Why are westside, Arlington, etc. considered to be suburbs when they are just as

[thelakelander]

Yeah, I'd say Cleveland and Moncrief is pretty suburban (including that old townhouse development).  I know that area pretty well.  My parents used to live off Soutel (Locksley Avenue) in the early 70s and my dad's Godparents used to live in a house on Kylan Drive until they passed in the late 80s.  Although I grew up in Central Florida, during the 1980s, the Northside is where most of my time was spent in Jax when my parents would frequently take me and my brother to visit with children of the friends they met before moving away from Jax.

That area is suburban growth from the 1960s, which is different from the 1980s Baymeadows and 2000s Tinseltown/SJTC area.  Like its mid-20th century counterparts (ex. Emerson, Arlington, Cedar Hills, etc.) it's aged over the last 50 years as newer suburbs have come to life.  Locally, some would probably call that area "Inner City" because it now has a majority black population but its still suburban in terms of built environment.

Suburban doesn't mean you can't have corner stores, bus lines and sidewalks (although most of the local streets near Cleveland and Moncrief don't have sidewalks) on both sides of the street.  In fact, in most major cities, their inner ring suburbs are more or just as walkable as Jacksonville's core.  Here are a few images of Covington, KY, a 19th century suburb of Cincinnati:





We've turned the word "suburban" into a dirty name due to associating the term with unsustainable sprawl but that doesn't mean you can't have good sustainable suburban development.

[Tacachale]

^People are just using the term "suburban" in different ways. When people are talking about "suburban" in reference to sprawling developments, they're usually thinking of the autocentric post-war suburbs, rather than the older inner ring/streetcar suburbs.

In this sense "suburban" is distinguished more temporally than spatially, since different cities grew at different times. Metro areas that had more of their growth before the automobile and the mass post-war suburbanization will have more of their environment built in the denser, more walkable mode, and the autocentric bedroom communities farther out. Meanwhile, metros that saw their greatest growth after that point, like Jacksonville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, etc., have much more of their total population in the auto suburbs compared to the older, walkable neighborhoods.

[I-10east]

To me there's alot more meanings of an urban neighborhood than the typical Baltimore/Philly/NY/Covington two, three, or four story tenement-like housing with parallel parking along the sides of a narrow street.

[thelakelander]

^Sure, building types and street designs can change but there are common human scale characteristics, such as structures that interact with the public realm (street) at the pedestrian level.  These characteristics are a few that are present within an urban district regardless if the place is Jacksonville, NYC, Savannah or Fernandina Beach.

[finehoe]

I doubt that the county government would have had as much foresight with regards to planning before 1968.  You can observe examples of this disconnect along the pre-1968 city limits.  I notice a subtle shift of land use along Cassat Avenue even now.

Keep in mind that back then, autocentric development was considered foresight.  People tended to look at cities as crowded and dirty, and the new suburbs where going to change that with open space and easy parking.

[simms3]

If we're going to have a discussion of urbanity, there's very little anywhere in the south that can be justified as "urban" relative to the way most of the US/world defines the term.  I'd argue Savannah's historic downtown and NOLA's French District and Miami's South Beach are the only true "urban" areas in the South on a scale that is more than just a few blocks.  My definition of the word has become more and more stringent as I travel more and actually work on urban projects in large gateway markets.

What I have found is that for the most part, the Walk Score city rankings list (top 50 metro areas) actually follows a pretty good indication of ranking the urbanity of those cities (sadly Jacksonville ranks last).

http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/

Even Riverside is less dense than many suburbs of northern cities, so yeah - the Westside and Arlington are completely suburbs and nothing more.  In any other city they would be far enough out to even be their own municipalities.

[Tacachale]

^They could have been their own municipalities regardless. Cambridge is even closer to Boston yet it's its own city. The difference is that Boston is so old and so big that you have to go pretty far out to get to low-density bedroom communities like Arlington.

[thelakelander]

Unfortunately, we blew our densest neighborhoods like Brooklyn, Sugar Hill and LaVilla to bits in the second half of the 20th century.  Anyway, I'd take Walkscore with a grain of salt.  It weights municipal limits, thus any consolidated city with a large amount of rural and undeveloped land is going to fall to the bottom of the list.  Take the pre-consolidated city limits and it will have a much higher Walkscore, although Jax would still not be a walkable mecca compared to the larger cities.

[simms3]

^^^You'd be surprised.  Boston's density is in a very small area and then abruptly cuts off to sprawl and small towns with space in between.  Those small towns, though (like Salem for instance) have nice city centers in and of themselves.  Boston technically spreads very far like Atlanta because outside of the uber dense core it is very unplanned and the built environment is very spotty.  I have college buddies from the Boston area (both south and north shore) who grew up with acreage, yet they are within 20 minutes of the city.

