Why American public transit is so bad

[badrunner]

I'm not sure if I buy this whole "our suburbs suck because we have no black people" narrative from Canadians. White flight was just one factor that led to suburbanization in the US. It wasn't even the main factor. There were cities that suburbanized in earnest starting in the teens and 20s, without any significant black population to speak of.

Cities were crowded and miserable back then. Suburbs offered cheap land, clean air, high quality of life and the freedom and spontaneity of a car-oriented lifestyle. Some of these other factors must have been in play in Canada as well.

[MolsonExport]

the ambivalence as to how much Jewishness is embodied by Martha Stewart is undoubtedly a contributing factor to the state of American public transit.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by badrunner

I'm not sure if I buy this whole "our suburbs suck because we have no black people" narrative from Canadians. White flight was just one factor that led to suburbanization in the US. It wasn't even the main factor. There were cities that suburbanized in earnest starting in the teens and 20s, without any significant black population to speak of.

Yes, there was significant suburbanization, but the massive wealth flight and decay was strongly correlated with mid-century racial strife. Canadian cities had significant suburbanization too. So did American cities with few blacks (Portland, San Diego, Salt Lake). But Portland and Ottawa never had mass flight.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by PFloyd

No slavery legacy and "people of colour" (as Americans used to call them) .

Not used to, white Liberals call them that now. Its popular again!

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Eh, I think Anglo Canada has a stronger upper-class WASP monoculture than in the U.S., right now. Maybe this is due to more recent UK-based immigration, but places like West Van, wealthy Toronto areas, Westmount, etc. definitely have a WASP thing going on.

WASPs in the U.S. are kinda dead as a distinct cultural force, though there's some adaptation of WASP norms among the elites (Ralph Lauren and Martha Stewart as WASP caricatures yet both are Bronx-bred Jews). And Deep South elites are overwhelminging Protestant whites, but seems like a distinct cultural group of Methodist/Baptist elites. I'm not sure a Mississippi plantation family is in the same cultural sphere as a Main Line or Darien WASP.

I'm not sure that that's the case, so much as it is that the aforementioned WASPy Main Line & Connecticut-type equivalents are just located instead in highly visible urban locations in Canada. And even then, are fairly limited to neighbourhoods like North Toronto and the Kingsway.

Otherwise, you still have upper class Jewish-majority areas like Forest Hill in Toronto and Montreal (Westmount is actually fairly Jewish IIRC), Montreal's Francophone elite, wealthy Chinese and Italian areas in the suburbs, and so on. I don't imagine the diversity level is particularly different among either country's upper class.

In general though, there's just less wealth concentration in Canada.

[Stay Stoked Brah]

Martha Stewart rides the subway.
https://www.instagram.com/p/fTCtP3mX...ource=ig_embed

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by PFloyd

"people of colour" (as Americans used to call them)

I suspect you're confusing "people of color" with "colored people."

POC is currently used. The other one isn't.

[PFloyd]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I suspect you're confusing "people of color" with "colored people."

POC is currently used. The other one isn't.

Sure. Correction made.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I suspect you're confusing "people of color" with "colored people."

POC is currently used. The other one isn't.

Actually, since June 2020 its BIPOC.

Also, I had a professor correct me on writing "black" and not "Black." So theres that too.

[dc_denizen]

of course, contrary to PFloyds assertions, there are plenty of inner cities in the USA where the upper class never left their areas and stayed put, and yet often still have nice suburbs with small to medium sized centers, if you're into that kind of thing.

DC (Northwest DC/Georgetown). Portland, OR (SW portland/SW hills). Boston (Back Bay/Beacon Hill/Cambridge). NYC (upper East/west side, brownstown brooklyn). Los Angeles (westside). Buffalo (areas west of main). Chicago (lincoln park/ other parts of the North side). SF (everywhere), Denver/Seattle (never had an exodus), Houston (river oaks), Dallas ('favored corner' north of downtown), Pittsburgh (Squirrel Hill)

large cities where wealth really entirely retreated to the suburbs are the exceptions: Philadelphia (exodus from north philly, already underway in the 1920s), Detroit (obviously), Cleveland (to Shaker Heights, etc), St Louis (abandonment of various brownstone areas)



etc.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

of course, contrary to PFloyds assertions, there are plenty of inner cities in the USA where the upper class never left their areas and stayed put, and yet often still have nice suburbs with small to medium sized centers, if you're into that kind of thing.

DC (Northwest DC/Georgetown). Portland, OR (SW portland/SW hills). Boston (Back Bay/Beacon Hill/Cambridge). NYC (upper East/west side, brownstown brooklyn). Los Angeles (westside). Buffalo (areas west of main). Chicago (lincoln park/ other parts of the North side). SF (everywhere), Denver/Seattle (never had an exodus), Houston (river oaks), Dallas ('favored corner' north of downtown), Pittsburgh (Squirrel Hill)

These basically fall into one of three categories:

1. Strictly urbanite living- places like Manhattan, so not comparable to Forest Hill (Toronto) or Winnetka (Chicago) or Scarsdale (NY)

2. Suburban places in newer cities that are technically in city proper but functionally suburban (LA, Houston, Dallas)

3. Places with few black people so limited white flight (Portland, Pittsburgh)

I can't think of a major U.S. city with a substantial black population that didn't experience extensive wealth flight.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These basically fall into one of three categories:

