Why Did America Destroy Its Great Cities? (Commentary)

[M II A II R II K]

Why Did America Destroy Its Great Cities?


8/2/11

By Frank Gruber

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.....

What I'm asking is why, not how. There is a vast literature about urban renewal, suburban sprawl, the building of the freeways, the relocation of jobs out of cities into suburbs and exurbs (and out of the country), etc., but that work is about how the cities were destroyed. Little has been written about the causes of the destruction, yet I suspect that in 50 years that will be the question that attracts the interest of historians.

- They will want to know why Americans allowed their cities to become replicas of bombed-out cities in Europe or Japan, why they bulldozed good housing stock or let it burn, why they tore down substantial downtown buildings and replaced them with parking lots, why they ran freeways across and through stable neighborhoods and valuable real estate, why they bankrupted municipal governments and allowed great school systems to fall into disarray, why they drove middle-class residents out and enticed them to leave.

- I don't purport to have definitive answers, but in considering the question, I've identified certain "suspects," certain factors that could have contributed. In no particular order, and without claiming this list is exhaustive or definitive:

Cultural bias against the city.

In Europe during the same period of economic and technological change cities largely retained their primacy for the middle and upper classes, while the suburbs became the home of the working-class and poor. In the U.S., the single-family house in a faux rural setting became the norm for the middle-class, and even in metropolitan areas that remained relatively prosperous the middle-class largely abandoned central cities. To say that suburban sprawl happened because of favorable governmental policies only begs the question why those were the policies. Did they reflect a bias against cities, rooted in Jeffersonian rural populism?

Changing demographics and racial dynamics.

Can urban destruction be separated from the rural revolutions (and federal agricultural policies and practices) that sent black farmers to the cities? Or the changes south of the border that sent Mexican peasants to American cities? Many destructive policies were a direct response to these migrations. Prior to World War II, American cities had absorbed wave after wave of immigrants, going back to the Irish in the early 19th century. Each wave was discriminated against, but the cities, and ultimately the immigrants, flourished. Were our cities destroyed because of racism?

Changes in transportation or other technologies, in particular the impact of the automobile.

Many of the more obvious physical manifestations of the destruction of cities are the freeways and the parking lots that replaced so much of the productive urban fabric. Equally dramatic was the relocation of jobs away from ports and railheads to freeways and airports. Yet although America led the way in "automobilization," there are by now many societies around the world that have accommodated mass ownership of cars without destroying their old cities.

Capitalism.

As argued in the anti-gentrification writings of Neil Smith (The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City), urban decline through disinvestment should be seen as an expected outcome of capitalism. But then the question is why America, unlike other capitalist societies, did not choose to allocate, or failed in allocating, resources to counteract urban disinvestment.

A failure in politics, ideology or management.

..... The long-term lure of the frontier. Instead of particular causes that arose in the 20th century, might the destruction of the cities be the result of the acceleration and culmination of the long-term movement in the U.S. of capital -- in search of cheaper labor and land -- from the East and North to the South and West (and now overseas)? (This would still beg the question why the U.S. has had a "throwaway" economy.) I am sure there are other possible causes worth consideration and study. Whatever the causes, there are more than historical reasons to understand why America destroyed its cities. Many cities have mounted counter-attacks over the past three decades against urban destruction and at times these have been at least somewhat successful. Hopefully these trends are accelerating. But I suspect that it would help understand what needs to be done to revive cities if we understand better the causes of their destruction.

.....

[Steely Dan]

in general, americans are really, really bad at sharing. human beings in general are bad at sharing, but americans take it to a whole other level. then throw racial paranoia into the mix, and the desire to share plummets even further. cities cannot be healthy, functioning places unless the citizenry buys into the notion of a public sphere and the idea that on some level "we're all in this together". once those foundational elements began to crumble, american cities were fucked.

[kool maudit]

there is absolutely a cultural and racial element to that that can't be ignored... but perhaps that's also just the fate of a new world country once it hits a certain population.

[ametz]

[QUOTE=Steely Dan;5367983]in general, americans are really, really bad at sharing. QUOTE]

+1

The U.S. is probably the most individualistic major society the earth has ever known, and as soon as cars & expressways allowed us to flee to the burbs and not have to share walls, fled we did. And I agree that racial politics accelerated this trend, no doubt.

[pj3000]

Places just get "used up" and the US has always had plenty of room to build new places to "use up".

Manifest Destiny, my friends... in all its different forms. Once we all got cars and highways after WWII, Manifest Destiny was made that much easier.

[M II A II R II K]

Trains first connected the country for transport and commerce, but it didn't prompt suburbs at the time.

[Steely Dan]

Trains first connected the country for transport and commerce, but it didn't prompt suburbs at the time.

nonsense. chicagoland is dotted with dozens upon dozens of prewar commuter rail suburbs that sprang-up in the late 19th/early 20th centuries along the many rail road lines that radiated outwards from the city. post-war "automobilization" merely exacerbated and accelerated a process that was already in full-swing.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

The fact that we constantly preach about how American's are pessimistic and will never buy into city-living is the exact problem.

If you tell yourself that you're all these bad things, after a while, you'll come to believe them.

Why not talk about the advances toward making city-living more fun, exciting, and healthy? That's the kind of stuff that gets people excited and interested in living in cities.

[Dr Nevergold]

^It isn't that we tell ourselves that, it is that the entire marketing machine relating to housing, transportation, and our centers of job creation have centered life around a suburban model. No urban center seriously grows in an urban direction these days in America. Even "urban growth" darlings like Portland are intensely suburban on the whole. The difference is, in Portland, the entire metro region has transit that reaches the more walkable, planned single family homes that reside out in Hillsboro or Gresham, whereas most cities could care less about transit investments in those outer suburbs... Single family homes are just the thing to have in American society. To admire living in condos or flats is a foreign concept here, or for the less well off.

The 'problem' with America and urbanity is that Americans have identified living in an urban setting without your detached single family home to be of a lesser class of people, to be less established, to be less of a human being. American identity at it's core is not going to change, it is how our society has functioned since the beginning. If you want an urban lifestyle, there are a few choices. We have New York and Chicago and San Francisco (and these are truly grand, world class cities), but the costs are very prohibitive generally speaking.

There are no real "second tier" urban centers in America. I love Portland to death, I even lived there from 2007-2008 before I moved back east to Pittsburgh that fall. But even cities like Portland are largely a sea of suburban single family homes with a small village in the center and a few new urbanist dots along the outside. It isn't what I'd call truly urban, so America really doesn't have many second tier cities that offer the same urban experience you could get even in a city of 300,000 in Europe. We are forced to move to the most expensive cities to get that real, genuine active urban lifestyle.

America is what it is... It isn't pessimism to call a spade a spade, especially when most Americans enjoy this suburban and exurban lifestyle. There is nothing more cool for *most* Americans than buying a hot new car and a new house. We're the misfits in a nation of suburbia on SSP, keep that in mind.

[MolsonExport]

Add another variable: mobility. Due to historical circumstances (e.g., immigration, migration, "go West", etc.), and relative lack of stickiness, American society is perhaps the most mobile on earth, ever. 1 in 5 Americans move each year. Many people do not expect to stay rooted very long in a single place. It is extremely easy to move. So why would they want to invest in long-term solutions? Just haul stakes and move to...California. Vegas. North Carolina. Texas.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I highly doubt its that easy to move. I've been trying to leave Arizona for years to no avail.

[gtbassett]

Sadly
We're the misfits in a nation of suburbia on SSP, keep that in mind.
Truth

I highly doubt its that easy to move. I've been trying to leave Arizona for years to no avail.
We are a highly mobile culture compared to most societies. This is actually I believe one of the largest reasons why we let our grand urban cities decay, the younger generations left the cities of the rust belt where most likely their families resided for generations and after this mass exodus, there was a general lack of care for these cities just due to the fact that people didn't have multi-generational ties to their homes anymore.

[WilliamTheArtist]

I think to a large degree it just snuck up on us. It sounded and looked nice. That first ring of new development around the city wasn't so bad at all. Not too many new roads and you could still easily get to the city and enjoy what it had to offer. But then with a bit more, the city started to struggle, the trendy strip malls and suburban homes started looking nicer. And by then we had created a very enticing new dream that led us ever outward with a vengance.

As a case in point, Tulsa was originally modeled after the European ideal. At the turn of the century the rich Oil Barons wanted to show off and create a classic, world class city that they could be proud of with grand theater palaces, majestic skyscrapers, Iitalianate Villas, Ballet, Opera, fountains, Cathedrals, etc. They even had plans for a Ponti Vecchio style bridge crossing the river. We had some of the highest population densities in the US, more buildings of 10 stories or more than any other city our size, we were called the most beautiful city in the US. You would have thought that would have been a nice model to keep and build up.

BUT...looking back at Tulsa in the 50s you could see there was this great exuberance and energy for the modern. We could rip it all down and rebuild shiny and new. And why not? Money was no problem and that shiny new, clean lined future we saw in the magazines and on TV was so fun and enticing looking "The World of Tomorrow!". We need to be a part of that and not fall behind. So with exciting fanfair we ripped out our core left and right building the future. We couldn't see, and didn't care to ponder, the real consequences of continuing in that direction over a long period of time. It was only afterwards, when the shiny dream turned middle age, that many began to realize that things weren't all they were cracked up to be. There was indeed something good that we had left behind, and eternal sprawl had some serious headaches.

Now we are faced with looking at both models, urban and suburban and trying to work out a new paradigm. We are trying to create a new dream, or set of dreams, both of which contain some difficult new realities and challenges. We can't only continue the usual sprawl, but its a model we know oh so well, and will keep plying it, for its "the devil we know". And the city core now has the added difficuty of having to take into account the automobile and a different set of lifestyle expectations and habits.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

^It isn't that we tell ourselves that, it is that the entire marketing machine relating to housing, transportation, and our centers of job creation have centered life around a suburban model. No urban center seriously grows in an urban direction these days in America. Even "urban growth" darlings like Portland are intensely suburban on the whole. The difference is, in Portland, the entire metro region has transit that reaches the more walkable, planned single family homes that reside out in Hillsboro or Gresham, whereas most cities could care less about transit investments in those outer suburbs... Single family homes are just the thing to have in American society. To admire living in condos or flats is a foreign concept here, or for the less well off.

