Proposed Hartford, CT-Springfield, MA NBA team

[The_Admiral]

There were plenty of modest, working-class neighborhoods that were torn down in service of expressways. Cincinnati and Kansas City come to mind. It wasn't all

 

[tBBP]

There were some affluent ones, as well. Like, the northeast corner of the Louisville metro...which is why it took so long for the I-265 loop to be completed. (The NIMBYism was STRONG on that one...but ultimately, I believe eminent domain won out and INDOT/KYDOT got that thing finished.)

 

The larger point though hits at why, way back when, urban planners—led by Moses—though it best to plow freeways straight through city centers. Simply put: ease and convenience. Get into downtowns quicker, get out of downtowns quicker. One of the major issues with that approach however is the sheer number of black, brown, immigrant and poorer white families that got displaced in the process. (That's for another thread in another forum, though.) Add that to the burgeoning auto industry at the time (along with a few other factors I won't get into here because—again—that's for another thread in another forum) and it became quite the matrix of an autocentric complex that led to what we have today: cities fragmented by freeways and lifestyles largely if not entirely centered around the automobile. Some are way worse off than others (like here in Little Rock). With the benefit of hindsight we have today, several city/metros have realized the damage that concrete rivers have caused and have invested in "reversing course", so to speak. Boston's Big Dig is probably the best example, but it ain't the only one. Seattle just tore down the old Alaskan Way Viaduct and replaced it with something like a tunnel. Some cities are exploring decking over freeways to reconnect neighborhoods that got sliced up by freeways. (They're talking about doing that here...it'll be the miracle of all miracles if it ever happens.)

 

Anyway, so as not to run this thread too far off topic (because really this can be fodder for an urban planning/roadway thread in the Lounge or some other section), I'll cut this off right here. 

 

And to spin this back on topic: from what little I do know of Hartford, which admittedly ain't much, I'm trying to imagine how it was back when the WHA Whalers first set up shop, how different (?) it'd be if the Whalers never left, and if they were still there, how viable a market it would be for this expansion NBA team those guys back on the first page are now throwing pies in the sky about trying to bring to the area...

[throwuascenario]

2 hours ago, tBBP said:

The larger point though hits at why, way back when, urban planners—led by Moses—though it best to plow freeways straight through city centers. Simply put: ease and convenience. Get into downtowns quicker, get out of downtowns quicker. One of the major issues with that approach however is the sheer number of black, brown, immigrant and poorer white families that got displaced in the process. (That's for another thread in another forum, though.) Add that to the burgeoning auto industry at the time (along with a few other factors I won't get into here because—again—that's for another thread in another forum) and it became quite the matrix of an autocentric complex that led to what we have today: cities fragmented by freeways and lifestyles largely if not entirely centered around the automobile. Some are way worse off than others (like here in Little Rock). With the benefit of hindsight we have today, several city/metros have realized the damage that concrete rivers have caused and have invested in "reversing course", so to speak. Boston's Big Dig is probably the best example, but it ain't the only one. Seattle just tore down the old Alaskan Way Viaduct and replaced it with something like a tunnel. Some cities are exploring decking over freeways to reconnect neighborhoods that got sliced up by freeways. (They're talking about doing that here...it'll be the miracle of all miracles if it ever happens.)

 

 

We're in agreement that an autocentric society isn't ideal. But if we hadn't put highways through cities, they wouldn't have magically reverted to being dense, walkable areas. They would have been pretty much abandoned in favor of development in places that were easier to access.

 

My point is that if we let our urban cores die due to lack of access, it will only make metros more sprawly, less dense, and more autocentric.

[tBBP]

34 minutes ago, throwuascenario said:

 

We're in agreement that an autocentric society isn't ideal. But if we hadn't put highways through cities, they wouldn't have magically reverted to being dense, walkable areas. They would have been pretty much abandoned in favor of development in places that were easier to access.

 

My point is that if we let our urban cores die due to lack of access, it will only make metros more sprawly, less dense, and more autocentric.

 

Two points:

 

1.) Cities were dense and walkable before freeways existed, and many of those freeways have caused the opposite in several places. Now yes, one tangible benefit to freeways passing through urban cores could be the amount of passers-thru who may see a downtown (or Uptown in the case of Charlotte) that they otherwise would not see—translation: tourism. But the real benefit was to the better-to-do people who could travel quickly between downtowns and their homes, which around 1956 or so became increasingly further away from city centers (and the increasing amount of projects and slums contained therein) and out in the then-new (and still continuing) suburban developments. If anything, due to the right-of-way it requires to build a freeway, one could argue that some downtowns may be less dense than they would be if they were not cut up by freeways. Which serves as a nice segue to my next point...

