4 ms·

Too bad America bulldozed all their beautiful cities to put in highways. Imagine the prosperity and culture the US would have if every city was as walkable/tran

Too bad America bulldozed all their beautiful cities to put in highways. Imagine the prosperity and culture the US would have if every city was as walkable/transitable as New York. America has one city that allowed itself to grow naturally and it became the economic Mecca of the world.

reducesuffering 4y ago
Is it though? On a per-capita basis it's far outclassed by the Bay Area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_area...
alephnerd 4y ago
Most T2/3/4 North American cities (even the rust belt ones) have Economic indicators comparable to T1 cities in other European countries. Using State+Provincial Level HDI as a proxy, entire States+Provinces [0][1] are comparable to entire Tier 1 European countries [2] on a socioeconomic basis. When you look at purely economic indicators such as GDP/GDP Per Capita the same story holds [3][4][5] If you're complaining about urban planning around walkability, you will need to specify which European cities you are comparing to, and which American cities as well. It's unfair to compare a Tier 2/3 North American city like SLC or Phoenix or Vancouver to London or Paris when those cities are the Primate Cities of their entire country. Comparing cities like London/Paris/Frankfurt to NYC or Berlin to DC or Munich to the SF Bay makes more sense. And finally, the kind of suburbanization you're complaining about is VERY common in Europe as well. Also, here is the ranking of cities globally by influence and economic power - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities_Research_Network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Citi... [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_... [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_a... [3]- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [4] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_gross_domestic_product https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_a... [5] - https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/UVK/EURO/EU https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/UVK/EURO...
- coldtea 4y ago
  >Most T2/3/4 North American cities (even the rust belt ones) have Economic indicators comparable to T1 cities in other European countries. Yeah, and sociability/quality of life/crime rate compared to some dystopian hell-hole
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    HDI is the primary metric used to compare quality of life and development between different governments. As I shared in the comment above, HDIs of all 50 states in the US are comparable to Western Europe. The worst state, Mississippi, is comparable to Portugal, and the US average is comparable to the UK, Luxembourg, and Slovenia (on a separate note I'm very surprised by how Slovenia delevoped after the Iron Curtain fell) and well above France. There are of course issues in the US that we need to tackle, but fetishizing European countries makes no sense when at best they are roughly middle of the pack if they would have been states in the US.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >As I shared in the comment above, HDIs of all 50 states in the US are comparable to Western Europe. The worst state, Mississippi, is comparable to Portugal, and the US average is comparable to the UK, Luxembourg, and Slovenia and well above France. Which goes to show how official indexes can be worth nothing! Anybody who has been to both Mississippi and Portugal can attest to that...
      - alephnerd 4y ago
        I have been to both Mississippi and Portugal. I've had a great time eating ribs in Tupelo and hiking in Peneda-Geres National Park near Porto. Lisbon and Porto is a pretty city but Portugal as a whole has historically been an underdeveloped laggard in Europe due to political mismanagement (just like Mississippi) and only developed thanks to massive cash+infrastructure transfers by the EU, just like how Mississippi and other southern states were transformed via FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
Yeah no this is BS. Pretty much nothing already established got bulldozed save a scant few downtown highways. What happened is that growth got "planned" either explicitly or implicitly via zoning and places like California and the Southeast that weren't really built up previously got built out in the form of this new sprawling system. Those who think they can city plan the utopia of tomorrow with "zoning but with different priorities than last time" would do well to learn the lessens therein.
- lwansbrough 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1619450876002983937 https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1619450876002983937
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    You know, I almost hedged by initial comment by saying "except for the obvious exception of Detroit which got less dense as population of the entire metropolitan area fell off a cliff and never recovered". I should have known better than to leave an opening for types like you.
    - lwansbrough 4y ago
      Seems like you didn’t bother to actually read the thread. So doesn’t seem like you’re interested in engaging in good faith.
- sunflowerfly 4y ago
  At least in my area of Kansas City, and I believe many other cities, this is simply not true. Downtown Kansas City before WWII was similar to many European cities. It still has boulevards and parks, but it had 300 miles of electric street cars, row after row of mixed use business with housing above stores, and a train hub that carried passengers to about any town in the region. It was a vibrant city similar to European cities today. Under the guise of urban renewal after WW II, they literally bulldozed rows of downtown business' to install the interstate loop. The interstates chopped the neighborhoods apart making it nearly impossible to walk from one to another. They tore down about half the other buildings to accommodate parking for all the people that now lived in suburbs and drove in. They widened roads and shrunk sidewalks. They tore out most of the passenger train service and all of the street car lines. The effect was the downtown area of KC all but died, with many boarded up buildings. It became a place nobody wanted to live with a family. With several major infrastructure projects it is just now starting to come back. But it is still a far cry from what it was. It is still not that walkable. There is still little public transportation, with only one short street car line and one or two slow and clunky Amtrak trains a day. Most people still live in suburbs and drive in, so we have never deleted all the parking lots and rebuilt the buildings to make space for a vibrant business scene or ample housing.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

reducesuffering 4y ago

Is it though? On a per-capita basis it's far outclassed by the Bay Area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_area...