The 'problem' with America and urbanity is that Americans have identified living in an urban setting without your detached single family home to be of a lesser class of people, to be less established, to be less of a human being. American identity at it's core is not going to change, it is how our society has functioned since the beginning. If you want an urban lifestyle, there are a few choices. We have New York and Chicago and San Francisco (and these are truly grand, world class cities), but the costs are very prohibitive generally speaking.

There are no real "second tier" urban centers in America. I love Portland to death, I even lived there from 2007-2008 before I moved back east to Pittsburgh that fall. But even cities like Portland are largely a sea of suburban single family homes with a small village in the center and a few new urbanist dots along the outside. It isn't what I'd call truly urban, so America really doesn't have many second tier cities that offer the same urban experience you could get even in a city of 300,000 in Europe. We are forced to move to the most expensive cities to get that real, genuine active urban lifestyle.

America is what it is... It isn't pessimism to call a spade a spade, especially when most Americans enjoy this suburban and exurban lifestyle. There is nothing more cool for *most* Americans than buying a hot new car and a new house. We're the misfits in a nation of suburbia on SSP, keep that in mind.

I dunno, most people I know are getting tired of commuting 20 miles to their workplaces and looking to move to locations closer to cities. While I agree that generally Americans are in love with suburbs, having a yard, and being able to drive around, I simply don't see this overwhelming number of people that are bogged down in their love of the typical commute.

Maybe it's just that Alabama is so far behind on the urban timeline that there's no where to go but up.

Either way, I still don't think it helps the situation to tell Americans that they're urban haters. I mean, I think we all know how gullible Americans are when it comes to what is said on TV or the internet. The average American just wants to be like the average American. So, when they see that "the average American" is a "suburb loving, city hating, gasoline fiend," they're probably gonna end up being the same way.

Other people's opinions have more to do with the average persons beliefs than you think. Even though crime rates are dropping in my area, people are constantly online, commenting on news stories, about how the crime rate is skyrocketing. Saying, "I would never go into downtown, it's so dangerous!" even though downtown is one of the safest parts of town.

Bottom line is people are stupid. If they read online about the virtues of the suburb, cars, and sprawl, they're probably going to think that's the way to go. The best way to counteract that is preach the virtues of city living, not to around, arms flailing in the air say, "Bahhhh! America hates cities, bahhh!" Not that anyone's doing that, it's just a comical image in my head.

Anyways, I say combat all their stupidity with talk about what's good about cities. They're safer, more efficient, less stressful, culturally rich, and offer more recreational opportunities. Most people don't know those things, and it's because most people are senselessly convinced that cities are awful, dirty places.

[BG918]

I think race played the largest role. Whites and blacks did not mix and when they were finally forced to during the desegregation era those with the means (the whites) went to a place without blacks (the suburbs). New expressways, the destruction of inner city transit systems by GM, crumbling infrastructure, the post WWII era ideal for the new and modern, ample land outside American cities, etc. all played supporting roles...

[mhays]

In many cities, people pay a large premium to live close-in, particularly on a square foot basis. Also, much of suburbia is people trying to find their preferred square footage for less money than closer in. I realize that doesn't mean the average person loves cities, or prefers to be central or be in denser neighborhoods for anything other than convenience...but it doesn't argue the other way either.

[sciguy0504]

Culture, race and, especially, (corrupt) politicians. Just look at the violent teen flash mobs in Philadelphia. They don't care about their city, which is typical about their attitude towards life. They just don't care, along with the one-party city council and mayor's office who are in it for lifelong employment and back room deals.

[M II A II R II K]

nonsense. chicagoland is dotted with dozens upon dozens of prewar commuter rail suburbs that sprang-up in the late 19th/early 20th centuries along the many rail road lines that radiated outwards from the city. post-war "automobilization" merely exacerbated and accelerated a process that was already in full-swing.


The time period can also be critical. London used to have many outlying towns that have since been encroached upon and made part of the city and the outlying areas as well. Although that would have mainly taken place during pre-war times so the infill in between them would be mostly a pre-war setup.

I guess NYC metropolitan area would serve as a good comparison when it comes to it's outlying areas but then there was the tendency to decimate city centres with highways like what happened in Hartford, CT.

[Dr Nevergold]

I dunno, most people I know are getting tired of commuting 20 miles to their workplaces and looking to move to locations closer to cities. While I agree that generally Americans are in love with suburbs, having a yard, and being able to drive around, I simply don't see this overwhelming number of people that are bogged down in their love of the typical commute.

Maybe it's just that Alabama is so far behind on the urban timeline that there's no where to go but up.

Either way, I still don't think it helps the situation to tell Americans that they're urban haters. I mean, I think we all know how gullible Americans are when it comes to what is said on TV or the internet. The average American just wants to be like the average American. So, when they see that "the average American" is a "suburb loving, city hating, gasoline fiend," they're probably gonna end up being the same way.

Other people's opinions have more to do with the average persons beliefs than you think. Even though crime rates are dropping in my area, people are constantly online, commenting on news stories, about how the crime rate is skyrocketing. Saying, "I would never go into downtown, it's so dangerous!" even though downtown is one of the safest parts of town.

Bottom line is people are stupid. If they read online about the virtues of the suburb, cars, and sprawl, they're probably going to think that's the way to go. The best way to counteract that is preach the virtues of city living, not to around, arms flailing in the air say, "Bahhhh! America hates cities, bahhh!" Not that anyone's doing that, it's just a comical image in my head.

Anyways, I say combat all their stupidity with talk about what's good about cities. They're safer, more efficient, less stressful, culturally rich, and offer more recreational opportunities. Most people don't know those things, and it's because most people are senselessly convinced that cities are awful, dirty places.

I think you are actually hinting at what I've already said: the American public is hit with a massive multi-industry marketing message that the only real honorable lifestyle is the suburban or exurban lifestyle. Both urban and rural lifestyles are lambasted. Truly rural lifestyles come from making a life off of the land, not buying a far-out ranch and driving 50+ miles to a job every day and using your ranch as a symbol or image to project.

We are in a society that basically says that you are crap and less of a human being for not owning a home and owning a nice car. As much as the car is a utility, in America it is a status symbol. We Americans do this more than any other society. Drive a Prius or Insight like me? You're instantly characterized as a certain type of person. Drive a huge SUV? You're stereotyped as something else. Drive a shitty car? You're less of a person...

We judge people in our society by our cars more than any other on the Earth. I see a strong difference just between Canada and the US, Canadians largely look at car ownership the same way (who isn't impressed if you can afford a brand new, $30k car?), but there isn't nearly as much disdain for someone who uses transit and lives without a car. Right across the board, even down to smaller towns, transit use is many times more acceptable (mid-sized cities like London, Ontario have transit use many times above American metros of well over a million people). And Canada isn't even a "transit nation" in my view, it is largely a car culture just like us.

America just takes this to the extreme on the car thing, then we can get into the single family housing issue. Americans are hyper obsessed and many think it is a God-given right to own a single family house. It is the ideal of most citizens in America. Marketing tells us you're supposed to own a home, from the day we're born to the day we die. You aren't told that it is healthy and good to own a condo or to rent a flat in a city that isn't in a detached environment.

This isn't about being negative, it is about pointing out that the corporate interests for home ownership are huge, the corporate interests for selling cars is huge. They trump the urban lifestyle we on SSP like to promote.

We haven't even began to discuss how corporate America has largely started building office construction in suburban environments, refusing to locate centers of work around transit hubs and urban centers that actually allow you to live car-free. Lots of office space in America is built to avoid the urban lifestyle - not embrace it - so that you're required to drive to lunch or drive to the office and back.

The entire system is against urban living. It is very hard to find employment in an urban setting and live in rental or condo construction along transit lines.

[Dr Nevergold]

To extrapolate on where I currently live, I moved to Buffalo two years ago after spending a year in Pittsburgh, and after spending a year in Portland before that. I used to absolutely hate this city, and treated it like a dump on my commutes to Toronto. While I think Buffalo has obvious challenges to economic growth (although right now its doing better than the national average and only has 7.5% unemployment, with a metro net increase of 3,000 jobs since last year according to the last stats I read), the truth is Buffalo has a very nice old core.

The downtown has a lot of work to do, the main street transit mall is a strip of shut down businesses and largely void of people unless the workers are heading home from the office or a few of the bars downtown, or during sports events... But the entire north end of the city has a true vernacular, cohesive homes and a real urban environment. It is served by a good transit system for an American city. There is the Buffalo Metro that runs for 7 miles through the core of the city, and bus services are frequent, and despite it's rustbelt image, all the homes in the north end are far from boarded up. Most are *very* nice and well kept, and many are mansions from the early 1900's, along with more middle class style living.

But people won't move to Buffalo for it's genuine vernacular, and the fact that a real city still exists here. Everything seems to get compared to Detroit in the "rust belt" but the truth is, you can go from downtown Buffalo along Delaware Avenue all the way out here to Tonawanda in the north towns where I live, and not a single block is a "ghetto" or bad in any way. Buffalo has an entirely cohesive, middle class, livable environment. The only 'ghetto' is the East Side, some western communities along the river (aka Riverside, Black Rock), and some of the old irish communities in south Buffalo and the Lackawanna area is a little rough as well. The entire rest of the metro area (save for Niagara Falls, which can be rough) is middle class, well off, and filled with cohesive neighborhoods. Yet people think of Buffalo with some akward nastiness, as if it is some town with nothing to offer. Yet it is more urban with better transit than 90% of American cities. You can catch a bus literally in any neighborhood and be downtown within a reasonable time, or use Metro Rail if you're in the city proper.