 

2.) Study the way things are done in most of western Europe By and large, most major cities are not cut up by freeways running right through their cores. Just about all of them have a ring freeway or a series of freeways that may form a ring around the city core. Some may have spur routes into or toward the city center, but they don't pass right through like here in the U.S. And Lord knows many of those cities are super dense and walkable in their cores. (Of course, attitudes towards public transit in Europe and Asia are far more progressive than in the States, which adds to the connectivity factor.) There is a reason, after all, Boston undertook the big dig: to reestablish the connectivity and some of the density that was lost due to running I-93 through there. 

 

As for development, there's many different types of that, for different purposes. But one thing that's becoming increasingly clear to me as far as U.S. cities go is this: many of them have some jacked-up zoning laws. (Or in the case of Houston, virtually no zoning laws at all, which is how you have commercial warehouses and pipe plants but right up against residential neighborhoods with no buffer to speak of.) As far as accessibility is concerned, true, developments such as commercial supply points do tend to set up near freeways, for easier truck access. I definitely agree on that (and of course experienced it firsthand over the course of the past thirteen years). But if anything, freeways have zapped a lot of commerce and life out of city centers rather than the other way around—and again, owing to all those sprawling suburban developments like shopping malls, town centers, office parks and the like. A good number of those are increasingly becoming emptier now, especially the office parks (though to be fair the pandemic exacerbated a lot of that). So what does that tell us?

[Digby]

12 hours ago, tBBP said:

2.) Study the way things are done in most of western Europe By and large, most major cities are not cut up by freeways running right through their cores. Just about all of them have a ring freeway or a series of freeways that may form a ring around the city core. Some may have spur routes into or toward the city center, but they don't pass right through like here in the U.S. And Lord knows many of those cities are super dense and walkable in their cores. (Of course, attitudes towards public transit in Europe and Asia are far more progressive than in the States, which adds to the connectivity factor.) There is a reason, after all, Boston undertook the big dig: to reestablish the connectivity and some of the density that was lost due to running I-93 through there. 

 

 

Yes on the Big Dig, though, certain North Enders will argue that the old elevated highway was a good thing and encouraged the North End to remain its idiosyncratic, unique self due to a lack of access to the rest of the city as it developed.

 

The other key thing to remember about Boston is that there was supposed to be an inner ring freeway  and an extension of I-95 from the southern edge of it all the way to Fenway. That got canned in the 1970s due to neighborhood activism. Has Boston (speaking about Boston as an unofficial polity here, we can lump in Cambridge and Somerville and Brookline) suffered for that lack of access? Well, the cost of living and the local economy suggest that it hasn't.

 

There are many reasons that the historic diffuse nature of New England's economy and culture eventually and gradually became more Boston-centric, and Boston always had a head-start on that, but it's also interesting that the biggest losers in that shift were the ones that tore up their downtowns for highways (or, in Worcester's case, the world's saddest indoor outlet mall). Lots of old-Boston got unfortunately leveled and urban-renewal-ed, too, but less of it, relatively speaking. You can pick almost any city of the New England Rust Belt and correlate its decline with one or two bad ideas of post-war planning.

[The_Admiral]

On 6/3/2024 at 5:33 PM, tBBP said:

Some cities are exploring decking over freeways to reconnect neighborhoods that got sliced up by freeways. (They're talking about doing that here...it'll be the miracle of all miracles if it ever happens.)

 

This was a fix to one of the most egregious cases of so-called urban renewal: the Gateway Arch was set off from the rest of downtown St. Louis by an expressway. 

 

 

You can see that part of I-44 is covered up now, but they could have tripled the coverage. 

[infrared41]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:33 PM, tBBP said:

The larger point though hits at why, way back when, urban planners—led by Moses—though it best to plow freeways straight through city centers. Simply put: ease and convenience. Get into downtowns quicker, get out of downtowns quicker.

 

Only to go on to build bypasses that avoid those same city centers.

[BBTV]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:33 PM, tBBP said:

Some cities are exploring decking over freeways to reconnect neighborhoods that got sliced up by freeways.

