotta build dense housing In capital hill and cheesman
@@jonathaneby1440 We do have dense(r) housing in those areas. We just need more throughout the city.
I love the calm, dry-witted, even midwestern style you deliver your content in. It's such a pleasure to take in commentary on an easily over-hyped subject matter with a matter-of-fact, but funny tempo. Thank you for that.
Pretty sure City Nerd is literally from the PNW and this is very dry PNW style humor. Why do Midwesterners think they invented everything lol.
@@patrickboldea599 Is he? I'm Floridian. He sounds midwestern. Y'all have dry wit up there too do ya?
@@patrickboldea599 Seattle and Minneapolis are very similar. Biggest difference is the weather and terrain. Culturally they are very close.
@@SynthwaveDuck he sounds Midwest to me also but I already heard from his other videos where he’s from
@@patrickboldea599he pnw exports sad music, airplanes, monopolistic tech companies, and Ted bundy. I think that’s about it
I don´t know why but I got really obsessed with Urban content lately. The sheer numbers and logistics behind having 300.000 people in the same area as a few hundred share where I live is fascinating.
Really true about SunBelt...as a San Antonio native these places are simply a small urban center around which suburbia exists. The cities are really just anchors for suburban living.
It would be nice if you could do a video about Montreal, its been getting lots of new bike lanes in the last few years and with the REM coming its transit system will greatly improve. Also, imo it has along with Quebec city the biggest european feel in north america.
I just visited from Seattle and honestly, as much as I love my home, I don’t see how it’s on par with MTL. The transit was just heaven, and it’s not as hilly, which makes it easier to walk and bike. It felt like every neighborhood I went to seemed feasible to live car free, which is the case for many, but far from all of Seattle’s neighborhoods
@@kiosk5595 the Montreal metro fortunately does cover a lot of inner-city neighbourhoods, but when you get away from the metro, there’s a problem on account of the buses being so infrequent. Literally half-hour headways a lot of the time, which defeats the purpose. But none of those neighbourhoods are touristy.
Thank you for this and I agree, Montréal is the story none of these channels seem to really get yet. I assume he has data from about 2018 or something. We're getting 75 new kilometers of protected cycling lanes this year alone for example.
I cannot believe Montreal was ranked so low here. I guess he’s never been
@@kiosk5595 Also a native Seattleite who visited Montreal for the first time last year, and I'm with you. I expected Seattle to be placed right where it was, but from what I experienced of Montreal it was far better than anywhere on the continent except NYC and CDMX by my urbanism standards. A majority of the city that I saw-admittedly, mostly just the city center-felt like a mix of Brooklyn and Paris.
I suppose the relatively low placement is because of its transit and biking infrastructure, which, while seemingly at least on par with Seattle's, don't hold up to its walkability and density. The metro is nice, but there were several times when it wouldn't have been an option for someone who couldn't walk a mile to hop a train. The buses are decent, but probably worse than Seattle's network. And as with transit, I suspect the walkability goes down when you get outside of the center.
As a native Chicagoan, I fully agree with its placement. Also lol at "Sideways Chicago" and "East Coast Chicago," hahaha.
The CTA and Metra (regional rail) are great, but it's almost entirely focused on trips to/from downtown. It was eye opening when I saw Mexico City's transit map on this channel a while back, all the routes that aren't central business district. Chicago could do with a few "ring" L lines, or really just a badly needed N/S line along Ashland and probably also Cicero (and no, the forever-bridesmaid BRT proposals along those corridors don't count).
Totally agree there should be a Gold line train running down Cicero from Midway to Petersen
Yup I've been living, biking, driving and walking here all my life. There's way too much car centric, suburban style development in the city for it to be any higher (and not just in the neighborhoods far away from downtown which some are almost straight up suburban). Also, the things that make Chicago great like the public transit and parks are very underfunded and undervalued by the local government so that's great.
North side Chicagoan and totally agree with this. We need the government to care about transit!
@@alexdm4868 Chicago needs at least on "ring line". I think Cicero might be too far west, but certainly at least to Kedzie on the west side, 87th on the south, Devon on the North, and I guess it could share green/red line tracks on the east. Or, maybe have it go all the way east on 87th, hug the lake to downtown, then share redline tracks to devon.
Agree. Having lived in various areas of Chicago for 30 out of 60 yrs, I've seen things generally improve in many ways. It gets to be a very complex set of issues as one moves around the different neighborhoods ("the parks" - Rogers Park on the No. to Morgan Park on the south, etc. a unique feature of the city). Many of 'the parks' are quite walk/bikeable with acceptable access to 'the loop' via the CTA or Metra. A big fail over the past 30 yrs is what I call the 'asteroid belt'. These are the myriad suburbs, sub-divisions, and ex-urbs that form a 45mil arc around the city. As with a majority of 'cities' in the US, rampant expansion of un-walkable subdivisions have metastisized into a hell scape of 2->4->6 lane roads that connect to our interstate tollways and freeways. (I've had the good fortune to work with a lot of lovely people who have a 2-3 hr commute into 'the loop' and only live 20 miles away. (Lovely as a child with a diaper filled with tacks).
On the flip-side, there's been a tremendous amount of very tall condo/apt. building that are WAY overpriced and will be a nightmare to maintain in the not-so-distant future. All that being said, we have more important issues like a tranny selling light beer. Priorities.
As a former Atlanta resident, I feel your outlook on the future of Atlanta (from an urbanist perspective) is more positive than mine haha. MARTA (transit agency) is a joke, levying taxes and talking a big game but never building anything, scaling down promises, and building things that aren't time competitive with cars in a lot of cases. Complete street projects are half baked, reversed, and/or take forever to happen. For every cool infill development it feels like there's dozens out in the middle of nowhere, advertised as a new suburb.
As a former resident of Atlanta who now resides in Charlotte, I was surprised by Atlanta being higher than Charlotte. Both are admittedly bad on the criteria, but Atlanta is the leader of urban sprawl. Although Charlotte isn't consciously practicing smart growth initiatives, the growth that is happening now is in the city center (e.g., southend). I would say MARTA covers more area than Lynx, but I think this will change over time as the NIMBY people refuse to allow MARTA to expand.