All these things we talk about on here mean nothing to the vast majority of people. They buy what is sold to them. Suburban office parks, suburban shopping centers, and suburban single family housing is what they buy.

Until this marketing machine changes, we'll forever be in a suburban nation. Even with fuel at $6/gallon... Americans will gladly embrace a huge race to natural gas powered vehicles and electric plug in technology before they leave the automobile.

So the moral of the story is this: don't expect high gasoline prices to push people back into cities either, Americans will gladly invest in natural gas and electric plug-in technology if they have to. They will continue the car culture, come hell or high water. It is here to stay.

Cities like Buffalo, with a true urban vernacular, aren't high up on the list for people to move to...

Speaking to Buffalo's vernacular:
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Architectural tour (my favorite building is at 8:45, which is an old bank building downtown):
vnE_uaVtbwU

Waterfront video:
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'This Place Matters' video:
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^Americans largely don't care about urban character, they care about rubbing on some tanning lotion so they can sit on some Florida beach for a few hours and then go eat at Applebees. The proof is in the movement of people, and it is clear we aren't even remotely headed into some new urban era. Although I give props to the new urbanists who have tried to make urban living look cool in America since the 1990's. The movement hasn't really effected much change, just a few communities here and there. At least a small drop in a sea of suburbanism...

[brickell]

then throw racial paranoia into the mix, and the desire to share plummets even further. cities cannot be healthy, functioning places unless the citizenry buys into the notion of a public sphere and the idea that on some level "we're all in this together".


Manifest Destiny, my friends... in all its different forms. Once we all got cars and highways after WWII, Manifest Destiny was made that much easier.

Add another variable: mobility. Due to historical circumstances (e.g., immigration, migration, "go West", etc.), and relative lack of stickiness, American society is perhaps the most mobile on earth


Stew these 3 (racism and rugged individuality, mobility, manifest destiny) together, throw in the post war prosperity of the US, urban renewal, the back to earth movement, desegregation, Ronald Reagan, the bit by bit changes in laws and zoning that basically outlawed building cities the right way...

let simmer for 50 years and you'll get an answer

[iheartthed]

One thing he didn't mention is the structure of government typical in most areas of the U.S. In Europe, there are typically fewer layers of government between the cities and the national government. In the largest of European cities, the city is typically the next level of administration after the federal level. In the U.S. it is quite the opposite: there is only one city government directly beneath the federal, and most cities are separated by 3 degrees (state->county->city). What this has done is diluted the power of the central cities to address inefficiencies of suburbanization... And simultaneously, since there is so much abstraction between central cities and their state government, this structure has given outlying communities much more political power than their relative sizes. I don't think it's too much of a coincidence that some of the strongest central cities in America are also contiguous with the county/counties where the city resides (New York, San Francisco), or serve as the capitals of their state (Boston, Washington).

[Dr Nevergold]

Stew these 3 (racism and rugged individuality, mobility, manifest destiny) together, throw in the post war prosperity of the US, urban renewal, the back to earth movement, desegregation, Ronald Reagan, the bit by bit changes in laws and zoning that basically outlawed building cities the right way...

let simmer for 50 years and you'll get an answer

I think the answer is a little different: our ideal has become the suburban model because it makes money. So much of American economic growth has come from building and selling/marketing the automobile based lifestyle. Our economy nearly collapsed when the house-trading went crazy and came to a head in 2008, afterall. So much of American economic power resides in two areas: the amount of mass immigration we get, which expands our economy, and the vast and fast growth of rapid suburbanization. No nation on Earth has built so much needless suburban development than has occurred here (although what is happening in China today is technically exceeding it). It is bigger than the tech boom, it is what fueled much of American growth throughout the 1900's and into the first decade of the 2000's.

It is all about money and marketing. You can get a zoning law change, but you have to have developers get behind it. Developers in America love selling the single family home concept. It makes lots and lots of money for them. Most people don't realize it doesn't take amazing jobs to fuel such growth. How many two-income households do you think there are for people where one is a server and the other is a Walmart worker who buy a home? It has fueled most of American growth, not amazing IT or advanced science jobs.

People forget there are two Americas. You have Boston and San Francisco 'elite' economies, but for most people in America they buy a home working as a waitress/waiter or cashier with two incomes. This has added to American growth exponentially more than what you get in Europe. Although it will be interesting to see how the post-2008 bubble burst will treat our economy.

[llamaorama]

We can't really have this conversation without making the observation that suburban sprawl in some form has happened in virtually every developed country, in Europe and Asia.

What happened in the US where suburbs grew at the expense of central cities in the mid-20th century could be attributed to intentional government policies that favored suburban planning.

[Dr Nevergold]

The difference in America is that it was so tilted in one direction and so detracted from urban development that America essentially ended mass urban development in the 1940's. We haven't had mass urban development since that period, just a few projects here and there that mimic it.

This isn't to say it hasn't worked, economic development over the past century has relatively been good for Americans. Keep in mind suburbanization actually caused mass GDP growth.

But you can't say all cities are destroyed. I used Buffalo as an example with the videos earlier. Buffalo isn't destroyed, it just isn't seriously growing anymore. Although in this new economic paradigm I am wondering if we aren't going to continue to do better than average.

[brickell]

I think the answer is a little different: our ideal has become the suburban model because it makes money. So much of American economic growth has come from building and selling/marketing the automobile based lifestyle.


It makes money, because people want it. I don't buy into this great "marketing scheme" idea at all. If people wanted to live in condo's they'd be building those too. In fact, much of the suburban housing in Miami isn't even single family anymore. It's townhouses and cheap apartments.

[Symz]

I live next to Detroit, but in Canada, Windsor. Anyways, I think Detroit is the poster child for urban blight. It is a city rich in north american history and yet it is a crumbling sh!thole with staggeringly high unemployment and illiteracy. Racial tension is still prevalent and the city metro is falling apart, in danger of losing it's city status and being handed over to the state, yet the suburbs of Detroit are in healthy shape (with the exception of Flint (which is another sh!thole)). Recent articles in the Detroit Free press make statements like 'Detroit had a bigger population in 1950 than it does now', 'Detroit once had over 2 million people in it's metro and now is down to ~ 713,000'.

The city is talking about tearing down entire neighbourhoods or swaths of city land that are vacant, cutting off electricity and water services to large parts of the city. Also the city was exploring the idea of clearing abandoned neighbourhoods and making urban farmland.

I really do think that Detroit IS the prime example of urban decay in the U.S. , this city is in some serious trouble.

It's been tough to watch this once great city struggle.

[ametz]

:previous:I think Detroit is atypical- it’s an example of a single industry town that required a ton of manpower to perform relatively menial labor. Its economy wasn’t nearly diversified enough for a city of its (former) size. Once the bottom began to fall out, there just wasn’t enough other industry to pick up the slack, and assembly line skills don't mean much these days.

[Dr Nevergold]

It makes money, because people want it. I don't buy into this great "marketing scheme" idea at all. If people wanted to live in condo's they'd be building those too. In fact, much of the suburban housing in Miami isn't even single family anymore. It's townhouses and cheap apartments.

But in order to create demand, it also requires marketing. Marketing is key to any phenomenon, ask anyone looking to sell a product. Marketing is key to creating the feeling behind a product, it puts the emotion into buying a product. If you don't agree that single family housing has a huge marketing component, okay, that's fine... But I don't see how you can deny it given that everything in America is geared toward supporting single family homes in a suburban environment.

Mind you I have no sway in this greater phenomenon as you know, I just have my preference. I love condos and highrises. Why do you think I love Toronto so much, I'd love to see condos from Hamilton to Oshawa someday, just a solid wall of condos for 80 miles.

[Reverberation]

America destroyed its cities for several reasons;

Cars - I can promise you that when cars were a new thing, everyone wanted them. It was a lifestyle enhancer (like cellphones or ipods). If you lived in a big city in the 30's or 40's your commute involved wooden seats and cramming into a streetcar with a bunch of people who just spent the day in buildings with no central air.

Land - People who grew up in cities suddenly had access to cars and yards. These (or their parents) are people who grew up in times when good hygene and deoderant weren't nearly universal, central A/C wasn't that common, and it wasn't uncommon for your neighbors stove fire to turn into your apartment building fire. Hell yeah they wanted that sh*t. And let's not forget that new suburbs didn't start out being 30+ miles from the city.

Before cars, urban traffic consisted of streetcars, trains, and horses that poo'd on the street. It wasn't until this generation that suburbs began to envelop so much land that a new neighborhoods were 30-40 miles from downtown, and technology, building codes, etc. made living downtown just as good if not better as an alternative.

As for Europe, we have to factor in the fact that WWII gutted many big cities. If I was rich and in Europe at the time, I would live in the city too. Think about it, you just spent lots of money rebuilding it, many former residents are dead now, why not move there?

[Dr Nevergold]

I live next to Detroit, but in Canada, Windsor. Anyways, I think Detroit is the poster child for urban blight. It is a city rich in north american history and yet it is a crumbling sh!thole with staggeringly high unemployment and illiteracy. Racial tension is still prevalent and the city metro is falling apart, in danger of losing it's city status and being handed over to the state, yet the suburbs of Detroit are in healthy shape (with the exception of Flint (which is another sh!thole)). Recent articles in the Detroit Free press make statements like 'Detroit had a bigger population in 1950 than it does now', 'Detroit once had over 2 million people in it's metro and now is down to ~ 713,000'.

The city is talking about tearing down entire neighbourhoods or swaths of city land that are vacant, cutting off electricity and water services to large parts of the city. Also the city was exploring the idea of clearing abandoned neighbourhoods and making urban farmland.

I really do think that Detroit IS the prime example of urban decay in the U.S. , this city is in some serious trouble.

It's been tough to watch this once great city struggle.

I've been all over the United States, and I think no city in the country can compare to Detroit. Detroit truly is America's lost city, it is almost entirely destroyed. But the irony is that it is almost exclusively just the city proper, the northern suburbs (where the vast majority of Detroiters live, despite their refusal to call themselves Detroiters) are fairly normal and well to do.

