[OldNorth] Re: density web site

[Dan Quickert]

Interesting. On the face of it, so much for "densification" as a necessity...

[those disinclined to read stream-of-consciousness conjecture are advise to delete at this point]

There may be a more-or-less mundane reason for this density divide:

As I noticed when first visiting the East Coast - expecting  wall-to-wall cities - there is so very much more *country* included in those populated areas. So we're denser because we don't have big 'holes' in the matrix. Which also means that our denseness *feels* denser too - far less green buffer for the senses.

This came about, I think, from historic settlement patterns.  I'm sure persons far more knowledgeable than I about such things are reading this - but my impression was that those urban centers were comprised of lots of little rural towns surrounded by forest, that grew together; whereas our western centers have been more monolithic, on more open ground, and growing from the center outward.

Of course there are many grown-together towns in California - the Bay Area is a prime example... but I see there that the least-dense area around the periphery of the bay - excluding the wetlands - is the most densely-wooded (around Palo Alto, etc toward the hills). Was it historically thus, and is that a major factor? Someone must know...

So let's plant a forest between here and Dixon ASAP!

;-)

Dan Q

John Lofland wrote:
> A recent Washington Post story on population density research reports 
> that Davis is the 6th most dense city in the U.S.  The URL of the story 
> is given below. John Lofland
> 
> 
>> X-ORBL: [64.168.12.13]
>> DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; s=sbc01; d=pacbell.net; c=nofws; q=dns;
>>     h=mime-version:x-sender:message-id:date:to:from:subject:content-type;
>>     b=dCNfzbzxhW1g/p0le2vyE2IPoTArLgEKg6J35LXMwP6IV/jFKr1N5r7lCcDlRgKuX
>>     A5U/4CIUSWBGznGrgUVfA==
>> X-Sender: pgunther at postoffice.pacbell.net
>> Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 11:33:52 -0700
>> To: jflofland at ucdavis.edu
>> From: "Peter S. Gunther" <pgunther at pacbell.net>
>> Subject: density web site
>> X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.49 on 169.237.104.195
>> Status: 
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081002110.html 
>>
> 
> 
> 
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