As a current Atlanta resident, I feel your pain, but that heavy rail system does keep Atlanta out of Sunbelt trash tier. Yes we knee capped MARTA from the start by denying it state funds and Cobb/Gwinnett staying out (for mostly racist reasons). Yes MARTA More over promised and has only now even begun to deliver on anything (the bus service is, literally right now, seeing improved frequencies on a number of routes finally). Yes the good developments intown are still coupled with absolute bullshit in the suburbs and highway widening. I am frankly furious at GDOT for deciding to pour so much into widening 285 and spending so much time on the 285/400 interchange. I don't want more Roswell/Alpharetta/Cumming drivers coming downtown there when there's literally a park and ride at North Springs already!
But, we've got bones we can build on and we are making progress doing it. F tier is fair but we've got basics in place that with a relatively little effort we probably could bump ourselves up a tier or two. We'd need some bigger overhauls to reach a Chicago-like status. But our heavy rail and the Beltline are two advantages we can lean into over basically every other southern city (noting that neither Washington nor Miami are really "southern" cities in the cultural/design senses of the term).
@@stevendelavaux1426 You hit the nail on the head. Every time I hear someone from the Atlanta metro area complain about traffic, I ask how they feel about MARTA expansion into Cobb and Gwinnett Counties. If they take an 'over my dead body' stance, I'll laugh, tell them to enjoy your traffic and walk away.
And it will only get worse by 2050... 2 million more people to the region.
@@TheScourge007 you comment is great but the point about Atlanta being better situated made me think of how several midsized southern cities are also pretty well positioned. Memphis, Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans all have pretty good bones with countless other smaller ones. Even though the road ahead for the south is rough and needs lots of advocacy to get good results out of, their is still a lot of hope. I've traveled to a lot of southern cities and in every city I find aspects and places that are really beautiful and amazing and wich will help bring the south in to the future.
Atlanta has a legit subway, which automatically puts it above other sunbelt cities. MARTA is the 8th most ridden heavy rail system in the country. And there's great momentum on bicycle infrastructure. For example, 10th and 14th street just got protected bike lanes, more of the Beltline is under construction, and streets like MLK and Cherokee had road diets. BRT is starting construction in Summerhill, and density keeps improving everywhere especially in Midtown.
I lived in Chicago, Toronto and Montreal and Toronto is considerably worse than the other two in many ways. Torontonians are a bit insecure about it too.
Putting Vancouver above Toronto and Montreal runs the real risk of starting a war in the comments.
Trust me, the last thing we vancouverites need is bigger egos
I've walked both Seattle and Montreal, and I would not put them in the same tier. There's no comparison, especially with the REM opening.
I believe Atlanta is moving in the right direction. I just read last week that they are breaking ground on (wait for it) PROTECTED bike lanes from 14th st to Ponce on Piedmont and Juniper. Each of those streets are one way through Midtown, so there will be one way bike lanes in both directions as well as bike lanes going up 10th st. Not much we can do about the sprawl...that's outside of COA jurisdiction.
Meanwhile they also just announced a new unnecessary arena in Forsyth county that won't be connected to transit...
@danbert87 but that's not the city of Atlanta. The city has zero control over what the suburbs do.
@@danbert8 I'll also believe that when I see it. I don't think that project will happen as advertised...and, hey...more Liberals moving to Forsyth Co...have to laugh at that prospect.
@@scpatl4now home prices forcing liberals to wherever they can afford Atl is not as affordable as it once was ppl moving further n further away
Ann Arbor, Michigan are putting in protected bike lanes as well. Super exciting!
I was born in New York City and have lived here more than half of my life. I think I speak for many of us New Yorkers that we simultaneously love our City and hate our City. I'm grateful to be here, but it's not easy, and the irritants never stop. Still grateful, though, and I eagerly give people tours when they visit.
Yes, more teir lists please! I find it's better than top x lists because the gaps between rankings can be large but teirs have a clear distinction of something being marginally or much better.
You did clue in on Vancouver’s dirty little secret: almost no freeways in the city proper but plenty of 6-lane arterials. At least the intersection you showed (41st and Knight, not that far from where I live) has frequent (every 10 minutes or better on weekdays) bus service on both streets (both local and express on 41st, in fact). Even Vancouver’s “sprawl” offers more transport choices than standard suburbia does.
I really appreciate your point about how some cities have walkable areas but overall are car reliant. When I lived in Miami, I read a funny article by a New Yorker who visited Miami and was awe struck by the transit, night life, and accessibility. From what I remember, they never left the downtown/Coral Gables area which is walkable and where transit is most efficient. Once you start getting north into Allapattah and west in Kendall, walkability is nonexistent; you *need* a car.
First of all an urbanist bracket must be done for next year’s march madness tm. I also like how sunbelt tier are play-in cities. Thanks for adding Mexico and Canada. These cities should be in MLB so if theyre in LCN (Ligue Cuidad Nerd) then I’m good.
Props for the Dreamcast love btw.
How should they be seeded? Maybe by population?
I live in San Diego and it definitely is F tier. I desperately want to leave but at the same time there's some really good things that keep me here.
Btw I think tier lists are a perfect fit for this channel.
I'm in OC and we likely score closer to Riverside than LA. I love taking Amtrak down to SD because at least you have the trolleys and Coaster/Sprinter to get around.
@@renaes2807 Yeah it does depend quite a lot on where in SD you live. If you happen to live near a trolley line, it's much less car dependent. But there are huge parts of SD that are not walkable at all, and have terrible pubic transit. Also the trolleys tend to be along freeways, which isn't great. At least we're not Riverside I guess lol.
Would much rather live in San Diego than LA though... LA is only walk-able if you stick to one neighborhood and that's even debatable. With San Diego you can go to different neighborhoods in 20 minutes without traffic and at least there's the Blue, Green and Orange lines that can get you to the ball game or the border. We just need a train that runs through the neighborhoods surrounding Balboa Park & the airport and it will be a game changer
im from San Diego and visiting other cities ruined SD for me haha, cant ever live there again
San Diego seems like it should be much better than it is, since it has an ideal climate for walking and biking.
The Chicago joke is great. As an adopted Chicagoan, no wonder I also have an affinity for sideways Chicago and East Coast Chicago 😂
I laughed out loud at this. I’ve often thought that if you deleted the CN Tower from a picture of Toronto, what you get looks a lot like Chicago.
lol as a San Antonio resident it definitely belongs below F. There is a zero percent chance I’d live without a car here
I enjoy your low-key and dry-humor presentations which are fact-driven. I live in Phoenix and you correctly lumped us into the sun-belt category. Also,. I appreciated your including several Mexican cities. Their efforts over the last two decades are starting to bear fruit!