But no, there isn't another single major city in America with the amount of total distress as Detroit for the central city. The south metro Chicago region is pretty bad off as well, but at least it isn't the core.

Actually I think it is unfair to lump the rust belt together, Detroit is so different from the situations in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, etc. Detroit is the only city up here I can think of with no viable urban center. Well, besides the downtown core and Greektown. I think even native Detroiters acknowledge the issues the city has, yet the region as a whole still has above average incomes outside the city limits... Such an interesting place.

[WilliamTheArtist]

I don't think the current situation is all that dismal. Right now there are probably more "homes" going in our downtown than any other area of the city. One development of 70 plus units is getting close to wrapping up, and another one of 70 plus units is well on its way to being started, plus there are several smaller residential developments underway and some large ones planned. I dont see any new suburban neighborhoods in the area with 70 plus homes going in. And imo, our downtown is just starting to get rolling. Got a new tower announced, another new office building, several new hotels, new restaurants and retail, new museums and parks, etc. etc. If the economy weren't in such a mess, I know even little ol, behind the times, car centric Tulsa would be seeing even more new residences and other development downtown.

Despite the tragedy of the past, I think most cities cores are on solid footing or on their way back.

[Wizened Variations]

The most important reason, IMO, HAS NOT BEEN MENTIONED.

My deceased uncles, my grandfathers, and, my parents all cursed the Depression. They often mentioned how dirty living near major trains stations was due to ash and soot. They remembered when noboby could afford to paint their homes (linseed oil based). One of my grandfathers was a construction foreman who, a few times, had to fist fight a worker that had been fired. They were sick of the hard times, and, still into their 80s talked about why so many people had to die in war to get us out of that no repair state.

I think that people were just sick of how things were, and, wanted to share in the promise hinted by the Cord, by the DC 3, and, the like.

Consequently, too many jumped on Mr. Moses' NYC school of urban renewal and took 10s of thousands of urban core acres and either bull dozed or blew existing buildings up, replacing the old with the visions shown so beautifully by GM at the 1939 World's Fair.

And they thought, "GOOD RIDDANCE!", while driving on a pleasant spring day with the top down on their Belaire convertible.

[austlar1]

in general, americans are really, really bad at sharing. human beings in general are bad at sharing, but americans take it to a whole other level. then throw racial paranoia into the mix, and the desire to share plummets even further. cities cannot be healthy, functioning places unless the citizenry buys into the notion of a public sphere and the idea that on some level "we're all in this together". once those foundational elements began to crumble, american cities were fucked.

I really wish there was a "Like" feature on SSP. I think you really do nail it regarding this topic.

[BevoLJ]

Just another one of the many many reason as to "Why" that I was thinking about today... Friction

A couple months ago it was announced someone has plans for a new 500 foot condo + other stuff tower downtown. But then last week someone pointed out that there was a tree right in the middle of the lot that they want to build this tower downtown. Now I highly doubt that before this article came out that 99.5% of those in Austin know that a tree exist on that property. It is a big 70 year old pecan tree and quite healthy. That is a fairly old tree but nothing like all the other 100+ year old oaks we have all over the city. So now this 500' building has this massive battle to fight and in a city like Austin the tree is more like to win.

Point being that if that project was to be planned for the suburbs no one would care at all if they cut down a tree. Cities just have to many loops to jump and all kinds of stuff you must deal with. It makes the cost of building and living in cities skyrocket. Where as in the burbs you can avoid much of all the extra stuff you have to deal with in city centers. Which makes the cost cheaper and the planning, approving, and build time much faster.

Only bringing it up as one of the many other great reason in the op and other post. Just something I was thinking on before I read this just now.

[hauntedheadnc]

Just another one of the many many reason as to "Why" that I was thinking about today... Friction

A couple months ago it was announced someone has plans for a new 500 foot condo + other stuff tower downtown. But then last week someone pointed out that there was a tree right in the middle of the lot that they want to build this tower downtown. Now I highly doubt that before this article came out that 99.5% of those in Austin know that a tree exist on that property. It is a big 70 year old pecan tree and quite healthy. That is a fairly old tree but nothing like all the other 100+ year old oaks we have all over the city. So now this 500' building has this massive battle to fight and in a city like Austin the tree is more like to win.

Point being that if that project was to be planned for the suburbs no one would care at all if they cut down a tree. Cities just have to many loops to jump and all kinds of stuff you must deal with. It makes the cost of building and living in cities skyrocket. Where as in the burbs you can avoid much of all the extra stuff you have to deal with in city centers. Which makes the cost cheaper and the planning, approving, and build time much faster.

Only bringing it up as one of the many other great reason in the op and other post. Just something I was thinking on before I read this just now.

Precisely... People who can afford to do so move into a desirable city and develop this bizarre, gnawing need to preserve everything around them exactly as it is. They reject the dynamism that drew them in the first place, because the energy is like everything else. It must be stopped in its tracks, not to increase or change.

Something similar happened here when a developer wanted to build a 9-story condo building next to city hall. The project would have involved tearing down an historic building and cutting down a 150-year old magnolia tree. This galvanized the populace of Asheville, particularly all the area witches. They descended on the tree to dance around it, pray about (or to) it, tie written prayers to it with ribbons, cast spells on it, and -- in the end -- form a 24/7 guard for it. At least one witch was on duty at all hours of the day or night.

And eventually they won. The developer renovated the historic building and opened what has become a very popular pub and restaurant in it. The magnolia tree now shades the outdoor dining area in back.

This sort of thing has happened all over town. Down in the most blighted segment of downtown Asheville, an historic black business district called The Block, the owners of a restaurant sued to stop a project that would have allowed a residential tower to be built on a parking lot next door. Why? They were concerned about gentrification and the loss of "light and fresh air" if the parking lot were to be developed. The project was not built, the parking lot is still there (the restaurant is not), and the neighborhood is still largely abandoned.

Elsewhere in downtown, residents of a senior living complex that occupies one of the historic hotel buildings raised a huge fuss when the city wanted to build a parking deck behind their building. They won, and as a result, the city will instead tear down a short row of old, but abandoned, buildings nearby for a parking lot.

Meanwhile, a developer proposed to resurrect a 1920's era plan for a tower that never got built because the Great Depression decided to butt in. Asheville's enormous and vocal NIMBY-American community launched an attack and got the project killed. In turning down the project, the City Council called it "too large" and "too urban," conveniently forgetting that the council chambers are in a building located next door to the tallest courthouse in the state, and that the first skyscraper in this part of the state is located on the other side of the public square outside. Basically, we as a city were a lot bolder almost 90 years ago when the majority of downtown as it looks today got built, when nobody thought it horrifying when a dozen buildings in the 10-20 story range went up.

I could go on. In the end, it's just easier for a developer to squat and grunt out a subdivision or a strip mall out in the suburbs rather than put up with the relentless, grinding pain in the ass that comes with trying to build anything in town.

[miketoronto]

Read the book "Downtown". It goes into detail how American cities actually started the decline of the inner city back in the late 1800's and early 1900's. In fact according to the author, the full path to inner city decline was set by the 1920's.

Many reasons are cited including

-Rampant decentralization of commerce from the downtown cores of American cities
-The lack of rapid transit construction in American cities, and the constant fight even in the early 1900's to build subways in American cities.
-Rampant suburban growth even in the early 1900's. Americans were escaping the city for decades before the "auto suburbs" started.
-Business leaders who wrote off the inner city and moved business to the streetcar suburbs and then into the auto suburbs of the 1950's and decades following that.
-Racial tension

Anyway it is a good read and has interesting facts on how much value American cities lost in dollar amounts. Shocking how much property value Chicago's loop for example lost in the 40's. Or how many people stopped going into Central LA on a daily basis, etc. For example despite record population growth, central LA lost 200,000 daily visitors in a 6 year span in the late 40's.

[brickell]

But in order to create demand, it also requires marketing. Marketing is key to any phenomenon, ask anyone looking to sell a product.

Sure marketing is everywhere, but that doesn't mean there's some big marketing conspiracy for the suburbs. Condo marketing was just as bad the last decade.

[iheartthed]

I've been all over the United States, and I think no city in the country can compare to Detroit. Detroit truly is America's lost city, it is almost entirely destroyed. But the irony is that it is almost exclusively just the city proper, the northern suburbs (where the vast majority of Detroiters live, despite their refusal to call themselves Detroiters) are fairly normal and well to do.

But no, there isn't another single major city in America with the amount of total distress as Detroit for the central city. The south metro Chicago region is pretty bad off as well, but at least it isn't the core.

Actually I think it is unfair to lump the rust belt together, Detroit is so different from the situations in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, etc. Detroit is the only city up here I can think of with no viable urban center. Well, besides the downtown core and Greektown. I think even native Detroiters acknowledge the issues the city has, yet the region as a whole still has above average incomes outside the city limits... Such an interesting place.

Detroit's problems didn't stem from loss of industry like other Rust Belt cities. Unlike the metros of Pittsburgh and Buffalo, Metro Detroit hasn't been consistently in population decline since the steel bust of the 1960s. Chicago had a steel focused economy in common with Pittsburgh and Buffalo (and even places like Newark), but Chi's economy was clearly more diversified, which is why it recovered more easily. Detroit's economy was never dependent on steel production, which is why the economic fluctuations didn't occur in tandem with those cities.

Until post 9/11, Detroit City's number one problem has been sprawl friendly regional policies that drained both commerce and population from the city center. The past decade has been an exceptionally rough period of time for Metro Detroit though. But still, Detroit is not in unique territory by rate of population decline. Pittsburgh is off of peak population by 55%; Buffalo is off peak population by 55%; St. Louis is off by 63%; Cleveland is off by 57%; Detroit is off by 62%.

[Dr Nevergold]

Condo marketing was just as bad the last decade.

If you say so.... We're talking about America at large, not Miami.

