Least sprawling cities

July 12, 2015 6:54 AM

Where in the US would you live if you wanted to live in an urban environment while maximizing your access to rural or wilderness areas?

Because these are contested terms (no, I'm not interested in your clever contrarian claim that LA is America's least sprawling city), I will define what I mean:

By "urban environment," I mean short blocks and older construction styles that pre-date parking minimums—a place where you can take care of your daily activities without a car.

The urban growth boundary in Portland, OR has supposedly concentrated development and thus made it easier and quicker to reach less-developed areas from the urban core. What other cities (of any size) show similar development patterns?

I'm interested not only in minimizing distance between urban and rural areas, but also in minimizing the amount of that distance that would have to be spent traversing car-centric suburban-style areas—so a slightly larger city which maintains urban development patterns to its edge would be preferable to a more compact city which turns to wide high-speed roads and shopping centers in its outlying sections.

posted by enn to Travel & Transportation (33 answers total)

I live in Berkeley, California. Although the Bay Area does sprawl from one city to the next, Berkeley itself is very, very walkable without a car, and it is very close to open space/wilderness. There's even a great deal of open space within the city (Tilden Park is a 2,000+ acre wilderness area with trails, mountain lions, etc, a 10 minute walk from my apartment). It's a relatively short drive to gorgeous places like Point Reyes and other places along the Pacific, redwood forests, and only a few hours to Yosemite.
posted by three_red_balloons at 7:05 AM on July 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

Based on your definition of urban environment, many medium-to-small towns in the Northeast fit the bill. For instance, Beacon, NY has hiking trails that start right at the edge of town, and lots of farmstands and orchards are a quick bike ride away. Burlington, VT may work as well, and is an actual city unlike Beacon, though there's a little bit of sprawl to the south and east. Boulder, CO would be a perennial nominee as well. Do you have a size minimum that you're considering?

Places that are hemmed in naturally by water and hills are going to be less sprawling just by virtue of their geography.
posted by goingonit at 7:05 AM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

so a slightly larger city which maintains urban development patterns to its edge would be preferable to a more compact city which turns to wide high-speed roads and shopping centers in its outlying sections.

Do any cities like this exist in the United States any longer?

Albany, NY is a good bet for what you want: it's 30 minutes to the boonies, 1 hour to the Green Mountains, Berkshires, Adirondacks, etc., but a small urban core with 18th century origins that is, consequently, very walkable, and you could get everywhere without a car if you didn't need to go to the malls or anything upscale like Whole Foods. But even here we have highways and shopping centers on the outer edges.
posted by dis_integration at 7:09 AM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

The thing is, you haven't defined how far out to the rural area. I'm originally from Columbus, Ohio and if you live in the city center it is quite walkable and only takes about 30 minutes to get to rural areas. But it definitely doesn't fit if you don't want suburban sprawl because it's there for sure. So I think a lot of cities could technically meet the urban to rural requirement, but it's a lot harder to not have suburban sprawl.
posted by Aranquis at 7:14 AM on July 12, 2015

Downtown Tucson's revitalization is going such that in a few years, depending on where one worked, one could survive without a car. There is a new full-service market going up downtown, and the Urban Streetcar project covers a fair amount of ground. It's a very bikeable city too. Nature-wise, there are mountains on three sides, a national park that the city splits in half (Saguaro), and there are two national recreation areas (Mount Lemmon and Sabino Canyon) that are readily accessible. Hiking abounds.
posted by honeybee413 at 7:15 AM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara are also walkable, compact, and near wilderness. I think they rank among the most compact cities in the U.S., but unlike bigger cities like New York (most compact), they have less in the way of suburban sprawl.
posted by three_red_balloons at 7:20 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Boulder, Golden, and many of the mountain / front range towns in Colorado might meet your criteria. The geography forces a limit bounding them on an edge. Higher up in the mountains you also get similar limits, but the employment and livability (either abandoned mining town, ski / gambling tourism town) make them grow in odd ways.
posted by nickggully at 8:00 AM on July 12, 2015

I think Seattle definitely fits your criteria, though it is also ringed by suburban development in some directions. We live in the city center with no car and we're able to do 90% of our errands on foot or by bike. There are some wilder parks within the city (like Discovery Park) and the mountains are literally 30 minutes away. There are also beautiful urban beaches, if that's your thing.