DC is unfortunately limited in the density it can have because Congress limits the height of buildings for “aesthetic” reasons. That means that the cost of buying property in the city to redevelop can’t be covered by building a tall building, so it ends up just not happening. But it is an extremely pleasant city with excellent amenities. And yes, it definitely has a surprising number of moments where you could mistake it for a European city. It’s interesting that the DOT (which via the FHA is arguably responsible for many of the worst excesses of car-centric urban planning) is easily metro accessible and in one of the most pedestrian-friendly areas imaginable.
European cities generally don't have all that much height, so there's a correlation there. There are tall buildings, but they're not nearly as common as in NA cities. Depending on what you mean by "tall", of course.
Paris has the exact same thing legally, most of European cities are mid rise, most of Tokyo is mid rise or even two stories, you get the idea
The metro and walkability here is amazing
I personally like the limit on the height of buildings. I find most major cities to feel like claustrophobic concrete jungles, but DC isn't like that, due to shorter buildings, aesthetically pleasing architecture, and lots of green spaces.
Devastated that Pittsburgh didn't make it based on the population criteria, would've loved to see what tier you're placing the Burgh in!
Pittsburghs infrastructure is so old even CityNerd would suggest highway expansion
Issue with Pitt is there's no highways so people speed like mad on surface streets very unfriendly to pedestrians and cyclists and means the area doesn't grow
Just lowering the population threshold to 2 million would’ve added Pittsburgh, Ohio’s 3 Cs, Austin, Vegas, and several more!
Rail from the airport yet? I know you want to, anyway.
Furry train, amirite?
@@StreetcarHammock I was sad Ohio wasn't included
@@KT22672 Statistically, Pittsburg has one of the lowest rates of pedestrian fatalities per capita among US cities--ranking 95 out of 101 cities in the smart growth america rankings in their Dangerous by Design report on pedestrian fatalities (with 1 being the worst for pedestrian fatalities and 101 being the best).
Looking forward to the World Cities version of this.
Agreed!
I want to see where Singapore lands compared to New York.
Yes! Do Asia: East, South, and then South East.
That'll be very long
@@nwsportstilidie Singapore is better then New York on walkability, public transportation and greenery.
For biking its not great.
I just love that our "oh fer cute" Twin Cities consistently ranks above it's outside awareness. No one really cares, except for current residents and people who are terrified to move here with a significant other or for a job, but then end up pleasantly surprised how great it is here. Thankfully our weather reputation keeps our size reasonable. A few more train lines would make it extra lovely... But I'll take it as is for now. Thanks for your always entertaining videos!
You're so lucky. The last time I lived in Denver it had a million fewer people.
I moved from the cities to Chicago in the last year and the transit upgrade is just amazing, and agree with where he placed both on the list. Hard agree on the cities needing a few more train lines and it'd be perfect for its size, and promote growth that I imagine the cities will see in my lifetime due to climate etc
The Twin Cities' roads are so wide that they could do real-deal BRT if they could get the political will. I'm hopeful that the in-progress semi-rapid buses lead to more. It's scandalous how long it takes to go down Lake street in a bus right now.
Truly Minnesota nice to be so excited about D tier
I’ve been considering the thought about moving to the twin cities in like a year and a half from now. How is it like for newcomer who would probably transfer his delivery driving job and moving into the twin cities? It looks really nice but affordability is my main concern.
Could you do a completely imagined 2030 / 2040 Tier ranking based on city trends and current city plans? Seattle's "work in progress" transit system and Toronto's big transit upgrades in particular seem like enough to bump them up a spot or two. LA might also get a bump for building out their light rail.
Ooo that's a great idea! Please do it!
As a lifelong resident of Sideways Chicago, I can tell you that it'll take a lot more that better transit to fix this mess. All our beautiful city parks are encampments of homeless folks. But who can blame them?! We have a Premier (Governor) who starves housing and health care files, funneling our tax $$$ to the 1%.
some of the cities dinged for density have upzoned (or been upzoned by their states) as well. would be cool if theres a way to try and project that out
I hope seattle can get its shit together. High density and good transit isn’t going to help you grow if your city is dangerous after dark and greedy landlords don’t lower prices no matter the supply.
LA will always be at the bottom
And as a resident of a metro area below your 2.5 million threshold, I would be interested in seeing similar tier lists for small and mid sized metros.
Bring it down to 2 million for Cincinnati!
@@jamesmcdermott1194 As a long time bike commuter in Cincinnati, I'd definitely put it in the Sunbelt tier. The city has a lot of promise and I feel like it is being squandered by bad actors. The outgoing mayor was very openly anti bikes as an example. And so far, all Aftab has done is make promises whilst kowtowing to Norfolk Southern. That said, it is encouraging seeing projects like Tri-State Trails CROWN Network getting more support after years of stagnation.
I grew up in a place where not having a car was unheard of and unthinkable. Moving to DC was such a great improvement. We still have a long way to go, but the bike network keeps improving. I just wish I could afford to live in the more walkable neighborhoods.
I think DC suffers (still) from lack of investment and political will to change. DDOT continuously caves to a vocal minority when it comes to bike lanes and the mayor refuses to fund vision zero efforts. Despite this, it’s definitely got some amazing infrastructure and a lot of what DDOT and WMATA does is to improve service and capture more riders/bikers/pedestrians. I just dream of the day we get an Anne Hidalgo type to champion urbanism at the mayoral level!
I lived careless in DC from 1984-1992.
I think Vancouver fares relatively well in a lot of your ranking because its city limits are particularly narrow. It would look quite different if you were to include Richmond, North Vancouver, etc. I've lived in both Montreal and Vancouver, and find Montreal much more walkable. It is one of the few cities in North America to have loads of middle-density neighbourhoods built before WWII, like the Plateau, Rosemont, Villeray, Verdun, Saint-Henri, etc. These are all 15-minute neighbourhoods and incredibly walkable. Vancouver's zoning laws are much restrictive, and have a lot of zones single family houses next to sky-rise condos. If you want to drop by on your way back from Europe, I'll be happy to give you a walking tour of Montreal :)
that's not zoning, that's home owners holding out to get more money. 2 houses downtown got over $150 million (per house) to build two condos on the land they occupied. And the West End has a remarkable amount of middle-density considering the density of Downtown/Coal Harbour/Yaletown
@@Interitus1 ua-cam.com/video/cjWs7dqaWfY/v-deo.html for zoning in Vancouver. Quite a bit of contrast between single family zones and zones for everything else. Also the West End is a relatively small area, the Plateau Mont-Royal is 4 times as big.