[10023]

The answer is simple... because of people like Michelle Bachmann:

Bachmann's concerns may have been best articulated in an interview she gave to the American Family Association's OneNewsNow in 2008. As Republicans in Washington revolted over the rising costs of gas, the then-freshman congresswoman outlined the stakes:

"This is their agenda—I know it's hard to believe, it's hard to fathom, but this is 'Mission Accomplished' for them," she said of congressional Democrats. "They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That's their vision for America."

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-light-bulbs-agenda-21?page=1


As long as filth like that woman have currency in American politics and society, this mentality will continue.

[Dr Nevergold]

Michele Bachmann certainly is a special individual.

[tablemtn]

Realistically, if I had been an urban-dweller in a major American city in the 1960's, I probably would have moved out to the suburbs as well. American cities at that time were on a remarkable downswing, with steadily-spiking violent crime rates, sharply-declining public schools, and other forms of malaise.

By the time the "riot summers" started rippling around the country in the late-1960's, core cities had been placed on hiatus.

Obviously, the trends toward mass-suburbanization and exurbization began well before that point in time, but from the perspective of a newly-minted suburbanite from that era, we have to keep in mind that many core cities had become exceedingly unappealing places to live.

[Reverberation]

Realistically, if I had been an urban-dweller in a major American city in the 1960's, I probably would have moved out to the suburbs as well. American cities at that time were on a remarkable downswing, with steadily-spiking violent crime rates, sharply-declining public schools, and other forms of malaise.

By the time the "riot summers" started rippling around the country in the late-1960's, core cities had been placed on hiatus.

Obviously, the trends toward mass-suburbanization and exurbization began well before that point in time, but from the perspective of a newly-minted suburbanite from that era, we have to keep in mind that many core cities had become exceedingly unappealing places to live.

I agree. I think that on this forum there is a inclination to look at yesterday's cities through today's goggles. What someone in the 50's would call "cramped", we call "efficient" and see it as chic. Cities weren't lost or destroyed, but modified to be accessible to people who didn't fancy the crowded and noisy urban lifestyle.

[HarshLiving]

I honestly think that cities are making a rebound, with the obvious exceptions of cities like Detroit.The urbanist movement has helped many cities rebound. New York City in 70's and 80's had high crime rates and was no place to live. Until recently Washington DC was the murder capital of America and now with development around Dupont circle and the Waterfront and H street it has become a desirable place to live.
I urge you all to read Triumph of Cities by Edward Glasser.

[10023]

I agree. I think that on this forum there is a inclination to look at yesterday's cities through today's goggles. What someone in the 50's would call "cramped", we call "efficient" and see it as chic. Cities weren't lost or destroyed, but modified to be accessible to people who didn't fancy the crowded and noisy urban lifestyle.

That's not 100% true. New York is still crowded and noisy. My apartment is still cramped, even if I have to pay much more for it than it would have cost in the 1960s.

Remember this is all a chicken & egg situation... the decline of American cities was both a cause and a symptom of white flight. If middle and upper middle class white families had stayed in the urban core, the crime rates wouldn't have spiked, the schools wouldn't have deteriorated, the tax base wouldn't have disappeared and the general upkeep and cleanliness of the neighborhoods wouldn't have gone downhill. At least not to the same extent.

Nowadays in Manhattan there's less crime, nicer restaurants and better shopping, and the streets are cleaner and subway cars aren't covered in graffiti. But that's almost all a function of the people that now live in Manhattan, not any change to the place's inherent urban, crowded, noisy character.

For the most part the 1960s may have just been a vicious cycle, in contrast to the virtuous cycle that cities like NYC and Chicago have been enjoying since the 1990s. But there still had to be a spark (or sparks) that set it off, and for those you can look to things like government policy. For instance, the fact that FHA loans to WWII veterans were generally only available to buy new construction suburban homes, not city homes. Or the building of freeways into the urban core, where they should never have gone (American cities should be like Paris, with a ring road around the urban core and interstates to points north, south, east and west radiating from that). I also think that the toll that the Great Depression took on every city and town in the country was a big factor. The "greatest generation" was just too lazy to give everything a good scrub and repair what was already there, and opted instead to start from scratch with suburbs built on farmland.

[Chase Unperson]

I disagree with the premise of the whole article. America's great cities are thriving. Has sf,ny, la,Boston,Seattle, Miami, really been destroyed? I'd say Americas greatest cities are thriving.

[MonkeyRonin]

American cities at that time were on a remarkable downswing, with steadily-spiking violent crime rates, sharply-declining public schools, and other forms of malaise.

Obviously, the trends toward mass-suburbanization and exurbization began well before that point in time, but from the perspective of a newly-minted suburbanite from that era, we have to keep in mind that many core cities had become exceedingly unappealing places to live.

Despite being at the beginning of a downward trend, most of those inner-cities in the 60s seem like they were still healthier than they are today. The big difference I think, is that the suburban lifestyle itself would have looked a lot more appealing then - a house just outside they inner-city where you could whip down the brand new, traffic-free highways in an automobile to get to work in mere minutes - versus the endless sprawl and traffic nightmare that exists today.



Many reasons are cited including

-The lack of rapid transit construction in American cities, and the constant fight even in the early 1900's to build subways in American cities.

What? American cities had some of the best transit systems anywhere in that era.

Los Angeles in the early 1900s...

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3906/reliefmappacificelectri.jpg
Larger (http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3906/reliefmappacificelectri.jpg)


I disagree with the premise of the whole article. America's great cities are thriving. Has sf,ny, la,Boston,Seattle, Miami, really been destroyed? I'd say Americas greatest cities are thriving.

But 60 years ago that list of "great cities" was a whole lot more extensive. And more importantly, all of those cities experienced significant decline in the post-war years (which is what this article is about - investigating why that ever happened). Thankfully those ones have since recovered, but not every once-great city has been that fortunate.

[CassGilbert]

Which cities were lost, I don't get it? I can certainly appreciate the architecture of the past ages, but there is no question that today our cities are better than they were ever before. The only city that comes to mind that can be classified as a partially destroyed one, is Detroit. But that's a peculiar case. Most other cities are getting continuously better. Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, New York etc. are changing for the better. Perhaps there is something terrible going on elsewhere in the country of which I am not aware of.

[Dr Nevergold]

The only city that is truly "lost" is Detroit. There are bad neighborhoods in some cities, but none that I can think of are "lost" either.

[Chase Unperson]

But 60 years ago that list of "great cities" was a whole lot more extensive. And more importantly, all of those cities experienced significant decline in the post-war years (which is what this article is about - investigating why that ever happened). Thankfully those ones have since recovered, but not every once-great city has been that fortunate.

So what shit changes all the time. Portugal used to be a world power. Carthage was once one of the greatest cities on the frickin planet. A formerly white ethnic neighborhood becomes a minority neighborhood becomes an artsy neighborhood becomes an upper class wasp neighborhood (I.e mission in sf or east village in ny). Shit changes all the time. America didn't destroy great cities. A few formerly great cities didn't adapt or didnt have what it takes to keep up. Cities like NYC and sf did have what it takes.

[M II A II R II K]

This is more about American cities being more in a state of disrepair than other developed nations when it comes to infrastructure.

[strongbad635]

The decline of the American City happened almost before we even reached these shores. Pretty much from our founding, America has set our cities up for eventual failure, and then hastened it with a series of bad decisions.

From the beginning, our cities were designed less functional and less adaptable than their European counterparts. Cheap wood, vast amounts of territory, and a general sense that individual property rights overruled good community design all contributed to good design being difficult to achieve. Detached houses have always held a more desired status over townhomes and apartment homes in America. American cities were also developed during the age of the horse-drawn carriage, whereas most European cities were developed during the age of walking. So street width, block size, and road geometrics in American cities were initially designed to be inferior spaces for pedestrians.

Despite these initial handicaps, some American cities still managed to become relatively livable spaces. The City Beautiful movement in the 1890s and 1900s were really the only time in American history when there was a concerted effort to make our cities nicer places to live. Unfortunately it only lasted about 13 years.

Despite these setbacks, most Americans chose to live in cities anyway because of factors like employment, street life, convenience, and culture. However, anti-urban policies went into overdrive after WW II. The G.I. Bill included a great deal of funding for low-interest home loans which made it cheaper in many places to own than it was to rent. However, these loans were only approved for newly-built, single family homes. The bias against encouraging home ownership in urban areas and ownership of attached housing was truly shocking. Existing banks for those not on the G.I. Bill also discriminated against people who chose to live in cities. They drew red lines around entire neighborhoods, almost all urban, and told people they could not buy there (a process literally called "redlining"). People who wanted to become homeowners literally had no choice but to abandon the cities. This left the cities as hotbeds of people who couldn't afford to own homes. Low-income, often oppressed minorities. The lack of neighborhood diversity (especially income diversity) created a dearth of positive role models and led to social meltdowns that cause immense crime increases, scaring away any intrepid homeowners who remained.

Then in the 1960s, the process of "urban renewal," which was really a grand experiment in utopian modernism, hoarded low-income people into concentrated high-rise ghettos like Cabrini Green and Pruitt Igoe, all of which succumbed to complete social meltdowns so thorough they had to be later torn down. Downtowns underwent a similar modernist transformation, turning into office ghettos with no street life, dominated by anti-pedestrian steel and glass skyscrapers, dangerous re-routed and one-way avenues, and generally becoming horrible places in which to walk. Federally-funded highways were allowed to slice right into city centers, effectively creating barriers across neighborhoods and killing cities by the process of a thousand cuts. Is it any wonder that Americans felt it was a better choice to live in the suburbs? Living in an identical tract house on a soulless cul-de-sac in the prairie was certainly superior to living in a gutted, filthy, car-dominated, crime-ridden cesspool.

Anyone who thinks that Americans simply chose suburbia as a credible alternative to high-quality urban living on a level playing field just doesn't have a firm grasp on history. The deck has been stacked against city life almost from our founding. Whether or not it has to remain that way is yet to be determined.