Despite the suburbs around the city, the highways leading to the mountains and forests are still picturesque. Having grown up in the Midwest, I think I understand what you mean about having to slog through boring sprawl before you can get to the pretty stuff, and there's very little of that here.
posted by inky_the_pinky at 8:33 AM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

I was going to say Seattle. It gets sprawly to the north and south, but sprawl is nonexistent to the west because of Puget Sound (which you can cross in some short ferry trips to get to lovely islands and the Olympic Peninsula) and minimized to the east because of the mountains, which you can reach in 30-45 minutes depending on traffic and where you start.

Seattle is getting more and more urban density every year, but manages to balance that nicely with lots of green spaces.
posted by lunasol at 8:56 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I lived in Bozeman, Montana without a car for four years and frequently biked or hiked into the mountains from the edge of town. If you do have a car, you can be in a very remote area within an hour.
posted by desjardins at 9:15 AM on July 12, 2015

This article from Outside Magazine addresses a lot of your questions:
Best Places to Live

As far as #1, Duluth, goes, it's wedged between huge hills and Lake Superior, and much of the city is pre-1940 and built on those hills, so it's pretty compact. Of course lots of people live along the Superior shore but head a few miles inland and it's the southernmost entry to the great, sparsely populated northern forests.
posted by littlewater at 9:29 AM on July 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

How big of a city do you want? Burlington VT has the sprawl problem in most directions (i.e. leaks into suburban, but downtown core is very walkable/accessible) but you can get to middle-of-nowhere really quickly. The state capital, Montpelier has less sprawl (in some directions but not others) and you're right next to the boonies BUT it's only 8000 people so might not meet your measure of what an actual city is.
posted by jessamyn at 9:36 AM on July 12, 2015

Among the places I've lived (which included LA, which is, ha, in no way anything other than queen of sprawl) DC and SF strike me as singular in this regard. They both have the same scale: little squares with no room (or ability) to grow by annexation, really. Their small scale makes public transit an easy reality (no matter how contrarian one wants to be about buses not showing up on time). Walkability is king. They are both also very proximate to wilderness, agricultural lands, waterways, and so on. In SF, for example, I can take a series of 3 or 4 buses (depending on the day) and get to Muir Woods without ever having to drive a car (which I haven't owned in a decade).
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 9:37 AM on July 12, 2015

Plenty of neighborhoods in Los Angeles are like this. It's part of what I like about the city--I see mountains! I don't have a car, but a bike helps with getting deeper into natural areas. Having easily accessible places to walk in the city also helps. The trails in places like Griffith or Elysian Park have more people, but walking out my door to go for a walk in city parks is what I do the most.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 9:37 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was also thinking Duluth, Minnesota might meet your close-to-nature criteria. Not sure if downtown Duluth would meet your carless daily living criteria. It has the building style you want, not sure if they have a downtown grocery store, for example.

Madison, Wisconsin is not super large, and has an unusual, lumpy geography that has some sprawly bits, but also might have some situations where your urban area isn't all that far from dairy farms and pick-your-own berries.
posted by gimonca at 9:46 AM on July 12, 2015

That Outside Magazine article has Minneapolis at #3. Minneapolis and Saint Paul have lots of green stuff woven through the cities--people who visit here tend to remark on how green and nice things are (in the summer), and you're never far from biking, walking, canoeing.....but by other criteria, the Twin Cities can seem extremely sprawly. There are parts of both cities where you can live daily life without a car moderately well, you might actually be close to really nice lakes and parks, but the built suburbs roll out pretty far to the south and northwest, and in other directions there's a more lightweight sprawl of developments mixed with surviving farms and towns. I don't think the Twin Cities would meet the criteria in your last paragraph.
posted by gimonca at 10:00 AM on July 12, 2015

I would think Burlington, VT is the answer to this.
posted by ReluctantViking at 10:03 AM on July 12, 2015

OK so I am going to be the one who tells you that you are wrong, Los Angeles is the correct answer. First off, less than 100,000 people barely counts as a city, which knocks off about 90% of the stuff on this list.

