

60 Years of Urban Change: Northeast - gbarnes
http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/

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meddlepal
Boston losing it's West End for towers in the park is one of the worst crimes
of mid-20th century urban planning (renewal).

The automobile destroyed American cities... and mostly for the benefit of
people who never even lived in the city but rather just commuted into or
through it.

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potatolicious
Ouch ouch ouch. It hurts just looking at these.

Besides the obvious complaint of freeways cutting willy-nilly through
established cities, literally demolishing everything in its path, even the
buildings suffered.

The gross misuse of outdoor space might be the second-greatest crime in
American urban planning (after freeway culture). So many tight-knit
neighborhoods and communities - tight streets full of activity and business -
replaced with megalithic buildings surrounded by "plazas" and "parks" that fit
neither description and are massive black holes devoid of human activity.

That Pittsburgh picture hurts the most. Roads lined with buildings replaced
with vast concrete emptiness.

Rochester too - there is more parking lot and roadway west of the river than
there are buildings! Disgusting.

And that Providence picture - if I didn't know better I'd think the after
picture is after a war given how much has been absolutely leveled into flat
ground.

Agh I can't look at this.

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blahedo
The Providence one is interesting, because the 2013 photo shows a substantial
improvement---when I-195 was laid out, it made a crazy-ass loop through
downtown (and bisecting some historic neighbourhoods) before heading east.
About ten years ago they finally said, "this is dumb," and started planning
for it to join I-95 further south. In the 2013 photo here, you can see the
scars from where 195 used to be---it's still recovering.

If the "after" photo of Providence were from, say, 2003, the change would be
even more dramatic.

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bluthru
The automobile might prove to be the most detrimental invention of all time.

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zephjc
It's really bad - the underlying pattern of change is tearing down a bunch of
buildings an running big highways through the cities.

~~~
Steltek
Not to mention the tens of thousands of people evicted from high density
buildings and ramping up suburban sprawl. Will that highway, after deducting
maintenance and environmental damage, ever hope to recoup the costs in city
services from handling low density housing?

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pchristensen
Wow. Pittsburgh, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and Providence are intense.

See also \- Midwest:
[http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/12/60yrsmidwest/](http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/12/60yrsmidwest/)
\- Southeast:
[http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/18/60yrssoutheast/](http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/18/60yrssoutheast/)
\- Oklahoma + Texas:
[http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/09/60years/](http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/09/60years/)

~~~
cdgore
That's pretty sad, seeing Detroit turn from a bustling city to abandoned
fields and parking lots

