Great Lakes Cities

[IrishIllini]

In terms of built environment, architecture, geography, etc. Every major city on the Great Lakes is built on a grid. All have or had strong cores. They're all fairly flat. Is there any other region with such a defining development pattern?

Great Lakes Cities
Chicago
Cleveland
Detroit
Milwaukee
Toronto

[Steely Dan]

^ you should probably add buffalo, Hamilton, and rochester.

Chicago is noticeably brickier than the other US great lakes cities because fire.

Also, chicago and detroit are pretty dead flat, but the others all have much more varied topography with deep ravines, lakeshore bluffs, valleys, rolling hills etc.

Now, no one is gonna mistake them for San Francisco or Hong Kong, but only chicago and detroit exhibit that true pancake flat topography.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Chicago is noticeably brickier than the other US great lakes cities because fire.

Detroit has a lot of brick buildings. I'm sure even more were lost. Toronto has a good amount of brick housing, I think. Milwaukee and Cleveland are light on the brick construction. I'm surprised Milwaukee is given its proximity to Chicago.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Also, chicago and detroit are pretty dead flat, but the others all have much more varied topography with deep ravines, lakeshore bluffs, valleys, rolling hills etc.

The city proper is flat, the Detroit region isn't as flat as Chicagoland though, Oakland County has lots of hills, lakes, etc.

[IrishIllini]

I agree cities of the south and west are also similar. I was going to make a comment about Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.

Satellite images for the Great Lakes cities are very similar. Their downtowns are typically on or near a river, they have an unrelenting grid that thins out into curvelinear suburban streets and then country roads. This is all at varying scales, but the template is the same.

To me the sunbelt is just marketing speak for the south. I wouldn’t say the west coast is the sunbelt. Very different regions from my perspective.

[ardecila]

Most American cities look pretty similar apart from some stylistic differences, and even then it’s really only on residential blocks. Especially when you get into downtowns and the former industrial districts around them. Commercial architecture has been pretty consistent across the country throughout every era, which is why Portland’s Central Eastside looks like St Louis’ Midtown looks like New Orleans’ Warehouse District.

If you’re expecting the kind of diversity seen in Europe, where an Italian city, a Swiss city and an English city look utterly different, well, that’s not going to happen, we never had the language or political barriers that led to the creation of all those different styles. American cities have always moved pretty much in lockstep with the same trends.

[Kenneth]

Cleveland is the only Lakes city that has two very noticeable distinct topographies. The eastside is rugged and very hilly, and the westside is flat as a pancake

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Detroit has a lot of brick buildings. I'm sure even more were lost. Toronto has a good amount of brick housing, I think. Milwaukee and Cleveland are light on the brick construction. I'm surprised Milwaukee is given its proximity to Chicago.

american great lakes cities were shaped by their proximity to the great clear cutting of the northwoods...millons of board feet of dirt cheap, high quality lumber. it’s chicago that’s the outlier for reasons already discussed, especially since the great stockpiles and lumber markets were IN chicago.

toronto was shaped by other forces, including that chunky, bricky 19th century later british colonial or late british colonial derived vernacular you see across the planet in the former empire.

[TownGuy]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ you should probably add buffalo, Hamilton, and rochester.

Chicago is noticeably brickier than the other US great lakes cities because fire.

Also, chicago and detroit are pretty dead flat, but the others all have much more varied topography with deep ravines, lakeshore bluffs, valleys, rolling hills etc.

Now, no one is gonna mistake them for San Francisco or Hong Kong, but only chicago and detroit exhibit that true pancake flat topography.

Yeah Toronto's topography is pretty nice actually but definitely underappreciated. Most Canadians think of it as a flat concrete jungle but there is a lot more than that going on.

Most know of the Toronto islands but the bluffs and ravines are little known, generally


Scarborough Bluffs by Philip Dunn, on Flickr


Misty Morning ~ Glen Stewart Ravine by ~EvidencE~, on Flickr



Don Valley Brickworks by mooncall2012, on Flickr


2017.07.18. Toronto by Péter Cseke, on Flickr


Scarborough Bluffs Of Toronto by Greg's Southern Ontario (catching Up Slowly), on Flickr

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Detroit has a lot of brick buildings. I'm sure even more were lost. Toronto has a good amount of brick housing, I think. Milwaukee and Cleveland are light on the brick construction. I'm surprised Milwaukee is given its proximity to Chicago.

Milwaukee is heavily frame due to its proximity to the hardwood stands being rapidly leveled in order to build Chicago. It's also heavily German and there is a long tradition of skilled German carpenters. There is actually a ton of original wood siding and craftsmanship still exposed in Milwaukee. For whatever reason almost every frame building in Chicago has been resided, but most still have their original siding in some parts of Milwaukee.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

toronto was shaped by other forces, including that chunky, bricky 19th century later british colonial or late british colonial derived vernacular you see across the planet in the former empire.

