4 ms·

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"

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.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 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.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    You know eminent domain for highways and “slum” clearing were real things that happened? There were literally bulldozers crushing peoples’ homes in some cases. And as for the slim clearing in NYC, people weren’t driven anywhere the government just told them to fuck off. But the policies I’m referring to are around federal home lending programs that only lent money for suburban developments, the construction of interstate highways, paying for “slum clearing” in the 1950, and so on. But why bother knowing anything about history…

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.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
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.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  You know eminent domain for highways and “slum” clearing were real things that happened? There were literally bulldozers crushing peoples’ homes in some cases. And as for the slim clearing in NYC, people weren’t driven anywhere the government just told them to fuck off. But the policies I’m referring to are around federal home lending programs that only lent money for suburban developments, the construction of interstate highways, paying for “slum clearing” in the 1950, and so on. But why bother knowing anything about history…