[BillM]

America is what it is... It isn't pessimism to call a spade a spade, especially when most Americans enjoy this suburban and exurban lifestyle. There is nothing more cool for *most* Americans than buying a hot new car and a new house. We're the misfits in a nation of suburbia on SSP, keep that in mind.
Should we assume that most Americans enjoy the surburban lifestyle simply because they are living it? I wonder how many of us forumers that desire the urban lifestyle are more or less living suburban lifestyles.

[BevoLJ]

Should we assume that most Americans enjoy the surburban lifestyle simply because they are living it?I don't think so. Young move to cities, and enjoy the urban lifestyles, but then move to the burbs when they want to settle down and have kids. I don't think it is a lack of urban experience, but more just what Brandon said.... they are living the life they prefer. And the life most Americans prefer to raise kids in is in the suburbs.

Edit: I think that is likely why Joel Kotkin gets such a huge stage. And why he likely gets paid quite well. Whether or not he is full of crap doesn't matter in that regard, the guy does a damn good job giving people what they want. Telling them what they want to hear, rather than what they should.

[LtBk]

If that's the case, than cities are good for youngsters only?

[mhays]

Empty nesters are also a significant element of many urban districts.

Regarding flight when people have kids, "preference" is probably a factor but there are other huge factors: the desire to live in a school district they like, and the desire for cheap square footage. That's not the same as "preferring" suburbs in any other way.

This thread has one of the best percentages of good insight I've seen in a long time.

[Jasoncw]

If that's the case, than cities are good for youngsters only?

I think when these youngsters get older many of them will move back to the suburbs, but I think larger number than in the past will stay in the cities and help create family friendly urban neighborhoods.

[miketoronto]

What? American cities had some of the best transit systems anywhere in that era.


They had streetcars, but not fast rapid transit. Commute times where very long on many streetcar systems, as well as crowded.
This created issues with people wanting to go into the inner city, due to the slow, overcrowded services.

Very few American cities built true rapid transit systems, and a few did after the decline started.

Which cities were lost, I don't get it? I can certainly appreciate the architecture of the past ages, but there is no question that today our cities are better than they were ever before. The only city that comes to mind that can be classified as a partially destroyed one, is Detroit. But that's a peculiar case. Most other cities are getting continuously better. Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, New York etc. are changing for the better. Perhaps there is something terrible going on elsewhere in the country of which I am not aware of.

I think that is questionable. Yes many American cities are better off than 10 years ago. However many are still shells of their former selves. Many no longer offer what they used to, etc.
They are getting better, but there is a ton of work to do to bring them back to what they once where.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

I think you are actually hinting at what I've already said: the American public is hit with a massive multi-industry marketing message that the only real honorable lifestyle is the suburban or exurban lifestyle. Both urban and rural lifestyles are lambasted. Truly rural lifestyles come from making a life off of the land, not buying a far-out ranch and driving 50+ miles to a job every day and using your ranch as a symbol or image to project.

We are in a society that basically says that you are crap and less of a human being for not owning a home and owning a nice car. As much as the car is a utility, in America it is a status symbol. We Americans do this more than any other society. Drive a Prius or Insight like me? You're instantly characterized as a certain type of person. Drive a huge SUV? You're stereotyped as something else. Drive a shitty car? You're less of a person...

We judge people in our society by our cars more than any other on the Earth. I see a strong difference just between Canada and the US, Canadians largely look at car ownership the same way (who isn't impressed if you can afford a brand new, $30k car?), but there isn't nearly as much disdain for someone who uses transit and lives without a car. Right across the board, even down to smaller towns, transit use is many times more acceptable (mid-sized cities like London, Ontario have transit use many times above American metros of well over a million people). And Canada isn't even a "transit nation" in my view, it is largely a car culture just like us.

America just takes this to the extreme on the car thing, then we can get into the single family housing issue. Americans are hyper obsessed and many think it is a God-given right to own a single family house. It is the ideal of most citizens in America. Marketing tells us you're supposed to own a home, from the day we're born to the day we die. You aren't told that it is healthy and good to own a condo or to rent a flat in a city that isn't in a detached environment.

This isn't about being negative, it is about pointing out that the corporate interests for home ownership are huge, the corporate interests for selling cars is huge. They trump the urban lifestyle we on SSP like to promote.

We haven't even began to discuss how corporate America has largely started building office construction in suburban environments, refusing to locate centers of work around transit hubs and urban centers that actually allow you to live car-free. Lots of office space in America is built to avoid the urban lifestyle - not embrace it - so that you're required to drive to lunch or drive to the office and back.

The entire system is against urban living. It is very hard to find employment in an urban setting and live in rental or condo construction along transit lines.

Nice, we agree. Sorry, I've been in New Orleans for the past three days and just woke up from a post NOLA 20 hour sleep.

Anyways, I totally agree with that second to last paragraph. It royally pisses me off when developers in Birmingham announce they're building a brand new office building in a suburban county. Usually, they're not even towers, they're just sprawling campuses that don't even take adequate advantage of the land.

It's gonna be interesting to see how we take care of the future of suburban areas. When you look at it, you have some cities like Birmingham, Louisville, or maybe Memphis (that one might be a stretch) which have grown, but not so tremendously that their infrastructure couldn't keep pace (to an extent). THEN, you have cities like Atlanta, Phoenix, and Charlotte that have absolutely exploded, and who's leaders are stuck wonder how they're going to fix this problem that could potentially destroy their city's economy.

Those cities that have grown more slowly in the past decade have a bit of an opportunity to really bring in an "urban growth revival." Their suburbs are a bit more dense, while the explosive growers have suburbs that could potentially have cotton fields in the front yards of the houses.

I remember an article in this forum that had an article that said the Charlotte was proving that America is still capable of building "great cities." I'm not attacking Charlotte or anything, I have family up there. But, I notice that its suburbs are SO spread out. My aunt lives in Concord, which is a relatively big suburb north of downtown. A roughly 20 to 30 minute drive north in light traffic. I found myself thinking how much I would dislike commuting into Charlotte from the suburbs north of town on a daily basis. Then there are suburbs east of downtown that are the same way.

It all leaves you wondering if there's anything that we can do to encourage developers to building their campuses in downtown in the form of a tower. I mean, it's virtually impossible unless you simply make downtowns more user friendly with more parks and residential opportunities. A big reason why developers building their sprawliscious campuses in suburbs is because their employees that work in the future buildings won't have to commute as far, thus perpetuating the problem...

This is all too complicated.

[Dr Nevergold]

^I'm not about to get into the wars I once did many years ago as I simply don't care about arguing the design of southern cities, but there is nothing remotely urban about Charlotte in my view. The city has a new light rail system, which I applaud and support, but it is like a demonstration project in a city with a few demonstration neighborhoods. The city doesn't have an urban core at all, just a few blocks with urban development and a very tall skyline built by the banking explosion in the past 20 years.

But Charlotte isn't alone, most new development from coast to coast is no different. There are some exceptions, but we live in a society that values office parks being built in the suburbs while downtown is never considered by most businesses.

What I like to argue is that the infrastructure that built old urban cores before WWII is decayed and dying, we need new urban development rather than just living off our past. I'm a big lover of history, and I love historic urban communities (I love places like Pittsburgh, which many people don't think twice about), but we can't just live exclusively off infrastructure from yester-year, we need new urban villages, bona fide urban villages and not new urbanist outposts that act as standalone demonstration projects.

I don't see any kind of shift that shows America is building even a remotely small percentage of exclusively urban office and living space. I would be impressed if we could get it up to something like 25% urban, 75% suburban for all new development in America.

Right now we're stuck in "demo" mode as far as new developments go. Nice to look at, but not significant.

[WilliamTheArtist]

Should we assume that most Americans enjoy the surburban lifestyle simply because they are living it? I wonder how many of us forumers that desire the urban lifestyle are more or less living suburban lifestyles.

From my personal experience I can say that had I not stumbled upon a local group of people promoting urban living, I likely would have never considered it. I would have just gone on doing what my peers had done, what my parents had done and what I was used to. I didn't consider any other option and in this part of the country, you don't see any other option to even choose from in the first place.

I can imagine that if I were still an urbafile "outsider" and occasionally heard about some new development going in downtown, I would have dismissed it and even thought,,, How strange, who would want to live downtown? For I wouldn't know what urban living was like and how, even though Tulsa isn't there yet, if the trend continues and we keep building more living and pedestrian friendly developments, etc. it can be a very nice way to live.

Now that I have learned about how urban living can be and can see the options, now that I understand the nature of the potential choices, I definitely choose the more urban one and couldn't stand the notion of living in the suburbs, though I did at one time and didn't think anything about it because thats all I knew, plain and simple.

I think what got me to change was when I saw a great presentation that showed some really good urban living and gave some of the rules of pedestrian friendly streets and described the how and why of those rules(Form Based Codes in this instance, and there were already some budding pedestrian friendly areas starting to come alive in Tulsa) I could see it, and understand it. I was able to see a whole new picture. When your on the "outside" you only see parts of it (and even then its only in theory here lol which makes it even harder to "get") and from the perspective your used to, unless you get how it all works together, It won't make sense to you.

Example.
"Where do you park?" You walk or use transit.
"Why would you want to walk?" Good, pedestrian friendly streets are actually a joy to walk down. And its good exercise lol. And its good for the environment. etc.
"Transit costs a lot of money and nobody uses it" Roads cost a lot of money, cars cost a lot, insurance, gas, road maintenance, widening, expansion, etc. and if you create good pedestrian/transit friendly areas, people will gladly use transit.
"Urban houses are smaller for the price." For the urban dweller the city becomes an extension of their home. You don't need a mc mansion with a home theater, you can walk to the theater, you dont need a breakfast room, there is a sidewalk cafe or coffee shop nearby, the local pub is your den, the wonderful sidewalks your hallways, the neighborhood park your yard, etc. Instead of everyone building individual big fancy houses with fancy yards,,, together everyone builds beautiful public spaces that they share and enjoy with each other.
and so on....

