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Thats a bold claim to make so axiomatically. Disastrous in what regard? Why do you feel like you don't need to expand? What is this seemingly obviously utopian

Thats a bold claim to make so axiomatically. Disastrous in what regard? Why do you feel like you don't need to expand? What is this seemingly obviously utopian vision you have that the greatest civil engineering minds of the 20th century failed to comprehend? How precisely would you have handle the competing needs of the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of arguably the largest developed country (by sq miles of developed land) in the world?

shagmin 3y ago
It doesn't feel like such a bold claim to me. Dividing neighborhoods (i.e. redlining) lead to ghettos, inner city violence, white flight, etc., Today there is barely any remnant of the middle class in major urban areas and more traffic than ever. City planners (and policy makers) are not civil engineers.
sofixa 3y ago
> Disastrous in what regard? Why do you feel like you don't need to expand? What is this seemingly obviously utopian vision you have that the greatest civil engineering minds of the 20th century failed to comprehend It's a bit surprising this is news/debatable to some, but here it goes: * Traffic is very heavy on those urban highways, making them highly inefficient in transporting people, their main objective; they result in massive amounts of time wasted * The neighborhoods bulldozed for those urban highways, or near them, suffered immensely. Of course this being the US we're talking about, it was disproportionately poorer and "non-white" communities that suffered, as well as historic/picturesque parts (e.g. some US cities have highways on waterfronts which are super nice places to have as parks). Ugly, noisy, polluting highways that wall off the undesirables while also being shit at their main task? Yes, urban highways were generally a failure.
- amflare 3y ago
  I'll grant everything up until your last sentence. The point I was trying to make was "what better idea do you have"? "urban highways were generally a failure" compared to what? The US has the unique problem of being both big and developed. The only country that could claim the same is China, and only for the last couple of decades. Europe, even as an entire region does not compare. Too much of the US is car dependent to then suddenly change things once you enter a city. That would just cause even more issues. So you either need a way to scale up to the US, or, as frustrating and unsexy as it might be, deal with the fact that cars are the best way to scale down to the Urban Environment.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    The US is car dependent specifically because of the choice the government made to move people out of cities. Aggressively subsidizing suburban development and infrastructure was an intentional top down choice. No market would have ever supported the bond backed creep of development out further and further into the suburbs. Precisely what you see now are wealthy cities (outside of the sunbelt) tearing down old and crumbling urban highways like the Embarcadero in SF and poor cities like Baltimore being stuck with 83 which it can neither afford to maintain or tear down. In the case of 83 it cut right through a thriving working class neighborhood called Old Town which is now abandoned and little more than a skid row. Whereas the neighborhoods around the water that were slated for razing for highway construction but spared are the most thriving neighborhoods in the city. Urban highways were always a giveaway to people who fled to the suburbs at the expense of people who did not. They involved monstrous acts of government takings through imminent domain and eradicated the wealth of generations of people who had their property stolen with only token compensation. And now in the case of Baltimore, no only were multiple neighborhoods destroyed, but the schools that remained near the highway have worse performance which has been repeatedly linked to air pollution from the highway. My better idea was for the government not to steal peoples' homes and businesses to build highways for people it also subsidized to live elsewhere. This create a double drag on the economies of American cities by depriving them of tax revenue and destroying economic activity.
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    - tivert 3y ago
      > The US is car dependent specifically because of the choice the government made to move people out of cities. My grandpa told me about this. Government troops driving him and his family out of their tenement apartment at bayonet point. Marching them, weeping, to a tract home in a suburb with a car in the garage. No one wanted to go, and they all wept for weeks. My grandma was home-bound for years because she refused to step into one of those infernal automobiles, and government forces had bombed all the trolleys. The 1950s was a a very traumatic time for America.

shagmin 3y ago

It doesn't feel like such a bold claim to me. Dividing neighborhoods (i.e. redlining) lead to ghettos, inner city violence, white flight, etc., Today there is barely any remnant of the middle class in major urban areas and more traffic than ever. City planners (and policy makers) are not civil engineers.

sofixa 3y ago

> Disastrous in what regard? Why do you feel like you don't need to expand? What is this seemingly obviously utopian vision you have that the greatest civil engineering minds of the 20th century failed to comprehend It's a bit surprising this is news/debatable to some, but here it goes: * Traffic is very heavy on those urban highways, making them highly inefficient in transporting people, their main objective; they result in massive amounts of time wasted * The neighborhoods bulldozed for those urban highways, or near them, suffered immensely. Of course this being the US we're talking about, it was disproportionately poorer and "non-white" communities that suffered, as well as historic/picturesque parts (e.g. some US cities have highways on waterfronts which are super nice places to have as parks). Ugly, noisy, polluting highways that wall off the undesirables while also being shit at their main task? Yes, urban highways were generally a failure.

amflare 3y ago
I'll grant everything up until your last sentence. The point I was trying to make was "what better idea do you have"? "urban highways were generally a failure" compared to what? The US has the unique problem of being both big and developed. The only country that could claim the same is China, and only for the last couple of decades. Europe, even as an entire region does not compare. Too much of the US is car dependent to then suddenly change things once you enter a city. That would just cause even more issues. So you either need a way to scale up to the US, or, as frustrating and unsexy as it might be, deal with the fact that cars are the best way to scale down to the Urban Environment.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  The US is car dependent specifically because of the choice the government made to move people out of cities. Aggressively subsidizing suburban development and infrastructure was an intentional top down choice. No market would have ever supported the bond backed creep of development out further and further into the suburbs. Precisely what you see now are wealthy cities (outside of the sunbelt) tearing down old and crumbling urban highways like the Embarcadero in SF and poor cities like Baltimore being stuck with 83 which it can neither afford to maintain or tear down. In the case of 83 it cut right through a thriving working class neighborhood called Old Town which is now abandoned and little more than a skid row. Whereas the neighborhoods around the water that were slated for razing for highway construction but spared are the most thriving neighborhoods in the city. Urban highways were always a giveaway to people who fled to the suburbs at the expense of people who did not. They involved monstrous acts of government takings through imminent domain and eradicated the wealth of generations of people who had their property stolen with only token compensation. And now in the case of Baltimore, no only were multiple neighborhoods destroyed, but the schools that remained near the highway have worse performance which has been repeatedly linked to air pollution from the highway. My better idea was for the government not to steal peoples' homes and businesses to build highways for people it also subsidized to live elsewhere. This create a double drag on the economies of American cities by depriving them of tax revenue and destroying economic activity.
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  - tivert 3y ago
    > The US is car dependent specifically because of the choice the government made to move people out of cities. My grandpa told me about this. Government troops driving him and his family out of their tenement apartment at bayonet point. Marching them, weeping, to a tract home in a suburb with a car in the garage. No one wanted to go, and they all wept for weeks. My grandma was home-bound for years because she refused to step into one of those infernal automobiles, and government forces had bombed all the trolleys. The 1950s was a a very traumatic time for America.