I think the lack of options in vancouver should cost it some. Vancouver is clearly trapped by geography. In Toronto you get to choose what you want. That's a huge factor that is missing from the list that really denies Toronto it's rightful praise.
He uses metro area for many of his rankings, which does include those places.
Loved all the TierZoo callbacks and references! Spot on.
Also as a sunbelt resident, having to drive 35 miles one way to see some of my friends/coworkers and thinking that's normal is ludicrous. Can't wait for more urbanism in the near future
Loved this video, but I'm shocked that Vancouver was above Montreal, coming from my experience living without a car in both cities!
He probably included data for laval, longueil and brossard 😅 otherwise, very weird choice
It's nice that my city DC always makes these walkability lists, but the relatively low density causes massive sprawl extending out into MD and VA. When you say you feel DC has room for more density, that's because the building height limit is not to exceed the Capital--that's why there's no skyscrapers in DC, but Crystal City across the river is full of them. Perhaps you could do a video about how DC's unusually low height limit affects regional planning.
I second (and if possible, third) this! Crystal City is actually a great place to live and deserves way more attention than it gets.
You don't need skyscrapers to get enough density, you just need something else then single family housing.
Yeah, a good example is Paris: similar size comparative to Sf yet trice the density. This because of it famous tenements that lines the boulevard. Some neighborhoods in SF like Duboce Triangle have 12k/km² due to duplex, triplex, and small apartment complex.
I think this list underrates Montreal, it really is way more consistent on transit access, walkability, density, biking than cities above like SF or boston
Montreal is usually underrated by the channel. Probably because a lot of stats for it are primary french sources.
I had the same thought, then realized they include the whole area. Laval dragging you down, just like Scarborough, Mississauga, Markham, etc drag us down in Toronto.
My guess it is killed on this list by low density. It really deoends where you draw the line what is and what isn't Mtl. If you live in RDP or PAT for example, your walkability is some order of magnitude worst than Plateau or Mile-End.
@@tristanridley1601I think, a lot of the time, it’s not Laval or Markham causing the issues, but Etobicoke or Rivière-des-Prairies being part of Toronto and Montreal’s municipalities that causes the real damage on this channel. For instance, SF’s municipal limits only cover about 800K people of a metro the same size as Toronto’s, while Toronto’s municipal population is 2.8 million. No way was TO matching SF for overall density points.
I feel like it’s probably because a lot of Montreal’s on-island suburbs are considered part of the central city, while cities like SF and Boston export their suburbs.
Interesting. I know you try to keep these videos below 15 minutes, so an in-depth analysis isn't really in the offing for a tier list like this, but I'd love to hear your take on what Chicago's weaknesses are. Are neighborhoods with poor train access and loads of single family homes dragging the city down? Is the lack of a connected bike grid doing it in? I haven't yet seen an urbanist UA-camr tackle Chicago's problems. With the incoming Brandon Johnson mayoral administration, there's a lot of potential to improve things, and it would be awesome to get some perspective on what needs prioritizing.
One word: Chicagoland.
I’d love to work on one. That said, the guy doing the new StrongTowns videos is Chicago-based, and Stewart Hicks’ channel is Chicago-based if not Chicago-centric.
@@ajkandy I haven't seen Strong Towns do anything Chicago-specific, but I'd be here for it if they did! I do like Stewart Hicks as well, but I wouldn't call him an urbanist exactly; the architectural design of individual buildings is very different in scope from "how do we zone and plan transit and walkability at the neighborhood and city level."
Large city limits? That's why even Seattle had slightly better mode splits pre-Covid (fewer SOV commuters).
Yes those things you mentioned are definitely some of our weaknesses. We hardly have a bike grid at all, mostly disconnected bike lanes and paths. There are suburban style neighborhoods in the city that may "drag down" the rest of the city, but the dense areas with public transit are not perfect either. Many of our sidewalks are too thin and just way too much space dedicated to cars. As a lifelong Chicago resident I can say there's way too much car centric, suburban style development in the city for it to be any higher, even in neighborhoods in and around the city center. Our last mayor even called Chicago "a car city." The things that make Chicago great like the public transit and parks are very underfunded and undervalued by the local government.
I'm not from Montreal, but I've lived there. It is much higher than C. Almost all of the city is medium-density plexes. The amount of neighbourhoods that have their own ecosystem is impressive. It does have sprawling but it's not as bad as your other C cities.
The island of Montreal is an amazing and relatively affordable place to live. I hope people keep underrating it so it continues to be affordable and very French - which allows it to be so great. I’d probably put it at B or maybe even A considering how dense the main island is + the new LRT - not to mention the most expansive subway system in Canada
I used to live in Puebla, México and was so happy to see it represented in this video! I miss the walkability and the easiness of the transit. Surprised to see it so low on the list. However, for me, the best public transit I've experienced so far was in México City. ❤️🇲🇽
public transit in Puebla isn't great imo. only one line of metrobus and zero train/metro/tram (rip tren turístico). going to angelopolis from almost anywhere of the city is a pain in the ass.
Moved from New York to Boston. They both have open streets days where certain key pedestrian-filled streets are closed to vehicle traffic for a few days in the summer, but the difference is if you go to Boston's webpage, directions on how to travel to "Open Streets" includes the nearest parking garage facilities, which deserves an F for just not getting the whole point of open streets
I keep hearing people complaining about not enough parking in Boston, some parts of the city are now increasing parking spot minimums. No, thank you!
@@drakes4625 simple solutions all car brains don’t have a car and you won’t need to park it. Or just don’t bring your car go by bostons commuter rail or Amtrak.
Real estate is valuable enough in Boston that they make multi level park houses, rather than street level parking lots. If they banned on-street parking, it would dramatically improve the city.
@@JohnFromAccounting People in Southie would riot if they tried to ban on-street parking 😂
@@drakes4625 Parking spot minimums is one of the driving forces of not enough parking spots. All it does is force more people to take the car, which fills up attractive spaces faster than they build them while leaving a concrete wasteland everywhere else.
This was a great video, thank you. Surprised to see Chicago as low as it is - I bet what's dragging it down is the gradual decrease in density as you get further out from the city center but are still in Chicago. I bet if you looked at an area comparable in size to San Francisco it'd rank a lot higher
For sure, ranking based on municipality simply gives a huge advantage to more decentralized cities like SF. Same thing is the case with Vancouver/Toronto, where Toronto is in general better for urbanism, but is dragged down by the fact that the municipality extends far into suburbia, while Vancouver doesn’t.
