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Europe has a lot beautiful architecture that add to the culture of a city. America just doesn't have that. Ok and the newer buildings that actually pay a good

Europe has a lot beautiful architecture that add to the culture of a city. America just doesn't have that. Ok and the newer buildings that actually pay a good architect are impressive that add to the beauty of a city as well. If you live in a city in the US that is just strip malls it's depressing

CalRobert 8y ago
I love European architecture, and I generally detest US urban design, but this is a really unfair generalization. I used to live in Berkeley. More recently, I lived in South Park, San Diego. Both places have beautiful homes. I would _love_ to be able to build an American Craftsman style home where I live now (Ireland) but it would most likely be deemed "out of character" with the surroundings and refused planning. http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/8VGRjHKhUkzpKVPCdeX9Xw/o.jpg http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/8VGRjHKhUkzpKVPCdeX9X... Grand Central station in Los Angeles holds its own too http://kmetros.net/wp-content/uploads/galleries/post-95/full/%5BGroup%207%5D-IMG_6737_IMG_6739-3%20images.jpg http://kmetros.net/wp-content/uploads/galleries/post-95/full... (Edit - the above was supposed to refer to Union Station in LA, not GCS in NYC.) Even among modern architecture, there's something to be said for the aspiration, even if not the reality. There's a beauty in the colorful, low-slung storefronts in Ocean Beach, near San Diego. https://goo.gl/maps/tSaHPChSjLo https://goo.gl/maps/tSaHPChSjLo Of course, I could do without the cars and parking lots. Maybe I'm biased by my history but dingy burger joints and head shops near the beach evoke a sense of relaxation I don't get much of in European cities. Old brick buildings can be really depressing when they're not kept up. And Europe has plenty of unattractive housing projects (https://goo.gl/maps/KLRXsCrck8s https://goo.gl/maps/KLRXsCrck8s ) Here's a ghastly shopping centre near my home in Dublin http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Phibsboro-Shopping-Centre.jpg http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Phibsboro... Maybe Europe's advantage was having more time to accumulate buildings, so over time the ugly ones got torn down. Of course, why don't we have more Native American architecture? A nomadic lifestyle combined with materials that generally degrade over centuries? (Notwithstanding that, of course, there may be Native American architects doing interesting work today. I don't know) But really it's because fewer European cities have been destroyed by car-centric design. Those which have are about as ugly as US suburbia, but I struggle to think of too many examples. Outer neighborhoods of Dublin and Stuttgart come to mind.
- RankingMember 8y ago
  Small note: Grand Central Station is in New York, not LA
  - wefarrell 8y ago
    *terminal
    - RankingMember 8y ago
      Fair, that is the correct name, but you'll hear it called Station, Terminal, or the shortened "Grand Central".
      - wefarrell 8y ago
        The subway part of it is a station, but for all other trains it’s the last stop.
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    Sorry, I meant Union Station, not Grand Central. Too much copy-pasting.
- circlefavshape 8y ago
  > fewer European cities have been destroyed by car-centric design Galway is pretty terrible, if you're talking about Ireland, and some of the former industrial heartland of England is pretty bad too (Coventry in particular)
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    Yup - #GalwayCityOfCars comes up a lot in Twitter for me, and they've fought any improvement for cycling until after getting an enormous motorway built, because clearly a 1 meter wide bike lane is the cause of their congestion issues.
- badpun 8y ago

CalRobert 8y ago

I love European architecture, and I generally detest US urban design, but this is a really unfair generalization. I used to live in Berkeley. More recently, I lived in South Park, San Diego. Both places have beautiful homes. I would _love_ to be able to build an American Craftsman style home where I live now (Ireland) but it would most likely be deemed "out of character" with the surroundings and refused planning. http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/8VGRjHKhUkzpKVPCdeX9Xw/o.jpg http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/8VGRjHKhUkzpKVPCdeX9X... Grand Central station in Los Angeles holds its own too http://kmetros.net/wp-content/uploads/galleries/post-95/full/%5BGroup%207%5D-IMG_6737_IMG_6739-3%20images.jpg http://kmetros.net/wp-content/uploads/galleries/post-95/full... (Edit - the above was supposed to refer to Union Station in LA, not GCS in NYC.) Even among modern architecture, there's something to be said for the aspiration, even if not the reality. There's a beauty in the colorful, low-slung storefronts in Ocean Beach, near San Diego. https://goo.gl/maps/tSaHPChSjLo https://goo.gl/maps/tSaHPChSjLo Of course, I could do without the cars and parking lots. Maybe I'm biased by my history but dingy burger joints and head shops near the beach evoke a sense of relaxation I don't get much of in European cities. Old brick buildings can be really depressing when they're not kept up. And Europe has plenty of unattractive housing projects (https://goo.gl/maps/KLRXsCrck8s https://goo.gl/maps/KLRXsCrck8s ) Here's a ghastly shopping centre near my home in Dublin http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Phibsboro-Shopping-Centre.jpg http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Phibsboro... Maybe Europe's advantage was having more time to accumulate buildings, so over time the ugly ones got torn down. Of course, why don't we have more Native American architecture? A nomadic lifestyle combined with materials that generally degrade over centuries? (Notwithstanding that, of course, there may be Native American architects doing interesting work today. I don't know) But really it's because fewer European cities have been destroyed by car-centric design. Those which have are about as ugly as US suburbia, but I struggle to think of too many examples. Outer neighborhoods of Dublin and Stuttgart come to mind.

RankingMember 8y ago
Small note: Grand Central Station is in New York, not LA
- wefarrell 8y ago
  *terminal
  - RankingMember 8y ago
    Fair, that is the correct name, but you'll hear it called Station, Terminal, or the shortened "Grand Central".
    - wefarrell 8y ago
      The subway part of it is a station, but for all other trains it’s the last stop.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Sorry, I meant Union Station, not Grand Central. Too much copy-pasting.
circlefavshape 8y ago
> fewer European cities have been destroyed by car-centric design Galway is pretty terrible, if you're talking about Ireland, and some of the former industrial heartland of England is pretty bad too (Coventry in particular)
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Yup - #GalwayCityOfCars comes up a lot in Twitter for me, and they've fought any improvement for cycling until after getting an enormous motorway built, because clearly a 1 meter wide bike lane is the cause of their congestion issues.
badpun 8y ago