So to recap.

A. You tend to do what your used to.
B. You may not "get" the other option.
C. You may not even have any really good examples of the urban lifestyle option around to see.

I think knowing the how and why we destroyed the urban lifestyle, in so many of our cities, is important. But thats only part of what we need to consider if we find value in the urban lifestlye and want others to see it too. We are going to have to...

A. Promote it, say "Hey, here is another option."
B. Then educate people about it, how its different but how it works.
C. Show people what good urban living can be like.

[M II A II R II K]

One can still prefer to live in a suburban environment but at the same time have easy access to an urban core to visit and hang out in.

[mhays]

There's a big difference between having access to something and walking out your door and being in the middle of it.

I agree that housing is generally not very urban. But in many cities, the majority of office construction is urban, with parking underground, zero lot lines, etc., or at least the "tower in a plaza next to parking garage" seen in some downtowns.

With offices, land prices are close to a defining factor. In cities with constrained outward growth (regs or topography plus growing population), land costs can make surface parking more expensive than vertical garages, and often even make below-grade parking the cheapest option...low-rise techburbs and suburban downtowns are often like this.

When sprawly forms don't pencil, suddenly the cost difference between suburban and urban development drops, meaning necessary lease rates become more equal. Faced with nearly equal costs, many tenants, and the developers who pursue them, will choose urban locations.

Likewise with housing, when half-acre house sites aren't cheap, you'll get smaller lots. New smaller lots won't be as much of a draw to closer-in residents who already have smaller lots.

There's a spiral effect. If you change a factor like land price today, it won't turn things around overnight. But it the same factor has always been the case, the inner city wouldn't have fallen so much, if at all. What to do going forward is another story...far too complicated to ponder over in this post.

[urbanactivist]

That's not 100% true. New York is still crowded and noisy. My apartment is still cramped, even if I have to pay much more for it than it would have cost in the 1960s.

Remember this is all a chicken & egg situation... the decline of American cities was both a cause and a symptom of white flight. If middle and upper middle class white families had stayed in the urban core, the crime rates wouldn't have spiked, the schools wouldn't have deteriorated, the tax base wouldn't have disappeared and the general upkeep and cleanliness of the neighborhoods wouldn't have gone downhill. At least not to the same extent.

Nowadays in Manhattan there's less crime, nicer restaurants and better shopping, and the streets are cleaner and subway cars aren't covered in graffiti. But that's almost all a function of the people that now live in Manhattan, not any change to the place's inherent urban, crowded, noisy character.

For the most part the 1960s may have just been a vicious cycle, in contrast to the virtuous cycle that cities like NYC and Chicago have been enjoying since the 1990s. But there still had to be a spark (or sparks) that set it off, and for those you can look to things like government policy. For instance, the fact that FHA loans to WWII veterans were generally only available to buy new construction suburban homes, not city homes. Or the building of freeways into the urban core, where they should never have gone (American cities should be like Paris, with a ring road around the urban core and interstates to points north, south, east and west radiating from that). I also think that the toll that the Great Depression took on every city and town in the country was a big factor. The "greatest generation" was just too lazy to give everything a good scrub and repair what was already there, and opted instead to start from scratch with suburbs built on farmland.

American media and communication had a lot to do with it to. Even people that did enjoy living in the city centers were convinced (brainwashed) into thinking that cities were unsuitable for raising a decent family. All you had to do was turn on the tv and watch Leave it to Beaver, or (as many of us may have watched this weekend) I Love Lucy. In fact I caught the very episode which discussed their move to the suburbs because it would be "good for Little Ricky". Keep in mind that television wasn't as wide-spread in Europe and other countries as it was in the US. So those images and suggestions got piped into American homes. If a move to the burbs was good enough for Lucy and Ricky, then it was good enough for everyone else too.

[WilliamTheArtist]

One can still prefer to live in a suburban environment but at the same time have easy access to an urban core to visit and hang out in.

But if too many people think that then the end result is,,, No, you can have that because the urban core won't be able to function properly and will die. You will end up with what happened to Tulsa. Bout a decade ago you could have walked for blocks and blocks downtown in the evening and not see a single sole and rarely even a single parked car. The sound of a lone cricket could actually startle you as it echoed off the skyscraper canyon walls lol.

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/535/atulsabykellykerrnet.jpg
photo by KellyKerr.net

Thank goodness things are much better now.

[miketoronto]

But if too many people think that then the end result is,,, No, you can have that because the urban core won't be able to function properly and will die. You will end up with what happened to Tulsa. Bout a decade ago you could have walked for blocks and blocks downtown in the evening and not see a single sole and rarely even a single parked car. The sound of a lone cricket could actually startle you as it echoed off the skyscraper canyon walls lol.
Thank goodness things are much better now.


That is not really because people live in the suburbs. It had more to do with the fact that downtown Tulsa lost the very attractions that drew people into downtown from both the suburbs and the surrounding neighbourhoods around downtown.
Downtown Tulsa is again attracting people and I would bet that the majority of the people visiting downtown attractions are suburbanites. And they are coming because there is once again things to do down there. When it is all office towers, of course there will not be anyone down there after 5 pm.

[MolsonExport]

^I recall you getting upset at the explosion of condo towers in downtown Toronto, and the diminishing proportion of office space located downtown.

[MolsonExport]

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/535/atulsabykellykerrnet.jpg

This is a great photo. My impression of Tulsa has gone up considerably!

[WilliamTheArtist]

That is not really because people live in the suburbs. It had more to do with the fact that downtown Tulsa lost the very attractions that drew people into downtown from both the suburbs and the surrounding neighbourhoods around downtown.
Downtown Tulsa is again attracting people and I would bet that the majority of the people visiting downtown attractions are suburbanites. And they are coming because there is once again things to do down there. When it is all office towers, of course there will not be anyone down there after 5 pm.

True. The new BOK Arena, and the new ballpark have been big hits and the steady progression of growth in several entertainment districts has done a LOT as well.

But what I like seeing is the old buildings being turned into housing. The one gothic skyscraper to the right, in the above pic was abandoned and is now lofts for instance. The one just past it was also abandoned and was recently turned into a Courtyard Marriott. The one you just see on the far left may be turned into lofts soon. And there are a lot more condos/apartments/hotels that have gone in some old buildings down the street to the left. You always see cars along the street now and people walking even in the evenings. Plus what I have really enjoyed seeing is the sidewalk cafe's going in on that street now with people there morning to night.

Its that evening shopping/dining pedestrian activity in the core, not just the entertainment areas around the periphery, from people living in the area, that has made the core feel more alive, more like a REAL city. And there are hundreds and hundreds of more apartments/condos going in right now wich will really solidify that feeling of a round the clock, steady, not just during events, work hours, and weekends, honest to goodness urban feel.

From the same intersection as the other pic but looking the other direction and down. I would kill for that apartment with that patio balcony lol. by snoweyes
http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/8886/snoweyeswebsize.jpg

[WilliamTheArtist]

This is a great photo. My impression of Tulsa has gone up considerably!

Thanks, thats Boston Ave, the street going left and Right is 5th. The building at the very end is an approx 1/2 height version of one of the old World Trade center buildings. Same architect and all, even the fixtures inside were the same. I like how those streets are coming alive now. I hear a lot of people say when they visit "Wow, its like a little chunk of NYC somehow landed here in the middle of the country lol".

It is hard to believe from our perspective today, that people abandoned and destroyed the core of so many of our great cities. And Tulsa was a great city at one time, one that faded right off the map. You get it when you look over time at all the twists and turns that led to it, but again, it still baffles me sometimes.

[Via Chicago]

Trains first connected the country for transport and commerce, but it didn't prompt suburbs at the time.

Are you joking? They most certainly did. Todays inner suburbs were yesterday's quiet, wooded country homes and that was entirely facilitated by train. Riverside, IL was the country's first planned subdivision (designed by Frederick Law Olmstead), and that was just after the Chicago fire. At the time communities like that and Oak Park, Evanston, etc were WAY "out there" and it was still mostly undeveloped swamp and prairie. Even areas within what is now Chicago proper were at one time commuter bedroom communities. The Ravenswood neighborhood for example which is only 8 miles north of downtown was at one time all farmland. It was purchased by a bunch of real estate developers who persuaded the Chicago & North Western Railroad to build a stop there and it was designed as a "resort" type getaway.

Developments didnt just appear in these old midwest/northeast cities magically. People needed a way to get to them, and that was locomotive.

[M II A II R II K]

At least they weren't the type of sprawly big box stores like suburbs and had decent architecture.

[Via Chicago]

At least they weren't the type of sprawly big box stores like suburbs and had decent architecture.

You are arguing aesthetics, but they were sprawl in every sense of the word.

[The North One]

edit

[gtbassett]

The Ravenswood neighborhood for example which is only 8 miles north of downtown was at one time all farmland. It was purchased by a bunch of real estate developers who persuaded the Chicago & North Western Railroad to build a stop there and it was designed as a "resort" type getaway.

Developments didnt just appear in these old midwest/northeast cities magically. People needed a way to get to them, and that was locomotive.

You literally just described my hometown. Sonoma California got it's first major population boom from the rich and powerful taking the trains up from San Francisco and elsewhere to come enjoy the resort hot springs in the valley. The majority of the housing stock in "The Springs" (an unincorporated area of Sonoma Valley directly north of the city of Sonoma) is all 1900s-1920s cottages on tiny narrow winding streets built as summer homes. I don't necessarily consider it sprawl because in comparison to any development that has happened in the valley since WW2, these neighborhoods are dense and extremely pedestrian friendly. The only way to access this area back in the day was via train.

Describing all this makes me realize I should really get back there one of these weekends and take some pictures for a photo tour, the railroad days of the North Bay were a fascinating time, many railtowns even within the tiny Sonoma Valley boomed and busted in a matter of decades, but the remnants remain.

[MonkeyRonin]

They had streetcars, but not fast rapid transit.