The density drop in Chicago is more directional than a product of distance (although that certainly plays a part in it as well). You can go 10 miles north of the Loop and still find yourself in areas of moderate / high density, but the South Side and the West Side quickly fall off.
The same is true for Philly. I'd say a lot of the city is pretty dense, but if you go too far North or West the density gets patchy which brings down it's overall score
@@TheObiareus Indeed. SF, at only about 800K population, gets on the list at all because it's the anchor and namesake of a large metro area. But the amenities that put it in the A tier are available only to some/most of those 800K, not really to the rest of the metro.
I was, as well. I've lived in the city for over a decade without a car. However, on reflection, Chicago is a rather large place, and that means that there are swaths of it that fall into transit deserts. While it would be easy to brush them off by saying most other Chicagoans or tourists have no reason to ever go to those communities in the first place, it remains pretty unfair for those communities.
I wasn't expecting much for LA but you rated it higher than I did. While the metro system is having some issues right now, it is expanding and I think most of us want to move away from suburbanization.
I'm in Torrance and would put it at level G. 😂
except in Culver City
@@brianmiller5444 😥I'm wondering if CC's latest actions have anything to do with the big oil field underneath it.
The first shot of "Denver" is actually Detroit again - Ford Field is pretty visible as the Renaissance Center
I request a reevaluation of Montreal to B tier!
Japanese games and media popularized the S tier, it stands for すごい (Sugoi) meaning something like awesome, or "shuu" (秀) meaning excellent.
But the S can mean superb, special, super or superior as well.
I can live with an E for Baltimore, our transit in particular feels pretty lack luster. But if you include "affordability" as one of your metrics, I think a lot of these expected high tier cities start sagging down in the ranks, while places like Baltimore and Detroit start looking more competitive. Despite its reputation, Baltimore has some really nice, affordable, and walkable neighborhoods that, if you found them in other cities, most people would be completely priced out of, but are pretty reasonable here.
Baltimore is the most affordable city on I-95 from NoVa to Boston. Its just hard for the city to compete w/ the metro area. Suburbs suck but Baltimore Metro does them about as well as you could possibly wish for in this country. Not to mention places like Columbia, Catonsville to their credit haven't drowned affordable housing in the bathtub.
B'More should bring back it's trams, you can see the used to run exactly where you want trams
Baltimore also is very dangerous and has some awful gritty look to it. Sunbelt by far is better
@@WHYOSHO Have you ever been? Or are you basing that on The Wire? I've lived in the city proper for over 13 years, car less the whole time, so I walk and take public transit frequently, and I have never personally felt like I was ever in any danger. Other than from people driving like idiots in some pedestrian unfriendly areas while I'm walking, that is.
@@WHYOSHO Lol, no. Sunbelt cities are hell. Baltimore is bad but I never wan't to live in Houston and be stuck in it's traffic again.
Really surprised to see Toronto and Montreal in the same tier! As a daily Toronto cyclist/pedestrian/transit rider, I'm often appalled at how car-centric most of Toronto is and look on in envy at the bike and transit infrastructure in Montreal..
True although Toronto is improving, albeit slowly but steadily
Montreal IS more walkable than Toronto. The walk score rating he used includes the suburbs like west island, which drags MTL's rating down, but a good chunk of the island is pretty accessible without having to own a car.
@@kelseyduerksen6404 ah yeah, that makes total sense! On the other side of the same token, Toronto was probably helped by this methodology, which excludes heavily car dependent areas in the GTA, such as Markham and Mississauga.
@@renaud_bt North York is part of Toronto (even has multiple subway lines)
@@renaud_bt Toronto definitely not helped by this methodology--only Vancouver is of the Canadian cities (both MTL and TOR amalgamated to include their inner suburbs and all of their awful built forms)
My partner and i lived in NYC for 13yrs+ then moved to the suburbs assuming that was the financially sound thing to do when starting a family. We barely made it 2yrs before job hunting/apartment hunting again to move back!! It was hard at the time to articulate why we were miserable in the sprawl - but your videos have 100% shed light into what we were feeling. So happy to see NYC rated #1, lol, just validates all the hard work we put into moving back. Of course its expensive to raise a family here, but the freedom and access is unbeatable.
Where in NYC though. There is a big difference between the suburbia of Staten Island or the near suburbia of the Brooklyn and Queens outskirts and the high density of Manhattan. I agree with wanting to live in NYC vs LI these days. I grew up in Nassau County and frankly these days Nassau County is a depressing dump compared to Queens right next door. These days people that aren't fleeing NY for Florida or somewhere out west are fleeing Nassau county to go back into NYC.
He is so right about Denver. We have so much opportunity to be amazing yet squander every chance! No commuter rail linking Fort Collins and Colorado Springs thru denver, no commuter rail to the mountains along I-70, we ripped out our streetcar system and are purchasing back old right of ways to make a half ass light rail system, spend all this money and time on building a transit hub at Union Station but still have the light rail and commuter/ heavy rail 2 blocks away, they use buses on their 16th street walking zone instead of a historic street car or tram which is frankly the biggest insult
I would love a deeper look at Miami. I've heard it's generally improving pretty rapidly and maybe has more towers being built than anyother US city. Alongside Bright line there seems to be some promose there.
Miami now has a population density equal to Philadelphia at 12k people per sq. mile. It ranks 2nd. after NYC in skyscrapers over 500+ ft./ 152+ Meters tall under construction. Miami has also announced it is extending MetroRail to the Broward County line by 10 miles & extending Metro Mover to South Beach before the end of the decade. This place is booming!
it’s really dense because it has to be. can’t build too far into the swamps. but ya id love to see something about it
Miami has a lot going for it but you can't have too much promise when the city is basically doomed by climate change.
its not great urbanism though... all those towers emphasize parking podiums which kills walkability potential. Outside of downtown, there's nothing but the least connected suburbs one can ever see
@@entropicnic6892 as someone who lives in Miami the urbanization is kinda terrible. Brickell is good but should be better considering it’s small size but high density. Biking and walking is practically suicidal, way too much car infrastructure. Underdeveloped metro system, and doesn’t extend any into suburbs/ nearby cities besides messy tri-rail/ solid bright line but it’s different.
