
America's First Medal at the Nazi Olympics Was for Town Planning - samclemens
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/americas-first-medal-at-the-nazi-olympics-was-fortown-planning
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alex-
I wanted to understand why the arts were dropped from the Olympics.

"In 1949, a report was presented at the IOC meeting in Rome which concluded
that practically all contestants in the art competitions were professionals,
and that the competitions should therefore be abolished and replaced with an
exhibition without awards or medals"

"At a 1951 meeting, the IOC decided to reinstate the competitions for the 1952
Olympics in Helsinki"

"The issue continued to be debated within the Olympic Movement, and at the
49th IOC Session in Athens, 1954, the IOC members voted to replace the art
contests with an exhibition for future Olympics"

"The IOC officially began allowing professional athletes to compete in the
Olypmic Games in 1988, basically leaving it up to the individual sporting
federations to decide if they would permit it"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_Summer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_Summer_Olympics)
[http://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/14378/why-are-
prof...](http://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/14378/why-are-professional-
athletes-allowed-to-compete-in-the-olympic-games)

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kazinator
> _Yes, from 1928 until 1948, town planning was an actual Olympic sport._

I suddenly feel a discomfort that could be my mind changing about synchronized
swimming and golf.

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sverige
Table tennis is right after synchronized swimming on my list.

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prawn
Table tennis ahead of dressage/equestrian!?

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sverige
Well, yes. Horses are interesting even when ridden by people wearing silly
costumes.

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Spooky23
Someone needs to re-read the Robert Moses biography. In that era, Moses was in
the process of finishing the construction of the entire state park system, and
was building thousands of parks in NYC.

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kchoudhu
And also destroying and redlining minority communities in NYC for decades to
come.

The man's legacy is decidedly mixed.

~~~
sjm-lbm
True, but this doesn't change the fact that the statement in the article is
factually untrue.

Moses preferred roads over all other transport mechanisms, and was shockingly
effective in his ability to basically make everyone do what he wanted (even if
it involved clearly terrible ideas). He was, though, responsible for many New
York state and city parks, and really got into road building as a method to
get people out to the new parks he was creating.

Now, his definition of "park" as a very developed area with landscaping,
sports facilities, playgrounds, etc. with all previous plant life getting
killed with a bulldozer is another matter that hasn't really held up over
time, but I'm digressing at this point. _The Power Broker_ really is a
fascinating read.

~~~
tsunamifury
And Jane Jacobs spent a significant portion of her life proving his ideals at
best short-sighted, and at worst out-right wrong. History remembers Jacobs far
more fondly.

Death and Life of Great American Cities is now town planning 101.

~~~
Spooky23
Jacobs was right and wrong, just as Moses was. The reality of the situation in
NYC, like every other city, was that cheap capital was driving anyone in high
density housing with means to the suburbs. Swaths of Brooklyn didn't turn into
slum because of Moses -- it was because working class jobs went to Jersey, and
ethnic communities of Irish, Italians, Germans and Norweigans went to Jersey
and Long Island. The vibrant, connected communities were dead men walking.

The same force that made homes cheap: the Federal government, is what created
the monster that Moses became in the latter half of his career. Because Moses
knew how to get shit done, NYC got most New Deal money. Because Moses could
get shit done, NYC got more housing money than anywhere else. Hell, something
like 75% of total east coast concrete production went to the NY metro area due
to Moses projects.

You really owe it to yourself to read "The Power Broker", because the
transition of Robert Moses from a progressive reformer to an unstoppable
weilder of power, guided by a modern, engineering driven agenda, bears a lot
of resemblance to the Silicon Valley titans today.

The difference is, Moses was crushed by Nelson Rockefeller, who had a bigger
ego, equal political instincts and unlimited money and influence. These guys
made Larry Ellison look humble. Not sure what will be able to stop the next
Robert Moses like figure.

~~~
tsunamifury
I will read The Power Broker, thank you for the reco. Most of my interest with
this comes from my responsibility to design architectures for ultra-large
ecosystems. It is incredibly difficult, as both of these people found out, to
define what "healthy" is. On top of that, its almost impossible to predictably
seed the right changes to get there. I take each of these leaders thoughts on
human principled design very seriously.

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ultraforce
It would be interesting to see what would occur in terms of the interest in
being employed in professions that would be associated with the arts if they
were to be reintroduced into the Olympics, perhaps it would change people"s
perspective of stuff such as architecture. At the same time if they were to
reintroduce all of the past art competitions in the summer Olympics the music
category could be extremely controversial depending on what styles of music
are allowed.

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cloudjacker
I was wondering if there were any other government regimes to host the
olympics that are now considered unfavorable, from a US perspective

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zatkin
By America, you mean Chicago, right? That's the only well planned city I can
think of off the top of my head.

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macintux
Indianapolis was designed from scratch, similar mold to Washington.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ralston](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ralston)

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Retric
DC is a horribly laid out city. Indianapolis adds 2 diagonals which is
tolerable, but DC is a mess.

Top 10 worst traffic for X years running, which is sadly an improvement it
used to contend for #1. It does not even have an interesting pattern with
roads at seemingly random angles. [http://www.apco2015.org/hotel-
travel/shuttles-and-parking/](http://www.apco2015.org/hotel-travel/shuttles-
and-parking/)

~~~
jandrese
DC gets a lot of flak about its traffic (which is deserved), but much of it is
outside of their control. I66 for example is outrageously undersized for an
artery into a major city, but that mess is in Virginia and outside of DC's
zone of control. The whole I95 and 270 mess is also a state issue.

That said, the undersized DC Metro system is largely in the hands of the local
government, although not directly controlled by the city council (like most
metro boards). It was somewhat unlucky in that their initial buildout happened
right as the car boom took hold and killed metrorail expansions all across the
US. Even cities with well regarded systems like New York have suffered from a
lack of expansion to cover growth since the 50s. Just look at how badly
underserved Queens is.

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Retric
A main artery heading north aka 29 would do a lot to relieve congestion. GW
parkway to 495 - 270 is a huge choke point.

It's also got excessive parks with a poor layout. Rock creek park for example
is a great location for a major road surrounding it with housing and you could
dramatically reduce the need for commuting. I mean really a public golf
course, yea that's a great use of space.

