The former Pruitt Igoe on Google Earth

[KevinFromTexas]

Yuck. That almost happened here. Back in the 60s there were major plans for freeway construction in Central Austin.

There was a freeway that would have been north of the Capitol in downtown running east/west along 15th Street I believe. It would have sliced Austin's urban core in half dividing downtown and the Capitol complex from the UT Campus. There was another freeway that would have been aligned along Guadalupe in downtown starting at that freeway mentioned above, and would have run north to US 183 in North Austin.

There was also a freeway planned along downtown's southern edge north of the river that was aligned along Cesar Chavez Street. It connected from Mopac to I-35. It would have crossed the river east of Congress and connected to Riverside Drive. Riverside Drive was also planned to be turned into a freeway. That area now has instead turned into one of the most dense areas of Austin with thousands of apartments going up. That area is now planned to have urban rail since it's a main route to the airport from downtown. The very same place where the freeway bridge would have been is now planned to have an urban rail bridge with a possible pedestrian pathway. That area is now being master planned to have midrise and highrise residential, museums and parks.

Central map:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/Austin/historic/freeway_planning_maps/images/austin_1962_central.jpg

Citywide overview:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/Austin/historic/freeway_planning_maps/images/austin_1962.jpg

More nastiness here:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/Austin/historic/freeway_planning_maps/freeway_planning_maps.shtml

If all of that had happened, Austin would be a very different city and likely in many more ways than one. I cannot express enough how glad I am that never happened.

[photoLith]

^
Holy Jesus, that map of the past proposed highways through downtown Austin is absolutely terrifying.

Originally Posted by Don B.

St. Louis declined from 856,000 to about 320,000 in 60+ years. I believe that today, the population of St. Louis is about the same as it was in 1875.

I don't believe there is any example of a greater population loss of a westernized city not caused by war or famine in all of recorded history.

--don

There is an example of that much population loss in history. Ancient Rome went from a population of around 850,000 in 400 C.E. to only 200,000 by 500 C.E. That was of course due to the collapse of the Roman Empire so its kind of unrelated to the strife St. Louis went through.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by photoLith

^
Holy Jesus, that map of the past proposed highways through downtown Austin is absolutely terrifying.



There is an example of that much population loss in history. Ancient Rome went from a population of around 850,000 in 400 C.E. to only 200,000 by 500 C.E.

St. Louis also had it's city limits set in place in the 1870s. So, yes there was a huge decline, but if you cropped the core city limits in say Kansas City or any number of midwestern cities to strictly pre world war two areas you would get very likely get a similar result. It's not as if the entire metropolis collapsed like that. Its a statistical quirk that magnified a problem that many midwest cities had and have.

Of course there is tons (i thought I estimated around 300,000 people) of pre ww2ish neighborhoods outside of St. Louis City limits as well like this, so the city limits are unusually cropped for a non east coast city.


http://photos3.zillow.com/p_d/IS-1j3m8srjws3ml.jpg

[KevinFromTexas]

Didn't Detroit lose more population than that? Wasn't it around 2 million and is now only 1 million?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Didn't Detroit lose more population than that? Wasn't it around 2 million and is now only 1 million?

Detroit is definitely similar. However, the physical effect on the city is different. Detroits decline seems more "shotgun" to the entire city wheras St. Louis had a wave of population decline that shoots more northwest and north. Perhaps someone else could comment on that.

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Didn't Detroit lose more population than that? Wasn't it around 2 million and is now only 1 million?

It was 1.8 million. Now it's 700,000. It actually lost 1 million.

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Detroit is definitely similar. However, the physical effect on the city is different. Detroits decline seems more "shotgun" to the entire city wheras St. Louis had a wave of population decline that shoots more northwest and north. Perhaps someone else could comment on that.

More like an AK47...

Very little of Detroit resembles the same city of 60 years ago.

[KevinFromTexas]

That's weird. Sort of looks like a before and after of cities in Europe after WWII. I bet if people back then saw those images they'd wonder what happened and might think it was from war.

[KevinFromTexas]

Back to the original topic of Pruitt-Igoe, I found this link about a design to redevelop the land. The architect is actually a member of SkyscraperPage.

http://samlimaarchitecture.blogspot.com/

Originally Posted by Samthelima

It's really fun (and sometimes not so fun) to hear the various perspectives of people around the forum, but it might help to understand people more if we see the sort of design work that they actually do.

That said, I'll be the first to throw mine out there! A lot of you will probably hate it, because I design traditional architecture and urbanism, but whatever

Here you go: samlimaarchitecture.blogspot.com

Anyone else have blogs, sites, or photos! Share them here!