I'll take SF being A tier. It's decently walkable, transit is regular and reliable, and they're making a lot of improvements to BART and MUNI. I am looking forward to it being properly connected to the Central Valley though and the implementation of the HSR that's finally being built. Currently, I'd need to ride the Capital Cooridor rail if I wanted to get to SF car free, but it just adds so much unnecessary time to the commute, it feels counter productive. At the moment I drive to Antioch and ride BART all the way to Daly City for school, it's a pain, but it's doable.
As a former San Antonio resident, San Antonio being under Sun Belt is incredibly accurate. Sure, there's a bus system, but whether or not it shows up on time, or even shows up at all, is a gamble every time you decide to take the bus. They break down all the time, or simply don't show up. You can't have a job if you don't have a car. Lots of places won't hire you if you tell them, "I'll just take the bus to get to work," because everybody knows how unreliable the Via bus system is.
that and barely any rail (just an occasional Amtrak line to Dallas IIRC), let alone protected bike lanes or sidewalks outside of city limits
Agreed to all of this. I lived near SA Airport and worked down near what's left of Brooks AFB and dreaded my commute everyday. I really upset a lot of people when I said that after moving from Albuquerque, I liked that city's food much better (and it's transit options). As someone who grew up in NJ just outside of NYC, and has lived for the past decade in Remember the Titans land just outside of DC, the differences are stark, but makes this list quite accurate.
As a San Antonian who can't drive (legally blind), I feel our placement so harshly. I've had to turn down multiple better jobs than my current one because they're outside the outer Loop, so I'd have to take an Uber to/from work every day, as well as get groceries delivered. There are places that are more walkable, especially as you get close to and inside 410, but man, so much of this city is a suburban wasteland of stroads and subdivided neighborhoods.
I figured my city of Orlando was going to be at the very bottom and was not disappointed. I've been here nearly 25 years, things have been improving a bit but very slowly. It speaks volumes of how ridiculously car centric this city is when it's been featured in articles how there can be backyard neighbors separated by 7 miles of road. Another example being Sunrail, a ~50 mile long commuter line entirely on existing rails with a somewhat inconvenient schedule, which opened in 2014, was the only "major" mass transit project since Disney World built out its monorail system in the early 70s, and that's not even in Orlando proper.
Nah Orlando is a good city
In the 90s Toronto amalgamated with it's adjacent suburbs, and given that the Toronto scored likely includes the full amalgamated city, I'm not surprised to see it where it is. I wouldn't be surprised though, that if you took just Old Toronto, it would be at least a B tier. I could be wrong but I believe Canadian cities often include a larger geographic area than most US cities.
LA is twice as large as TO, according to Wikipedia. of the cities in this video, Houston, Phoenix, and San Antonio are even larger than LA. so there is a wide range and it's hard to generalize too much.
Vancouver is interesting because the city of Vancouver is so small geographically relative to the larger urban region called Metro Vancouver.
@@brianmonroe7164 Good point! Either way, the way city boundaries are defined always has a big impact on these kinds of comparisons, but maybe not in the way I was thinking.
Quite the opposite, TO just went full out suburbia. Montreal is the complete opposite. Really dense full of middle housing.
I guess numbers don’t lie, but this list kinda surprised me by how it differs from my experience. Having lived in SF, Van, and Montreal I’d almost invert your ranking for those 3. I literally moved from Van to MTL in part for the better urbanism. Montreal should be A tier, SF B, Van C
He needs to do a new tier list for "how big is the urbanist zone" in each city.
The Montreal urban area includes Laval and Mirabel, so now you see why it falls short?
Vancouver's suburbs are cut off by borders, mountains, and oceans, so can't drag them down as much.
I'd say that sprawl doesn't really affect you personally if you don't live in any of the "sprawl" areas. From the personal experience perspective, it probably matters more how good the "city core" is.
@@tristanridley1601 I wonder what boundaries were used then. Because SF would also likely not place so high if it’s suburbs were included in the same way that the MTL on-island suburbs are. And yeah I like the idea of a ‘size of urbanist zone’ comparison. Montreal’s is probably larger than almost every city except nyc and cdmx
Edit: “the central city of the metro area” seems to be the criteria, and that probably has a significant distortion effect
Strong agree with Montreal. Beautiful place.
def agree, youtuber think vancouver is great but its actually pretty bad outside of downtown and that one skytrain line.
As for montreal its also heavily area dependant and not all neighborhoods are walkable. When you he says "areas over 2.5m" that means he has to include suburbs to montreal so the entire thing turn outside down. I'd argue only part of montreal island itself is urbanism friendly
You know New York is gonna be the S-Tier GOAT when even the tier liest bullets are NYC subway lines.
Idk, I’ve lived in SF, Seattle, DC and now Philadelphia and Philly is by far the most walkable, easiest to get around city of the four. It’s not just how much transit there is or bike infrastructure, but also how close neighborhoods that you want to be are to each other, and how friendly folks are to bike/side streets that act as bike lanes because they’re so small. That last part is also _very_ European (I lived in Sweden for two years, as well, so I have something tangible to compare it to). It’s just super easy to get around Philly if you’re a cyclist or walker because all the walkable neighborhoods are strung together, so you can easily go from one to another. Our public transit isn’t great but it does seem to get you where you want to be pretty easily, too. All of this is so different than SF, Seattle and DC, where many of the neighborhoods are isolated from each other (SF is a lot more connected than the others, and has great public transportation with hands down, bare-none, the best public transportation map that has ever been created). From an actual user’s perspective vs. data perspective, Philly does deserve to be a lot higher on the list… says the data scientist lol. And I’ll be the first to admit that data isn’t everything.
I'm assuming you don't live in North Philly or West Philly.
I think the advantage of a tier list over a straight ranking is it gives a bit more flexibility for individual taste and other factors which you haven't included in the rankings. Which may change the position of the thing being ranked in the eyes of some.
Which is something I feel like you often mention anyway.
I was surprised to see D.C. so high, but also happy. Living in the DMV region can be frustrating, but it is good to sometimes sit back and be reminded that, at least by North American standards, it's not so awful.
And D.C. in particular, in spite of a lot of NIMBY pushback, is making some real progress. It still needs to do a lot more to cut down on suburban car commuters...a LOT more. But progress is happening.
As a fellow DMV-er, I think part of the reason DC ranks so high is because a lot of the antiurbanist shenanigans of the DMV is Maryland and Virginia suburbs. That being said we do have one of the best subway systems in North America and there are lots of very nice walkable parts of DC places like Barracks row, Capitol Hill, Union market, NoMa, the Wharf all stand out as nice mixed use areas.
