[IIAOPSW]

>What a lot of people don't realize is that the subway is not all that convenient to where large parts of the population in the city lives

Um, how many people actually live in those islands you found? A lot of those narrow islands could be eliminated by just increasing the walk time to ~12 min. Even more should be covered by the recent 2nd ave extension. The whole strip on Manhattan's East side will be covered once the 2nd Ave line is finished. No one lives in Newton Creek. Many of the other transit dead zones are functionally low rise suburbs. I wouldn't be surprised if the population on those islands you found is dwarfed by NYC population overall.

[cm2012]

A huge portion of northern, eastern and southern queens, eastern brooklyn, and staten island is more than a 10 minute walk from the subway. I live in Queens and am a 40 minute bus ride from the nearest subway station. Swaths of brooklyn are the same.

Here's a map showing the tiny portion of Queens in walking distance of subways. https://cwhong.carto.com/viz/6dfca01c-47e5-11e6-9fd3-0ee66e2.... And yes, it's almost all residential zoned, filled brick to brick with houses and apartments.

Based on this density map (https://www.google.com/search?q=pppulation+densoty+map+nyc&o...) I'd peg it at 35% of the city's pop.

[IIAOPSW]

35% is higher than I would have guessed but not out of bounds of my expectations. Also like a typical New Yorker I'm completely ignoring Staten Island. In terms of commuting patterns and geography it would make more sense to unify PATH with the subway, make Hoboken a borough, and cede SI to NJ in exchange.

[noer]

There are a fair amount of large housing developments outside of a 10-12 minute walk to a subway station. Co-Op city in the Bronx is huge (and according to Wikipedia, has 46K residents), LeFrak City in Queens is mostly out of that boundary and, the one on Pennsylvania Ave in Canarsie (whose name escapes me at the moment) are all large developments without easy subway access. You could probably also includes parts of Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village and those Union Sponsored Mitchell-Lama towers in the LES as being farther than 10 minutes from a subway.

[michaelt]

The map I see is this: https://imgur.com/h74uIJB I'd say there's a pretty large land area not within 10 minutes of a subway station.

Unless what you're trying to say is "places that don't have the public transport to support high-density housing don't have high density housing" - if that's what you're saying, I agree with you!

[cm2012]

It's still very dense and a very good chunk of the city's pop: https://www.google.com/search?q=pppulation+densoty+map+nyc&o....

[IIAOPSW]

That's exactly what I'm saying.

When you resale the map by the presence of commercial space, practically every store front you could buy would be within 10 min of a subway. Transit makes a city.