Urban planning commentator gives photo tour of downtown Atlanta, and boy do we look like crap! (hotels, house)

[AcidSnake]

If that was the case, why were the "gerbil chutes" limited to just downtown/urban office buildings? Why not build a gerbil chute from the front door of a typical surburban house to the mailbox? Or maybe build a gerbil chute to your neighbor's front door?

I guess "Denial" is merely a river in Egypt, eh?

Originally Posted by neil0311

OK. You're correct. It was built to keep white tourists from having to see the all the black and brown folks.

This is a prime case where the phrase...."sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" comes in. Maybe a covered walkway is just that...a walkway to provide cover, with no ulterior motive or nefarious goals. Cities all over the world use them to protect from cold, snow, rain, etc.

[AcidSnake]

I don't doubt that these gerbil chutes were eventually integrated into other types of construction & uses with no ill-will attached. Another poster had suggested that gerbil chutes are currently used as amusement park people movers and food court dropoffs, and I can get with that logic.

I am merely wary of their initial "Raison d'être", that's all.

Originally Posted by arjay57

In my opinion it's a bit of a stretch to attribute the tubes to racial or classist motives. There may have been an element of that involved, but I think they were mainly the product of the Lego style thinking that was common in the 1960s-80s. Sort of like, "Hey, we can connect all this stuff up with little tubes -- that would be cool!"

[atlantagreg30127]

Montreal is a good example of a "gerbil chute" city that did not have alterior motives for it. You honestly don't need to see the light of day there and can go from one building and facility to another for weeks without going above ground...

Examples:
Underground City, Montreal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link to Videos
Underground City - Montreal Attractions

The Minneapolis Skyway system is also well known: Minneapolis Maps + Guides: Maps & Guides of Minneapolis: Skyways

So I think Atlanta's "tubes" were more a product of the times when this style of "transit" (so to speak) was just more popular everywhere. The futuristic logan's run type of architectural style, if you want to call it that. I have as of yet to see a sign that says "no blacks allowed on skywalk" in Atlanta - and since anyone can use them, I doubt there's a motive of trying to keep people segregated by having them. Of course, black white or purple, I'd use a tube now just so I can walk a block and not have 3 people ask me for money.

Atlanta's few skyways don't bother me in terms of how nice looking or not they are. Not sure why that guy focused on them. We're not unique in having any of them.

[Soulchild23]

Who cares!! there's retail bars clubs restaurants sporting events, tourist attractions and a subway rail line in downtown.. And u can walk to all this stuff... I'll just remind myself how unwalkable things are when I leave the twelve condos tonight to walk over too luckie lounge... I wonder why 30 thousand people would wanna live in such a tacky unfriendly streetscape enviroment??

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Or maybe it's just to keep them dry when the daily afternoon thunderstorms hit in the spring and summer?

Honestly I think it's both.

Back in those times, the general idea was that eventually you would go about your entire day in an enclosed environment. From house to office, you'd only interact with those you wished to be in contact with. Just look at the some of the old GM/"world of tomorrow" from the 60s. One thing is eerily missing from them: the great, unwashed and poor masses.

On the other hand in the days before abundant A/C, walking outside in the Spring/Summer in the South was seen as burden much in the same way walking outside in Winter was seen in the upper midwest. As ugly and destructive the skyways are to the urban fabric of Peachtree Center, they are actually quite nice. I had an summer internship there in college and it was amazing how you could get anywhere in Peachtree Center via the skyways without having to go outside and they were well used and crowded.

In the end though, what can not be understated is how the work of John Portman (specifically in the hotels he built, Peachtree Center and Americasmart) saved Downtown Atlanta. Prior to his work, Downtown was dying. Offices were moving en masse to the suburbs and so were the people. The buildings that decried by snobby "urbanists" kept business downtown and is one of the major reasons why Atlanta became a global city...and not some antiquated dump like Birmingham or Rochester or bombed out pee-pee hole like Detroit. The reason why is that business stayed, which in turn caused investment, which in turn brought conventions, which in turn necessitated the need to build a large hospitality structure, that led us having the infrastructure to handle something like the Olympics (despite what the naysayers say).

So while there are definitely large chunks of Downtown that are out of line with the modern movement back to the cities, we are actually in a better position than most to retrofit it to take advantage of that and won't have to start from scratch.

[AcidSnake]

I get what you are saying, but I know that you are more than smart enough & have lived long enough to realize that cultural practices & nuances stemming from race issues don't necessarily have to be overt & in-your-face. One good example that comes to mind is the practice of redlining.