On his point about densification though, I wonder how much can be done with the height limits... in which case places like Alexandria and Rosslyn will continue their upward (excuse the pun) trajectory.
@@ClementWilliamstheoneandonly Sadly, I live out in the suburbs and yeah...not great. But watching the firestorm going down around the Connecticut Ave. bike lanes has reminded me that NIMBYs aren't only a suburban thing.
I think the height limit is a factor, but honestly don't think it's enough of one to really stop things. There's still a lot of height available in the city. And a lot of wasted space, with parking garages & the like. Not to mention empty office buildings. Plus, if they'd get better at integrating transit & walkability with the suburbs, it could help. When I worked in downtown, it was a 60 to 120 minute trip by bus & Metro, even though I only live 20 miles from the city center. Early in the pandemic, I could do the trip in 15 minutes (we're normally car-free, but had one for a couple months for reasons).
I do love Metro, even if it can be super stress inducing, because its service outside of the Beltway is pretty bad & its integration with Metro Bus and other bus services is atrocious. Still, Randy Clarke has impressed me so far. If he can do half of what he's trying to do, things should get a lot better.
@@matthewconstantine5015 Something that I'm proud of DC for is the amount of housing we build. Sure, most of it is luxury stuff, but it actually has helped control costs pretty well. Look at condo prices over the last 15 years and they've been pretty flat despite some modest growth in the city. And, even though rent is high, our average incomes are literally some of the highest in the world (looking at you Loudoun county) so it's actually not that bad compared to other more urbanist places like SF and NYC all things considered
We’re doing our part over in Arlington! We’re pretty dense and walkable and managed to get rid of single family zoning
@@michaelimbesi2314 Wow, that's huge! Former resident of Westover here. But aren't the lot sizes pretty small? Are they thinking ADU's or more like teardown and throw up townhouses?
You should do about single-family house architecture due of it grandiose and wasteful space in North America (or just the US). Almost every house I know have a "master room", twice the floor area than the other rooms with its own over-excessive bathrooms and walk-in closet. McMasion included having large ceiling that makes insulation expensive and wasteful, and just pain pretentious. Apartment unit and other housing also have this problem too.
I live in the upper flat of a duplex built in 1900, and the room sizes are exactly the opposite of McMansions. My 2 bedrooms are tiny, one barely holds a queen bed, the other won't hold more than a twin. But I have a large living rom, large dining room, fully heated sunroom, and generous kitchen and bathroom. I live alone, so the tiny bedrooms are fine.
In the 1980s, I noticed the trend to poor layouts. The master suite was huge, the other bedrooms were tiny. It should be the opposite, as kids use their bedrooms for all sorts of things. The "public rooms" were poorly laid out, and often substituted high ceilings for floor space.
An old home in a highly urbanized city ... that's my ideal. And where I live.
This isn't just a US thing, Japan and Much of Europe is largely single family homes outside of the urban core. Yet most of these places are still walkable because stores are put near houses.
@@linuxman7777 i wasn't talking about the space around single detach homing but inside it architectural space. Having master room which double the size than there room with its grandeur bathroom and walk-in closet. I don't about Europe but I certain a Japanese average sdh does not have this feature.
It's conspicuous consumption on the part of the homebuyer, pushed in that direction by it also probably being a way for the builder to avoid material cost on closing off those spaces.
As you mentioned in your comment, it's certainly not just single-family homes either...So many of the new build apartments/condos in both cities and suburbs in North America seem to be anywhere between 25-40% oversized bathrooms and walk-in closets in their space allocation. You don't need double sinks, walk-in closets, or multiple large bathrooms for small apartments under 1000 sq. ft....
Been living in New York for twelve years, and I so often take MTA for granted. There are some annoying things about it, but any time I go to another city and use their transit, I'm reminded of just how consistent and reliable NYC's public transit is. It's like having a far cheaper car, money-wise, that essentially functions the exact same way in the city. It's that convenient.
My biggest culture shock when moving from NYC to the "normal" USA was that you can't just go to a bus/transit stop and wait, you actually have to Google it and plan the route. It was wild.
Yes, I live in Dallas, and it is atrocious as far as walkability and public transportation. You can't do anything here without a car and getting on a freeway (and some expensive tollways).
It'd be cool to see a Top 10 video of US cities of any size that have invested the most resources and efforts over the past 20-30 years into density/transit and away from car dependency, whether or not the efforts have been noticed by their populace. I know you said in a previous "most improved" video something akin to, "If people are still driving, does it really matter what the city has done?" but it'd still be nice to see which cities are really trying 🥲(maybe they just need a signal boost!) and whether the results contrast with cities whose numbers have actually improved.
It would be interesting to see a video where NYC got a dishonorable mention. DC’s done the Silver Line and Potomac Yards, which amounts to 13 new stations. New York managed 3.
Most improved has to be Los Angeles. Remember, before 1990 they literally had zero rail transit. Zero. Now they have seven commuter rail lines (Metrolink), five light rail lines (six if you count ARROW), and two heavy rail subway lines. They also have about a dozen rail transit projects currently under active construction, plus dozens more in various forms of planning. And funding is guaranteed, at least in Los Angeles County, due a part of the sales tax going straight to transit.
@michaelimbesi2314 much harder to do in NYC because of the density. But if there's a will, there's a way.
Putting Montreal and Toronto on the same tier is the only guaranteed way to really piss off everyone in both cities.
It also was Mtl vs Tor in the fake bracket at the beginning of the video.
I liked your summary of "urbansim" as "places where you can live without a car." I would love to see an analysis of a "percent 15-minute city" score, or something similar--in other words, in what proportion of the city can you live car-free as a practical matter? I imagine that even NYC has some areas that aren't walkable or particularly urbanist. So, what proportion of each city is actually urbanist by the definition of being car-optional?
'Oh the Urbanity' did exactly that video a week or so after this one.
I think that is a ridiculously incomplete definition of urbanism, and one that only becomes as pertinent due to the very specific failures of the U.S. urban systems, and remains useless in any other context.
I'm from Mexico City, I currently live in San Diego (and I used to live in Houston). I couldn't agree more with this list!
sd's tier is low imo. I really believe sd's public transit is def better than puebla... even visiting angelopolis is a pain in the ass without a car, let alone other parts of the city. sd's trolley is not perfect, but it gets you to a decent number of places.