I picked my neighborhood in north-central Los Angeles so that I could live without a car; I had my choice of about 8 different neighborhoods that all had these same amenities. Within a 20 min walk of my apartment I have everything I need to live (subway stop that gets me to 40% of the city and bus stop that accesses another 20% more; or I can buy clothes, shoes, food (24 hour grocery store, and a mexican/eastern european grocery store, and bodegas, and 100+ restaurants with 50+ cuisines), books, jewelry, farmer's market, go to a regular doctor/dentist/optometrist or receive 24 hour urgent care) and also walk 15 min the other direction and hike one of the 53 miles of trails in the 4,000 acre undeveloped Griffith Park. Or I can get in my car and drive for 30 min-one hour on a highway through neighborhoods a lot like mine, and be in the Angeles National Forest (700,000 undeveloped acres), Topanga State Park (11,000 undeveloped acres), Santa Monica Mountains (40 square miles of undeveloped land), the Pacific Ocean (there are 7 state beaches and several city beaches), or one of the other 35 parks that I do not have space to name.

It's popular to hate on LA as a Car City and you can live a Car Lifestyle, but more and more of us are coming here to choose the Car Free lifestyle and it's great!
posted by holyrood at 10:45 AM on July 12, 2015 [10 favorites]

I agree with Albany and Seattle, and Oneonta would be great if it is not too small.
posted by jgirl at 11:15 AM on July 12, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you all for the responses. To answer some questions:

I don't have a minimum size in mind—just big enough to support the ready availability of daily necessities (i.e. no towns that are nice and walkable but you've got to go to the next town over to buy groceries).

I especially appreciate all of the suggestions in the northeast. My feeling is that there are a lot of places which meet my criteria in that area, but I know there are also many that are surrounded by sprawl, so it's nice to hear specific suggestions. (FWIW, while central Albany is certainly walkable, the kind of sprawl you see along Wolf Road is exactly what I would like to avoid.) I've only been to Burlington a handful of times but it seemed similar to what I'm looking for in many ways (and I appreciate the suggestion to look at Montpelier). Duluth and Bozeman had not been on my radar at all so I appreciate those suggestions.
posted by enn at 11:35 AM on July 12, 2015

Portland Maine, is not very large but has great restaurants, Whole Foods & Trader Joes plus other supermarkets, very walkable and possible to live without a car. Northern New England can be a shock - winter is long, dark and often icy. I love New Englanders but they aren't super open. There's sprawl. But I live 10 miles from Portland and am across the street from a small lake, there's plenty of access to the outdoors in summer and winter, and the ocean is accessible. Portland also has several islands, with Peaks having the best ferry service.
posted by theora55 at 11:50 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Telluride, CO
posted by salvia at 12:18 PM on July 12, 2015

I'll add my pitch for Telluride. There's a slight chance it might've sprawled on one end, but the other three sides are contained by steep hills. It's small and fairly low density (most neighborhoods felt maybe 8 du/ac to me -- dense single family), but it has the grocery stores and other basics that you need. There's a well-defined main street. Not sure about say, a Home Depot, so you might find yourself making the occasional big shopping trip elsewhere. But otherwise, almost zero sprawl, stunning mountains, and a ski resort whose lift you can access on foot from town. The main downside is that it's probably really expensive.

That, San Francisco, and Berkeley, are the best of the places I've ever been for an absence of sprawl and strip malls, and having easy access to surrounding natural areas.

Oh, and Mendocino, CA! Almost zero sprawl. But the cultural life of the town intermingles with a few other towns that are more sprawling.
posted by salvia at 12:59 PM on July 12, 2015

I have to say the Northwest is your best choice. I live in Denver now and it's definitely a great option, but nothing compares to Seattle all the way down to Ashland, Oregon. Even NorCal would be a good choice, but still, I'd totally do Seattle again or Portland. Check out Google Maps over Portland and notice Forest Park right there in the city. Good luck!
posted by omgkinky at 1:22 PM on July 12, 2015

As far as Santa Barbara goes, I'd say it's mixed. The downtown is very walkable, but it's also very touristy. Over on the East side it z could be a little more livable, but that's really a strip designed for cars. The mountain wilderness is generally only 3-5 miles away, but that's at the top of some steep hills. Also, bus access is lousy.
posted by happyroach at 4:23 PM on July 12, 2015