They certainly had both. By the end of Second World War, the world had 20 subway/elevated systems, of which 6 were in the US.

[Dallas Snob]

I just sold my home in the suburbs and moved into a historic renovated art deco building downtown, Dallas. I like how close it is to my work, not having to care for the house and lawn, nice pool and restaurants, etc. But i am not unique. Professional people are moving into downtown Dallas by the thousands - my building is full - and new apartment highrises and renovated buildings are going up all over along with new city parks taking over old parkling lots, restaurants and shops which are opening up along Main and Commerce Streets. Main Street has become crowded and "happening" late into the night. People are talking about the "new" downtown and with "being Green" so popular, many of us feel it just makes sense to rely less on the automobile and create a sense of family and community within our building. I grew up watching Family Affair and always envied Buffy and Jodie and Siissy getting to live in this hip highrise in the center of their city. Now I'm living the dream! And there are people of all ages doing it. Developers wont build unless they know the market demands it. And Dallas has invested the money and infrastructure to make downtown "in demand" again. I think there are many factors that can kill a city, as well as awaken it.

[Steely Dan]

By the end of Second World War, the world had 20 subway/elevated systems, of which 6 were in the US.

- Boston
- NYC
- philly
- chicago

what were the other two?

[MonkeyRonin]

Newark and Rochester.

[mhays]

That presumably doesn't count long-distance rail. Seattle built an intercity rail tunnel in 1910 or so through Downtown. It's currently used for Amtrak, commuter rail, and freight.

[Steely Dan]

Newark and Rochester.

thanks. i was racking my brain trying to come up with the other two.

i never knew that rochester was once home to a subway line. and since it's been closed for over 50 years, i probably never would have known about it were it not for this forum.

[BevoLJ]

Newark and Rochester.Right on thanks! I didn't know Rochester ever had a line.

(not directed at you MR): Also on the talk about trains going out to villages outside of the cities in the late 19th and early 20th century, that was just as common in Europe if no more-so than it was in the US. Everywhere in Europe was and still is like that. I really don't see how you can lay the blame for suburbanization on that.

[iheartthed]

Isn't the difference between America's pre-war streetcar suburbs and the post-war interstate suburbs that the streetcar burbs were generally annexed into the city?

Pre-war American burbs seem similar to what happened/happens in Europe, where communities are regularly absorbed into the central city as they become developed. In the American post-war era, for whatever reason, suburbs stopped being absorbed into the central city after they were developed.

[Steely Dan]

Isn't the difference between America's pre-war streetcar suburbs and the post-war interstate suburbs that the streetcar burbs were generally annexed into the city?

chicago has craploads of pre-war streetcar/commuter rail burbs that were never annexed by the city. i grew in one of them: Wilmette.

[iheartthed]

chicago has craploads of prewar streetcar and commuter rail burbs that were never annexed by the city. i grew in one of them: Wilmette.

Well, I'm speaking in general, but I'm looking at a map of Chicago's annexation history now. Chicago's boundaries changed tremendously in the 65 years before 1950, but the boundaries haven't changed at all since 1950. Yet, Chicagoland's outer areas have continued to grow and expand during the post 1950 period -- largely unchecked to my knowledge (?) -- but remain autonomous with few shared services. Contrast that with London, for instance, which created the effect of an annexation with the creation of Greater London in the 1960s.

[Steely Dan]

^ my point wasn't that chicago didn't annex huge swaths of suburban land prior to 1950 (it certainly did), it was merely to counter your contention that, in american cities, pre-war suburbs were by and large annexed by central cities. that's just not true in chicago's case. many pre-war burbs were annexed into the city, but many others weren't. it's very much a mixed bag, mainly because chicago's suburban areas didn't develop in nice tidy ever-expanding concentric circles of growth rings, rather, suburban chicago developed radially outward from downtown along the major commuter rail line corridors. pre-war burbs close in got swallowed up by the city, pre-war burbs further out remained independent. the post-war automobile-fueled explosion of suburban chicagoland would then later fill in the gaps of empty land between the radial arms of the pre-war railroad-developed burbs.

exploring suburban chicagoland via Metra commuter rail is a radically different experience than exploring it via the post-war expressway/tollway network.

[Crawford]

Newark and Rochester didn't really have subway systems.

They had light rail trolley systems, that happened to have underground portions.

Boston, too, didn't have a subway system until later. The original portions of the T were all trolleys that happened to have a downtown tunnel.

So if you're going to count Newark, Rochester and Boston you might as well include every city that had a trolley network. The only difference is that these three cities had extensive tunnels.

Newark's system (which includes the original Newark City Subway) has been altered and expanded, but remains to this day mostly underground light rail. They have heavy rail, but it's a separate system (PATH and NJ Transit rail).

Boston added heavy rail later on, with the Red and Orange lines.

[iheartthed]

^ my point wasn't that chicago didn't annex huge swaths of land prior to 1950 (it certainly did), it was merely to counter your contention that, in american cities, pre-war suburbs were by and large annexed by central cities. that's just not true in chicago's case. many pre-war burbs were annexed into the city, but many others weren't. it's very much a mixed bag.

Oh okay. I didn't mean to imply that they were all absorbed. I know of some streetcar suburbs from where I grew up that weren't annexed either. But in the earlier stages of the Industrial Revolution, as American cities started to explode in population, the trend was similar to what was happening in Europe.

I'd like to wrap that point back around to my earlier point in this thread, that the administrative structure in America may have had a large role (I'm just an armchair urban historian) in how America's cities were allowed to deteriorate. European cities have more administrative "prominence" than America's. All American cities, except Washington, are abstracted from the federal level through a state government, and most are abstracted again through a county government as well. I'm just speculating, but this probably works out to give smaller towns and villages throughout the U.S. more relative political power than their small town counterparts in Europe would enjoy.

[hammersklavier]

Newark and Rochester didn't really have subway systems.

They had light rail trolley systems, that happened to have underground portions.

Boston, too, didn't have a subway system until later. The original portions of the T were all trolleys that happened to have a downtown tunnel.

So if you're going to count Newark, Rochester and Boston you might as well include every city that had a trolley network. The only difference is that these three cities had extensive tunnels.

Newark's system (which includes the original Newark City Subway) has been altered and expanded, but remains to this day mostly underground light rail. They have heavy rail, but it's a separate system (PATH and NJ Transit rail).

Boston added heavy rail later on, with the Red and Orange lines.
Well, if you're going to add trolley subways, you might as well add Providence, Los Angeles, San Francisco(?), and possibly a few other cities as well.

[ardecila]

Well, if you're going to add trolley subways, you might as well add Providence, Los Angeles, San Francisco(?), and possibly a few other cities as well.

In the case of San Francisco and Providence, the tunnels were built to avoid steep hills, not really to turn the streetcar systems into subways. Both tunnels return to grade as soon as it becomes practical to do so. Neither tunnel has stations in it.

LA is kind of a special case, but it did have an underground terminal station, so I guess that counts.

Boston, too, didn't have a subway system until later. The original portions of the T were all trolleys that happened to have a downtown tunnel.

Boston added heavy rail later on, with the Red and Orange lines.

Absolutely not true. The Red Line (originally called the Cambridge Subway) opened in 1912 and was a fully grade-separated subway akin to the one in New York. Boston also had fully grade-separated elevated lines even earlier, although all elevated trackage has since been shifted underground (with the exception of the short stretch of track around Charles/MGH).

Also, if you're gonna nitpick about Boston's Green Line, you should probably also throw out Chicago, where major stretches of the Douglas (Pink), Ravenswood (Brown) and Lake Street (Green) Lines were built at-grade with level crossings. The Green Line was elevated in the 1960s, but the other two remain.

Chicago's rolling stock is also streetcar-length and weight, because of the tight junctions and turns required on the elevated structures. Of course, the IRT has the same car length, for the same reason.

It's one big continuum, really... there's as much difference between the Chicago L and a modern metro like DC's, as there is between the Chicago L and a streetcar system.

[JivecitySTL]

Holy shit, when I think of what St. Louis was and should be again, I get goosebumps.

[BevoLJ]

Well I know London's Tube is the oldest (and BEST!) underground in the world, so .... :banana:

Kidding, although I do think it is the oldest. Or someone once told me that. But I thought Boston's was pretty old too? At least older than 1912.

Austin was just a small town of 20,000 back then so not much need of one. But would be cool if we got something now. It is pretty sad that we just have that one stupid line they made that no one uses.

[jcchii]

this feels very 1995

[fflint]

Boston, too, didn't have a subway system until later. The original portions of the T were all trolleys that happened to have a downtown tunnel....Boston added heavy rail later on...[/How much "later on" is 1901?

That is the year Boston first started running heavy rail on three elevated lines--and 1901 is also the year Boston first ran one of those heavy rail lines through downtown in the newly quad-tracked Tremont Street Tunnel. The T switched heavy rail to the new Washington Street Tunnel in 1908, leaving the original tunnel exclusively for light rail once again. The first heavy rail subway in New York opened in 1904, so this is all pretty contemporary stuff.

[fflint]

Here's a map of downtown Boston's heavy-rail "loop," circa 1901. The blue and dotted blue lines are tunnels:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Main_Line_Elevated.jpg/447px-Main_Line_Elevated.jpg
Wikipedia (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Main_Line_Elevated.jpg/447px-Main_Line_Elevated.jpg)

[Double L]

Here's an idea..........

People like living in the suburbs.

[Reverberation]

Here's an idea..........

People like living in the suburbs.

No, thats such a lie. People hate the suburbs, the only reason that they were forced to live there was because evil republicans/conservatives/right wingers conspired with greedy developers to force them to own more land!

[mhays]

Yes many people like the suburbs. But it's inarguable that public policy and bank policy have played a big role in their expansion, and in cities' problems. The GI Bill isn't something we made up on SSP for example.

[pesto]

Completely agree that the government should stay out of housing and dictating to people where they should live. And, for sure, bank policy should be a response to real risk and demand, not to governement policy, subsidies or guarantees.