I'd love you to look at South America, specifically Colombia. Cities like Bogota are super interesting because some parts of Bogota are super car-dependent, but other parts have some of the most walkable streets in the world. But due to the overall car dependency of Bogota, it has some of the worst traffic in The Americas. I have never been to Sao Paulo but it looks very Bogota-esque in the city planning
hoping Bogotá gets the metro it rightfully deserves ASAP! 😍 saludos desde durango mexico 👋
Completely agree. El Centro, la 85, la Zona G, la Candelaria, and many more, I am sure I am forgetting, have amazing walkability, and there are a lot of protected bike lines all over the city. I think Bogota's biggest issue is that these areas are all high-income and places like Kennedy, Suba, or Bosa, even in Barrios, have outrageous car dependency and no sign of protected bike lanes. But regardless, I do think Colombia as a whole has good walkability, especially in Medellin and Cartagena. Nevertheless, I am happy someone from Bogota is watching channels like these, we need to create more awareness and push for more walkability in our cities in Latin America.
Saludos desde Buenos Aires 🇦🇷 We’ll get S tier by cheating a bit: the sprawly parts are Not The City xD
@@monshosepu9229 Bucaramanga is another prime example of amazing walkability. You can walk across the entirety of BGA in like an hour lol
South America would be great! I got a feeling that we are somewhat more walkable and dense then North America couterparts.
Brazil got some good exemples as well.
(Brasilia unfortunetly is far behind being a car centric city)
“Sideways Chicago that pronounces things funny”. Boom ! Top tier snark…. Love it
I'm really hoping that Brandon Johnson succeeds in implementing urbanist policy initiatives in Chicago. It feels like it has the potential to be the continent's second S tier city with the right leadership.
First thing is he needs to do disincentivized rowdy kids from attacking people in the city center. People are not going to take CTA if they do not feel safe.
😂😂🤣🤣 is that comment serious??? Wow.
I wasn’t expecting my city (Puebla) to appear in this tier at all. That was a very entretaining curve ball for me, very good video!!!
I live in Denver... and the ONLY reason I have my (gas-chugging) vehicle is for snowboarding. I live walking distance from a business center with multiple grocery stores, pharmacy, restaurants, and health practitioners and I work from home. My kids will be able to walk to both their elementary school and high school. I'm on the edge of the front range and have garage access to gnarly single tracks, and the bike-only "highways" take me 18 miles across a state park, along a river, to downtown without encountering car traffic, which on my road bike is less than double the time a car would take, factoring rush hour traffic and finding parking.
It's not about city... it's more about specific locations and zip codes. If your zip code contains everything you need and has walkable/cycling infrastructure, then you only need to find a city that jibes with your interests and recreational activities. THERE ARE places in the Denver metro that are completely car-dependent, such as Castle Rock and everything North of Denver basically (EXCEPT Boulder), but parts of the front range and Cherry Creek are less car-centric if you chose the right location close to business centers and bike infrastructure, which has one of the highest miles of trails per capita. Them trails connect everything, I can bike a loop around the southwest quarter of Denver metro from Golden to Denver to Littleton and around Morrison and avoid cars entirely probably 98% of the ride.
All said, I still feel like a weirdo for not touching my car at least 20 days of each month, and still paying like a grand for insurance+loan+gas+maintenance. There is no other reliable option to go to the ski resorts.
Instead of Tiers, put them in "CityNerd Leagues" and figure out who belongs in each division. You can have them all enter each with their previous standing and then re-rank them following the outcome of whatever you have them competing. "New York comes in with a commanding lead in Premier Division, but today they are on the ropes with their opponents from Mexico City who seem to really be upping their game! Can New York hold on to the overall lead!?!"
Tier lists may be a tired format but I'm not here for unique formats, I'm here for your solid urbanist ideas and takes backed up with genuine data and deadpan humor. Like the sub belt being worse than F. Just perfect 😂
The delegates from Philly accept your grading. If we can get our safety issues handled on public transit, get our Regional Rail up to metro-style service, and get rapid transit along the Roosevelt Boulevard though we would like a reconsideration and rescoring
Monterrey here. Your comment is Spot on regarding how Sparse the Public transport is. New metro developments are on their way, but I fear it will still not be enough, as the buses they connect to will still be stuck in traffic, as they don’t have their own lanes. I was wondering, why you put Puebla so low, as it feels much more walkable than Monterrey, at least at the city center.
Lol outside of Centro Puebla it’s not any better than mty 😅 besides mty has métros at least. Puebla? The only metrobus line brings you to nowhere except maybe capu
@@harry12 Monterrey does need all those Metro Lines but Puebla doesn’t. You can easily cycle the majority of Puebla no problem. Of course more dedicated bike lanes would be great
As a San Diegan, I can say geography is to blame for a lot of our bad city planning. There are a lot of canyons that cut through our city, leaving neighborhoods isolated with only a few exits. Building effective train lines is hard due to the grades of slopes, and it's hard to have high density when there are too many slopes that are too steep to build on.
I'm from Vancouver and live in Montreal now for cost reasons. I think cuz you used cities proper it ended up underrating how easy it is to live in Montreal car free at least compared to Van and sideways Chicago. There's at least a dozen truly excellent walkable transit accessable neighborhoods here of which the other Canadian cities might have 2 or 3
man I would totally move to Montreal if it wasnt for the language requirements. For now I got a job in Vancouver so I'll be moving there from sideways Chicago.
I spent a few days in Montreal last September and loved it. It was really easy to get around by bus and Metro, and there are some terrific neighbourhoods with good density and great walkability, without highrises everywhere. But the Ile-de-Montreal is huge, and we only touched a relatively small part of it, so I agree that Montreal suffers from is size in this ranking.
Montreal is a city in which you actually CAN live car-free fairly easily. Plateau Mont-Royal is excellent
@@kelseyduerksen6404 what I love about it here is that yes, the plateau has gotta be one of the nicest neighborhoods in North America, but most people don't live there and still live in very lovely urban neighborhoods. Vast swaths of the island are built like the plateau. I work in a pretty blue collar industry and most of my coworkers who are far from urbanist-types do not own a car. Maybe I'd guess 25% own one. That said the suburban areas are much worse than the Vancouver suburbs imo.
@@Amir-jn5mo congrats on the new job. I hope you like Vancouver, I love it but it is quite a bit quieter than TO. I obviously don't know you and I wouldn't take life advice from a rando in the UA-cam comments but I'd encourage you not to be too intimidated by the French thing. It'd be tough for sure but very few people here speak no English and many neighborhoods are completely Anglo. Idk if you watch Paige Saunders but he has a couple videos on what it's like to live and work here long term as an Anglo.