1. Strictly urbanite living- places like Manhattan, so not comparable to Forest Hill (Toronto) or Winnetka (Chicago) or Scarsdale (NY)

2. Suburban places in newer cities that are technically in city proper but functionally suburban (LA, Houston, Dallas)

3. Places with few black people so limited white flight (Portland, Pittsburgh)

I can't think of a major U.S. city with a substantial black population that didn't experience extensive wealth flight.

beg to differ

all these cities have substantial black populations and never experienced high-end wealth flight like Detroit and St Louis:

DC
Boston
Chicago

Philly's wealth flight predated the 'white flight' era (north philly -> main line)

however, in the above cases, the black and white populations were somewhat geographically segregated , which might have helped.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Chicago (lincoln park/ other parts of the North side).

Chicago's hold-out bastion of urban wealth during the urban dark ages was not Lincoln Park, but rather the Gold Coast.

Lincoln park never went full blown ghetto, but back in the 60s/70s, large swaths of it were very middle class.

However, it was an early gentrifier in the 80s.

My friend's ex-wife grew up in LP in the 70s/80s near webster & racine and frequently lamented how the neighborhood changed around her family as they lived there. That girl did NOT have nice things to say about "all those stupid fucking yuppies".

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

St Louis (abandonment of various brownstone areas)

St. Louis brownstones?

I always think of St. Louis as the quintessential red brick midwest city.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

That girl did NOT have nice things to say about "all those stupid fucking yuppies".

My sister lived in a ridiculously cheap-for-its-size apartment on Fullerton, one block west of Clark, in 1979. She had to move to a much smaller place another block west when the building went condo.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

beg to differ

all these cities have substantial black populations and never experienced high-end wealth flight like Detroit and St Louis:

DC
Boston
Chicago

I'm pretty sure all three cities had huge wealth flight during the white flight era. Obviously nothing like a Detroit or Cleveland, but huge nonetheless.

DC, as the imperial capital, obviously will have some in-town wealth. And the rich white NW is separated from the rest of the city by a large park and much of it is functionally suburban or at least semi-suburban. Boston has a small black population yet much of its wealth migrated to the western suburbs. Chicago has a larger black population and the West and South sides had dramatic wealth flight.

[dc_denizen]

We’re talking about the us equivalents of very high income WASP areas in Toronto and Montreal. So wealth flight from Roxbury or the south side doesn’t qualify . Beacon hill and back bay and Harvard square were never abandoned by wealthy people

Those Canadian high income areas are also functionally suburban , just like nw dc

[benp]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These basically fall into one of three categories:

1. Strictly urbanite living- places like Manhattan, so not comparable to Forest Hill (Toronto) or Winnetka (Chicago) or Scarsdale (NY)

2. Suburban places in newer cities that are technically in city proper but functionally suburban (LA, Houston, Dallas)

3. Places with few black people so limited white flight (Portland, Pittsburgh)

I can't think of a major U.S. city with a substantial black population that didn't experience extensive wealth flight.

Buffalo:

1. nope
2. nope
3. nope

It was primarily middle-class wealth flight that occurred, along with "new money" wealthy. Old money kept their city homes/apartments/mansions. Not sprawling estates with acreage, but not Manhattan either. Core is the Delaware District and adjacent areas.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by benp

Buffalo:

1. nope
2. nope
3. nope

It was primarily middle-class wealth flight that occurred, along with "new money" wealthy. Old money kept their city homes/apartments/mansions. Not sprawling estates with acreage, but not Manhattan either. Core is the Delaware District and adjacent areas.

Buffalo doesn't have a comparable share of regional wealth in the city proper as a Canadian city. It has a very nice corridor of upper-middle prosperity, but most of the region's wealth is suburbanized, in places like Amherst.

I don't really understand the discussion at this point. Yeah, every U.S. metro has some degree of retained core wealth. Even Detroit has a few streets of million dollar homes. But the share of in-town wealth in the U.S., generally speaking, is much lower than in Canada. Postwar white flight probably accounts for much of the difference.

Also, the U.S. has a higher share of HNW households. So you can have significant in-town wealth, not unlike a Canadian metro, yet a lower regional share. DC has tons of in-town wealth yet no way greater than that in suburban Fairfax and Montgomery Counties.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These basically fall into one of three categories:

1. Strictly urbanite living- places like Manhattan, so not comparable to Forest Hill (Toronto) or Winnetka (Chicago) or Scarsdale (NY)

2. Suburban places in newer cities that are technically in city proper but functionally suburban (LA, Houston, Dallas)

3. Places with few black people so limited white flight (Portland, Pittsburgh)

I can't think of a major U.S. city with a substantial black population that didn't experience extensive wealth flight.

I think Portland probably belongs in the second category. It's a city with a fairly large geographic area. It wasn't built out at mid-century like the cities in the northeast quadrant of the U.S.

[rsbear]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think Portland probably belongs in the second category. It's a city with a fairly large geographic area. It wasn't built out at mid-century like the cities in the northeast quadrant of the U.S.

Portland was built out by World War II (or, mid-century, as you say).

The city annexed a large area east of Interstate 205 in the 1980s. The newly annexed land was low-density post-war suburbia with lots of infill opportunities (not fully built-out).