Marquette, MI has everything you need to live and has almost zero sprawl. It is also only about 15,000 people and has very few professional jobs. However, every outdoorsy person I know who lives there absolutely loves it. Hundreds of miles of trails, literally millions of acres of woods, in every direction except north- where there is the lake.
posted by rockindata at 7:27 PM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

My in-laws live in Portland, Oregon. They walk almost everywhere, and could walk to work if they wanted. My father-in-law is an avid hiker and has no shortage of beautiful hiking spots nearby, but he usually to drive a bit to reach them- for example, the Columbia Gorge. Forest Park is really close-by, though, and it's huge!
posted by elerina at 9:01 PM on July 12, 2015

Boise, Idaho.
posted by Oyéah at 9:27 PM on July 12, 2015

You question sounds specifically related to some zoning and urban planning things I have no idea about, but: Portland, Oregon... Seattle, Washington... Vancouver, British Columbia... San Francisco, California. They get progressively more expensive in that list, but these cities are pretty similar in their mix of an urban setting + access to nature. At least in my experience, and that's what makes them so great. These are all cities where you can live centrally without a car easily, but then escape to go hiking, climbing, skiing, kayaking and whatever else you enjoy to do outdoors without having to go very far.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:28 PM on July 12, 2015

I think this is totally doable in LA. And bonus: you'd get to live in LA
posted by persona au gratin at 2:28 AM on July 13, 2015

Are you going for least distance between urban and rural environments? Or would you prefer fastest driving time, or fastest public transit time, or easiest public transit experience?

If you're going for the latter, a combination of the Boston Commuter Rail and a bicycle can get you from the center of downtown to bucolic fields in less than an hour with the vast majority of that time being relaxing reading on the train.

That said, I'm not sure you could reasonably measure Boston streets in blocks (due to colonial twists and turns), but we've got older construction styles in spades!
posted by cmchap at 12:02 PM on July 13, 2015

I am car-free and I agree with holyrood 100%, but if L.A. is technically a deal-breaker then I'll add my experience from my Santa Monica neighborhood. (I'd also say the SM vibe is actually more like Berkeley than L.A.)

Most amenities, including movie theatres, are within close (1/2 mile or less) walking distance. Also within walking distance: access to about 14 different bus lines that will take me almost everywhere. By this time next year I will have a light rail station that will take me almost anywhere, faster.

I have world-class doctors and medical centers, an outstanding library, and like holyrood, 100's of food and entertainment options and a huge year-round farmers market. I used to walk to my neighborhood supermarket but a bad knee and torn meniscus has me mostly taking a bus to a different market about 1.5 miles away.

The beaches right here may not be middle-of-nowhere wilderness, but it's not too shabby for walking distance. I could even take a bus to Will Rogers State Park or to Malibu if I wanted to go hiking away from the beach crowds. In the summer we have free, weekly outdoor concerts at the pier by bands you've heard of and free, outdoor movies on the Third Street Promenade. In the winter I can ice skate at the outdoor rink.

And I haven't even gotten into an automobile yet!

I don't know if you're familiar with L.A., but if not then I understand why the article you linked to seems funny, but within its greater borders there are many neighborhoods and incorporated cities (such a Santa Monica and Venice) that fit your description perfectly. You don't say why you're asking, so if you're moving and want to stay away from larger metropolitain areas that's one thing, but of you're just looking for a place that meets your criteria you shouldn't dismiss the L.A. area.
posted by Room 641-A at 2:34 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I live in Duluth (on the edge of town, which is 10 downhill minutes by bike to downtown). I can walk to three grocery stores from my house. (The expensive one is a short neighborhood hike, and the other two normally-priced ones are a very pleasant woodsy hike to get to.) I can also (and do) walk to the post office, library, university library, and various restaurants. Aside from the mall, which is "over the hill," most of the city is eminently bikeable for the average, and great fun for the mountain biker. I live less than a block from the Superior Hiking Trail, via which I could walk to Canada if I chose. The lake is here, and we are an hour's drive to the Boundary Waters and closer to any number of small lakes.
posted by RedEmma at 6:25 AM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]