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Don B.

St. Louis declined from 856,000 to about 320,000 in 60+ years. I believe that today, the population of St. Louis is about the same as it was in 1875.

I don't believe there is any example of a greater population loss of a westernized city not caused by war or famine in all of recorded history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinking_cities_in_the_USA

Saint Louis has a slight edge over Detroit when it comes to % decline from peak but Detroit takes the cake in numerical decline. If you take 2010 population of a shrunken US city and compare it to the comparable population it had in it's past Saint Louis would win pretty handily for any sizable city I think with it being about the same size today as it was in about 1875, Detroit had population growth a bit later and thus it is the same size today that it was in about 1915.

Top % declines from peak 100K+ in 2010:
St. Louis 62.7%
Detroit 61.4%
Youngstown, 60.6%
Cleveland 56.6%
Gary 55%
Pittsburgh 54.8%
Buffalo 53.4%
Niagara Falls 51%
Scranton 46.9%
Dayton 46.1%
New Orleans 45.2%


Top numerical declines from peak in 2010:
Detroit 1,135,791 61.4%
Chicago 925,364 25.6%
Philadelphia 545,599 26.3%
St. Louis 537,502 62.7%
Cleveland 517,993 56.6%
Pittsburgh 371,102 54.8%
Baltimore 328,747 34.6%
Buffalo 309,892 53.4%
New Orleans 283,696 45.2%
Cincinnati 207,055 41.1%
Washington D.C. 200,995 25%

Leaders in numerical decline from peak by decade:
1980: New York City 823,223 Detroit 646,200 Chicago 615,890
1990: Chicago 837,236 Detroit 821,594 New York City 572,298
2000: Detroit 898,298 Chicago 724,946
2010: Detroit 1,135,791 Chicago 925,364

[MolsonExport]

^utterly catastrophic declines.

[Krases]

So i am curious, how did these redevelopments happen? I am going to guess very liberal usage of imminent domain. Seems like in the age of Robert Moses that was super common.

Heres a post I made in another thread about what could be built on Pruitt Igoe, made by a grad student. Put in spoiler tags because of huge images.

EDIT: Whoops, KevinFromTexas beat me to it.

Originally Posted by Krases

I finally found something I have been wanting to post for a while. A new plan for the Pruit Igoe site. It totally abandoned the "tower in a park" concept and creates a much more attractive community. Designed by Samuel John Lima. Really awesome renderings.

I read that the architecture matches that of old St. Louis, anyone from St. Louis care to mention if that is true or not?

http://samlimaarchitecture.blogspot.com/2012/06/pruitt-igoe-re-imagined-as-walkable.html













All images from SJL

[photoLith]

Now that would be kick ass but it would never happen.

[dc_denizen]

re: Detroit

plenty of Detroit's (and Kansas Cities, etc) suburbs still look like the 1949 images of residential Detroit...ie small, single family homes on an ordered grid (but with more trees).

See here

What's crazy is the blight in and around the downtown core. Economics gone haywire.

[relnahe]

What is that school/motel looking thing below the site?

[memph]

Just realized St Louis passed Montreal in population in about 1850, and was about twice as large in 1870... And yet the two cities took very different paths afterwards.

Montreal's great urban neighbourhoods were built mostly from 1870 to 1930 (aside from the Old Port), and still has tons of great urban fabric remaining, so much more than St Louis, which has very little.

[dc_denizen]

I wouldn't say that St. Louis has 'very little' urban fabric.

The following link to Zillow's web site is interesting. I filted for listed homes for sale with $125,000 value. As you can see, the south and central portion of the city has a healthy real estate market with plenty of (moderately) high priced homes:

Zillow - St. Louis

Meanwhile, Take a look at Detroit. Nothing like St. Louis's large robust area; there are only small regions where prices rise to these levels.

Zillow - Detroit

[JivecitySTL]

Originally Posted by memph

Just realized St Louis passed Montreal in population in about 1850, and was about twice as large in 1870... And yet the two cities took very different paths afterwards.

Montreal's great urban neighbourhoods were built mostly from 1870 to 1930 (aside from the Old Port), and still has tons of great urban fabric remaining, so much more than St Louis, which has very little.

You must be kidding. Have you ever BEEN to St. Louis? The entire city is full of late 19th and early 20th century urban fabric. Sure, we've lost a lot, but we have SOOOOOOOOO much more than 90% of American cities.

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

everybody put on a black turtleneck and hush koooooyaanisqaaaaaaaaaatsiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

• Video Link

The last parts of that video actually look a little like Los Angeles.

[MolsonExport]

the music is so chilling, set against the background of the wretched P-Ig