The US has it too but it goes by the more palatable description of 'colonial' rather than Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, etc.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The US has it too but it goes by the more palatable description of 'colonial' rather than Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, etc.

yeah...i’m thinking of a specific 19th century overly formal look that i can’t really describe in commercial “commonwealth” architecture that stands out. i’d guess that this look would actually be more prominent in montreal commercial buildings than toronto.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Milwaukee is heavily frame due to its proximity to the hardwood stands being rapidly leveled in order to build Chicago. It's also heavily German and there is a long tradition of skilled German carpenters. There is actually a ton of original wood siding and craftsmanship still exposed in Milwaukee. For whatever reason almost every frame building in Chicago has been resided, but most still have their original siding in some parts of Milwaukee.

st. louis saw intense german immigration and is very heavily/primarily (both in look and quantity) brick. i think they just ended up working with the materials available. milwaukee had easy access to old growth timber, st. louis is surrounded by thick layers of high quality (for pottery/brick) clay deposits (on the missouri side...illinois is that black soil of course).

[10023]

The Great Lakes have a certain look, yes.

New England has a certain look. The Mid-Atlantic cities have a certain look. Industrial cities in the Northeast have a certain look. When these places were built, travel and transport were slow and expensive, and so regional vernaculars proliferated much as they had in the Old World for thousands of years.

When you go South and West, the cities are generally less distinctive because they're newer, and were built after everything started to look like everything else.

Modern suburbs all look the same, whether they're in suburban Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas. Toll Brothers or KB Homes only have so many designs. There are exceptions of course, like Florida's thing for Spanish Revival architecture, but that's deliberate rather than the result of a local vernacular that developed organically.

[10023]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The US has it too but it goes by the more palatable description of 'colonial' rather than Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, etc.

'Colonial' architecture is none of those things.

The closest equivalent to Georgian architecture in the US is the 'Federal' style (mixed later with what in Britain is called Regency-style architecture), which was prevalent just before and after independence from Britain.

The Victorian and Edwardian periods came long after America was a colony. America has lots of Victorian architecture, and it is referred to as such. By the Edwardian period American and British architecture had completely diverged, and American architects at the time were doing anything from Beaux-Arts to Prarie School to Arts & Crafts to Spanish Colonial Revival buildings. And of course, the first skyscrapers, which developed their own vernaculars.

Actual Colonial-style architecture was unique to the American colonies and based on the materials that were available (or not available), which meant wood rather than brick or stone, and in many cases very few and small windows (because glass had to be imported from England).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

Péter Cseke, on Flickr


Scarborough Bluffs Of Toronto by Greg's Southern Ontario (catching Up Slowly), on Flickr

It's interesting how to the uninitiated or non-horticultural among us, the presence of sumac trees in he summer can give a pseudo-tropical feel to northern climes where you wouldn't expect it.

I have them in my backyard including around my swimming pool and they're pretty neat as background vegetation. (They're also gorgeous fire engine red in the autumn.)

Now if only they didn't try to take over the entire yard...

[the urban politician]

Any city largely built out before 1940 has a distinctive look.

That's why SF, despite being on the west coast, is nothing like a Sunbelt city.

What's not being discussed is how land was platted in the prewar era. The long, narrow lots is what allows cities like Chicago to have newer infill that still looks dinstinctive compared to 99% of what's being built in America.

[llamaorama]

Any city largely built out before 1940 has a distinctive look.

Also the Plains cities, which were reaching their stride exactly around 1940(IIRC, maybe I'm wrong).

They are also just smaller and there's more variation in prosperity and a lot of divergence based on their modern circumstances.

Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Amarillo, Lubbock, Tulsa, parts of Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Denver, Abilene, Wichita Falls, Midland-Odessa. Albuquerque is a hybrid between this and a southwest/rocky mountain style. Saskatoon, Winnepeg, Calgary, and Edmonton may or may not qualify too. Also if you want to stretch things, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Modesto, Stockton, etc.

Shared attributes:

*A really booming resource based economy in the early and mid 20th century. You can feel through the buildings that there was this time of immense optimism and progressivism towards the future. Like vocational high schools that are palatial art deco masterpieces. Also an embrace of technologies of the era. For example some of the first modern airports, and Wichita still has some aviation industry.

*1930's-1950's high rises and civic buildings that blur the lines between late art deco and early contemporary buildings. More flw influence than mies. Oil money or big ag/banks is to thank for that.

*Endless neighborhoods of late 1950's ranch style houses which have a flow-y street grid pattern, usually close to the urban core.

*Huge grimy industrial zones. Not so much manufacturing or steel like out east and by the lakes, instead big spooky old grain elevators and feed mills and slaughterhouses and oil refineries and warehouses. Often a giant rail yard somewhere near downtown.

*Everything is a grid. Sometimes numbered streets and letter avenues persist into the new suburbs and extend way out beyond the metro edge into rural areas.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's interesting how to the uninitiated or non-horticultural among us, the presence of sumac trees in he summer can give a pseudo-tropical feel to northern climes where you wouldn't expect it.

I have them in my backyard including around my swimming pool and they're pretty neat as background vegetation. (They're also gorgeous fire engine red in the autumn.)

Now if only they didn't try to take over the entire yard...

"Your" backyard? I think we both know it's now THEIR backyard.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

"Your" backyard? I think we both know it's now THEIR backyard.

Do you mean by this the sumacs (vinaigriers), my kids and their friends, or someone else?

(I sure know who's backyard it is when it's time to do the maintenance...)