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

Montreal is a good example of a "gerbil chute" city that did not have alterior motives for it. You honestly don't need to see the light of day there and can go from one building and facility to another for weeks without going above ground...

Examples:
Underground City, Montreal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link to Videos
Underground City - Montreal Attractions

The Minneapolis Skyway system is also well known: Minneapolis Maps + Guides: Maps & Guides of Minneapolis: Skyways

So I think Atlanta's "tubes" were more a product of the times when this style of "transit" (so to speak) was just more popular everywhere. The futuristic logan's run type of architectural style, if you want to call it that. I have as of yet to see a sign that says "no blacks allowed on skywalk" in Atlanta - and since anyone can use them, I doubt there's a motive of trying to keep people segregated by having them. Of course, black white or purple, I'd use a tube now just so I can walk a block and not have 3 people ask me for money.

Atlanta's few skyways don't bother me in terms of how nice looking or not they are. Not sure why that guy focused on them. We're not unique in having any of them.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

If that was the case, why were the "gerbil chutes" limited to just downtown/urban office buildings? Why not build a gerbil chute from the front door of a typical surburban house to the mailbox? Or maybe build a gerbil chute to your neighbor's front door?

I guess "Denial" is merely a river in Egypt, eh?

Oh, come now. Everybody knows Atlanta (and most other places) has had deep racial divides. They're still present in many ways. There's no doubt that was part of the cultural background when the tubes were built.

But I believe they were more the product of the Space-Agey architecture that was popular in those days. Car culture had become utterly dominant and many projects were built with little regard for street presence. The notion was that you could zoom into work on a vast freeway, go directly to your parking garage and take some nifty bridge to your cubicle and never once be exposed to the elements. What could be more convenient?

Were there racist and classist ramifications to this in the built environment? No doubt about it. But I don't believe that was the primary motivation. Again, that's simply my personal opinion based on what I saw and heard at the time.

[reet4587]

Originally Posted by arjay57

In my opinion it's a bit of a stretch to attribute the tubes to racial or classist motives. There may have been an element of that involved, but I think they were mainly the product of the Lego style thinking that was common in the 1960s-80s. Sort of like, "Hey, we can connect all this stuff up with little tubes -- that would be cool!"

You nailed it. I agree.

These gerbil chutes have turned out to be detrimental to lively urban street life and ground level retail businesses, but I think they were intended to be a futuristic way of comfortably and safely getting pedestrians across the road so they didn't have to deal with cars. And certainly, in the street-level dead zones of many downtown buildings, no one is missing anything interesting by walking through a gerbil tube instead of on the sidewalk.

Some day when these dead downtown blocks are free of vagrants and filled with vibrant businesses and pedestrians, people will wonder why the gerbil chutes ever existed.

[AcidSnake]

I can digg this logic as well.

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Honestly I think it's both.

Back in those times, the general idea was that eventually you would go about your entire day in an enclosed environment. From house to office, you'd only interact with those you wished to be in contact with. Just look at the some of the old GM/"world of tomorrow" from the 60s. One thing is eerily missing from them: the great, unwashed and poor masses.

On the other hand in the days before abundant A/C, walking outside in the Spring/Summer in the South was seen as burden much in the same way walking outside in Winter was seen in the upper midwest. As ugly and destructive the skyways are to the urban fabric of Peachtree Center, they are actually quite nice. I had an summer internship there in college and it was amazing how you could get anywhere in Peachtree Center via the skyways without having to go outside and they were well used and crowded.

In the end though, what can not be understated is how the work of John Portman (specifically in the hotels he built, Peachtree Center and Americasmart) saved Downtown Atlanta. Prior to his work, Downtown was dying. Offices were moving en masse to the suburbs and so were the people. The buildings that decried by snobby "urbanists" kept business downtown and is one of the major reasons why Atlanta became a global city...and not some antiquated dump like Birmingham or Rochester or bombed out pee-pee hole like Detroit. The reason why is that business stayed, which in turn caused investment, which in turn brought conventions, which in turn necessitated the need to build a large hospitality structure, that led us having the infrastructure to handle something like the Olympics (despite what the naysayers say).

So while there are definitely large chunks of Downtown that are out of line with the modern movement back to the cities, we are actually in a better position than most to retrofit it to take advantage of that and won't have to start from scratch.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Honestly I think it's both.

Back in those times, the general idea was that eventually you would go about your entire day in an enclosed environment..

Well, you'd have to, because the inevitable nuclear fallout would have made it extremely unhealthy to go outdoors.