 

Philadelphia just got $158M to build the "Chinatown Stitch" to cap some spots of the Vine St. Expwy (676)

 

 

They're also in the process of capping parts of I-95 along the Delaware River.  

 

Whichever idiot decided that both of Philadelphia's waterfronts should have highway running through them should be shot on site.

 

 

I'm very glad I don't need a car thanks to regional rail, (crappy) subways, and (not too crappy) trolleys.  But may - there should really be more of them.  Destroying them decades ago for selfish car-driving people was so ironically counterproductive.

 

[throwuascenario]

On 6/3/2024 at 9:44 PM, tBBP said:

 

Two points:

 

1.) Cities were dense and walkable before freeways existed, and many of those freeways have caused the opposite in several places. Now yes, one tangible benefit to freeways passing through urban cores could be the amount of passers-thru who may see a downtown (or Uptown in the case of Charlotte) that they otherwise would not see—translation: tourism. But the real benefit was to the better-to-do people who could travel quickly between downtowns and their homes, which around 1956 or so became increasingly further away from city centers (and the increasing amount of projects and slums contained therein) and out in the then-new (and still continuing) suburban developments. If anything, due to the right-of-way it requires to build a freeway, one could argue that some downtowns may be less dense than they would be if they were not cut up by freeways. Which serves as a nice segue to my next point...

 

2.) Study the way things are done in most of western Europe By and large, most major cities are not cut up by freeways running right through their cores. Just about all of them have a ring freeway or a series of freeways that may form a ring around the city core. Some may have spur routes into or toward the city center, but they don't pass right through like here in the U.S. And Lord knows many of those cities are super dense and walkable in their cores. (Of course, attitudes towards public transit in Europe and Asia are far more progressive than in the States, which adds to the connectivity factor.) There is a reason, after all, Boston undertook the big dig: to reestablish the connectivity and some of the density that was lost due to running I-93 through there. 

 

As for development, there's many different types of that, for different purposes. But one thing that's becoming increasingly clear to me as far as U.S. cities go is this: many of them have some jacked-up zoning laws. (Or in the case of Houston, virtually no zoning laws at all, which is how you have commercial warehouses and pipe plants but right up against residential neighborhoods with no buffer to speak of.) As far as accessibility is concerned, true, developments such as commercial supply points do tend to set up near freeways, for easier truck access. I definitely agree on that (and of course experienced it firsthand over the course of the past thirteen years). But if anything, freeways have zapped a lot of commerce and life out of city centers rather than the other way around—and again, owing to all those sprawling suburban developments like shopping malls, town centers, office parks and the like. A good number of those are increasingly becoming emptier now, especially the office parks (though to be fair the pandemic exacerbated a lot of that). So what does that tell us?

 

To points 1 and 2:

 

Yes, that is why I clarified that it is necessary to have a highway connection to an urban core if cars are the predominant mode of transportation in the city. That is why early 20th century US cities could be dense anyways, that is why European cities can be dense anyways, and that is why even a select few US cities (like NYC and Boston) can be dense anyways. Because people will still find other methods to get to the urban core even if it isn't convenient to do so by car.

 

This is not so in the vast majority of US cities. People will not go to downtown Indianapolis or Cleveland or Oklahoma City or Detroit if it isn't easy to do so by car. They will simply develop other places that are easy to get to by car and abandon the downtowns.

 

Your timeline is also backwards. These cities didn't add urban freeways and then become car dependent. They became car dependent first and then added the highways. Cars were the dominant mode of transportation in most US cities well before the interstate came through them. And in almost all cases, the downtowns of all of these cities were being gradually abandoned until the interstate came along. I seriously doubt you could find more than 5 cities in the entire country whose downtown cores are worse off now than they were in the late 60's / early 70's.

 

I do agree that zoning laws are bad in the US, but I think you have it backwards. I think they are too restrictive, not too lenient as you imply. Before zoning laws, mixed use areas developed naturally. Now with all of the zoning nonsense, shopping has to be in one area, single family homes in another, etc. This serious decreases walkability and increases car dependence.

 

I think you are misassigning blame here. Cars have decreased density in US cities, not freeways. Freeways into downtown areas allow cars to act as much like the public transit that was there previously as possible, but obviously still don't replicate them.

 

Getting rid of urban highways won't magically make people stop using cars, they will just follow the highway wherever it does go.