[simms3]

Unfortunately, we blew our densest neighborhoods like Brooklyn, Sugar Hill and LaVilla to bits in the second half of the 20th century.  Anyway, I'd take Walkscore with a grain of salt.  It weights municipal limits, thus any consolidated city with a large amount of rural and undeveloped land is going to fall to the bottom of the list.  Take the pre-consolidated city limits and it will have a much higher Walkscore, although Jax would still not be a walkable mecca compared to the larger cities.

I doubt no matter how they did the rankings Jax would advance much if at all.  It needs better pedestrian awareness, better sidewalks, and it needs more places to walk up to in neighborhoods that a little bit denser and that facilitate walking.  Charlotte's also real low because outside of downtown and Dilworth it's HORRIBLE, but its walking environments make up for it enough to put it ahead of Jax.

[JECJAX]

I agree with East Arlington and the westside (west of Avondale) being considered suburbs.  I lived in Riverside for many years and now live by the Arlington Marina in the River Forest neighborhood of Arlington.   I'm actually closer to downtown now than I was in Riverside - the main difference being I have to cross the river.

[Tacachale]

I don't think Jacksonville is very walkable, but those walk scores are pretty meaningless, and the "rankings" are even more meaningless than that.

[thelakelander]

Unfortunately, we blew our densest neighborhoods like Brooklyn, Sugar Hill and LaVilla to bits in the second half of the 20th century.  Anyway, I'd take Walkscore with a grain of salt.  It weights municipal limits, thus any consolidated city with a large amount of rural and undeveloped land is going to fall to the bottom of the list.  Take the pre-consolidated city limits and it will have a much higher Walkscore, although Jax would still not be a walkable mecca compared to the larger cities.

I doubt no matter how they did the rankings Jax would advance much if at all.  It needs better pedestrian awareness, better sidewalks, and it needs more places to walk up to in neighborhoods that a little bit denser and that facilitate walking.  Charlotte's also real low because outside of downtown and Dilworth it's HORRIBLE, but its walking environments make up for it enough to put it ahead of Jax.

Jacksonville's walkscore is currently 33.  I contend that this number is what it is because it combines suburban areas with the actual city of Jacksonville prior to consolidation.  If consolidation would have never happened, I believe Jacksonville's numbers would be online with its peers from the 1960s, who's borders have never changed.

Going back to 1960, here is a brief list of peer cities that were around the same physical size or density as pre-consolidated Jacksonville:

Jacksonville - 30.2 square miles; 201,030; 6,657/sq mi
Flint, MI - 29.9 square miles; 196,940; 6,587/sq mi
Worcester, MA - 37.0 square miles; 186,587; 5,043/sq mi
Norfolk, VA - 50.0 square miles; 305,872; 6,117/sq mi
St. Paul, MN - 52.2 square miles; 313,411; 6,004/sq mi

Other than Jacksonville, all of these 1960s peer cities are still virtually the same size (land area) now as they were during the 1960s census.  In all cases, their suburban areas have grown significantly since 1960 however, they never merged so that built environment would not drag down their current walkscore numbers. 

Here are the walkscore and square mileage numbers of these cities today:

Jacksonville - 33 (767 sq mi)
Flint, MI - 49 (33.6 sq mi)
Worcester, MA - 60 (37.0 sq mi)
Norfolk, VA - 48 (50.0 sq mi)
St. Paul, MN - 62 (52.2 sq mi)

My non-scientific guess is that if Jacksonville never consolidated with its suburbs, it's walkscore would be in the high-40s to low-60s just like its peers who's city limits have remained roughly the same size since 1960.  By the same token, if Flint merges with its core county, it's walkscore will immediately drop although the actual built infrastructure and environment is exactly the same.  Thus, comparing a consolidated city like Jax with non-consolidated cities like those above aren't going to provide you with accurate comparable data.  That's why I take walkscore with a grain of salt.  Include your burbs and you'll rank low like Jax.  Don't include as many of them by being a boxed in built out city and your walkscore could be as high as Denver's even though nothing physically changed with your built environment.

[finehoe]

How does Walkscore handle Miami?  It seems to include most of the developed land within Miami-Dade County, which certainly includes a lot of sprawl, yet it ranks #8 on their list.

[thelakelander]

Miami is a 35.6 square mile built out city (similar to pre-1968 Jacksonville).  It's not consolidated like we are today so its walkscore numbers are going to be significantly higher.