alephnerd 4y ago

Most T2/3/4 North American cities (even the rust belt ones) have Economic indicators comparable to T1 cities in other European countries. Using State+Provincial Level HDI as a proxy, entire States+Provinces [0][1] are comparable to entire Tier 1 European countries [2] on a socioeconomic basis. When you look at purely economic indicators such as GDP/GDP Per Capita the same story holds [3][4][5] If you're complaining about urban planning around walkability, you will need to specify which European cities you are comparing to, and which American cities as well. It's unfair to compare a Tier 2/3 North American city like SLC or Phoenix or Vancouver to London or Paris when those cities are the Primate Cities of their entire country. Comparing cities like London/Paris/Frankfurt to NYC or Berlin to DC or Munich to the SF Bay makes more sense. And finally, the kind of suburbanization you're complaining about is VERY common in Europe as well. Also, here is the ranking of cities globally by influence and economic power - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities_Research_Network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Citi... [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_... [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_a... [3]- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... [4] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_gross_domestic_product https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_a... [5] - https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/UVK/EURO/EU https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/UVK/EURO...

coldtea 4y ago
>Most T2/3/4 North American cities (even the rust belt ones) have Economic indicators comparable to T1 cities in other European countries. Yeah, and sociability/quality of life/crime rate compared to some dystopian hell-hole
- alephnerd 4y ago
  HDI is the primary metric used to compare quality of life and development between different governments. As I shared in the comment above, HDIs of all 50 states in the US are comparable to Western Europe. The worst state, Mississippi, is comparable to Portugal, and the US average is comparable to the UK, Luxembourg, and Slovenia (on a separate note I'm very surprised by how Slovenia delevoped after the Iron Curtain fell) and well above France. There are of course issues in the US that we need to tackle, but fetishizing European countries makes no sense when at best they are roughly middle of the pack if they would have been states in the US.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >As I shared in the comment above, HDIs of all 50 states in the US are comparable to Western Europe. The worst state, Mississippi, is comparable to Portugal, and the US average is comparable to the UK, Luxembourg, and Slovenia and well above France. Which goes to show how official indexes can be worth nothing! Anybody who has been to both Mississippi and Portugal can attest to that...
    - alephnerd 4y ago
      I have been to both Mississippi and Portugal. I've had a great time eating ribs in Tupelo and hiking in Peneda-Geres National Park near Porto. Lisbon and Porto is a pretty city but Portugal as a whole has historically been an underdeveloped laggard in Europe due to political mismanagement (just like Mississippi) and only developed thanks to massive cash+infrastructure transfers by the EU, just like how Mississippi and other southern states were transformed via FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

Yeah no this is BS. Pretty much nothing already established got bulldozed save a scant few downtown highways. What happened is that growth got "planned" either explicitly or implicitly via zoning and places like California and the Southeast that weren't really built up previously got built out in the form of this new sprawling system. Those who think they can city plan the utopia of tomorrow with "zoning but with different priorities than last time" would do well to learn the lessens therein.

lwansbrough 4y ago
https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1619450876002983937 https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1619450876002983937
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  You know, I almost hedged by initial comment by saying "except for the obvious exception of Detroit which got less dense as population of the entire metropolitan area fell off a cliff and never recovered". I should have known better than to leave an opening for types like you.
  - lwansbrough 4y ago
    Seems like you didn’t bother to actually read the thread. So doesn’t seem like you’re interested in engaging in good faith.
sunflowerfly 4y ago
At least in my area of Kansas City, and I believe many other cities, this is simply not true. Downtown Kansas City before WWII was similar to many European cities. It still has boulevards and parks, but it had 300 miles of electric street cars, row after row of mixed use business with housing above stores, and a train hub that carried passengers to about any town in the region. It was a vibrant city similar to European cities today. Under the guise of urban renewal after WW II, they literally bulldozed rows of downtown business' to install the interstate loop. The interstates chopped the neighborhoods apart making it nearly impossible to walk from one to another. They tore down about half the other buildings to accommodate parking for all the people that now lived in suburbs and drove in. They widened roads and shrunk sidewalks. They tore out most of the passenger train service and all of the street car lines. The effect was the downtown area of KC all but died, with many boarded up buildings. It became a place nobody wanted to live with a family. With several major infrastructure projects it is just now starting to come back. But it is still a far cry from what it was. It is still not that walkable. There is still little public transportation, with only one short street car line and one or two slow and clunky Amtrak trains a day. Most people still live in suburbs and drive in, so we have never deleted all the parking lots and rebuilt the buildings to make space for a vibrant business scene or ample housing.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]