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If the OP's intent is to drive home the point that there was no magical transformation of American society in 1945 that transformed the construction industry from building everything wonderfully to building crud, then there is probably no point on continuing, since nobody believes that, and, so far as I can tell, nobody is even suggesting that. Statements like
are obviously true, but nobody has decided that, so who is the OP addressing?
I am addressing all of the posters on here who go on and on about the "post war suburbs", as if that marked some turning point in US society.
As nei said, the 50s houses were pretty small. They were often built on small lots, too. I recall reading a story about one of the Levittowns recently (there were at least two) that said there was a covenant prohibiting fences, for the puropse of encouraging socialization among the residents, something else that is supposedly lacking in the suburbs, to read a lot of posts on this forum.
OTOH, a lot of people on this forum, to read their posts anyway, who do think there was a "magical transformation of American society in 1945 that transformed the construction industry from building everything wonderfully to building crud". I could go back and find examples all over this forum, in thread after thread.
Anyone who denies that this is a recurrent them on this forum is being disingenuous.
Old aerial footage of the UK, including some new (at the time) suburban development. They discuss the new forms of the midcentury? as well as demolishing some old "Victorian terraces" substandard housing.
England experienced a lot of "urban renewal" from 1939-1945 as a result of German bombing raids. Photos of burned out blocks during the Battle of Britain don't look that different from blocks demolished to make way for redevelopment projects in the US a decade later.
Yeah, but the state of Ohio, for example, spends about $3 billion a year on roads, and about $10 million on public transit. Don't you think that's a bit out of balance? According to this article, (Transit) about 40% of the cost of our roads comes from non-user fees. Again, doesn't that seem a bit off-balance?
No. Again, we need roads. Everybodybenefits from them. You can't get fresh produce to Whole Foods via streetcar or light rail. Besides, the average state has hundreds to thousands of miles of roads and only a couple dozen miles of track for PT usage (if any at all). And the most prominent form of PT in most states (buses) use those roads whose funding you complain about.
"Substandard" was a very flexible definition. A building could be declared "blighted" because it hadn't been painted recently, or was in general disrepair--a common condition in redlined neighborhoods. Single-family homes in downtowns were declared blighted because they were "obsolete housing"--downtowns weren't supposed to have big, inefficient single-family homes. But single-family homes split up into apartments were also declared blighted because they were "substandard housing"--even if the apartments were of similar size and appointment to nearby apartment buildings. Streetcars were an obsolete transit form--everyone in the future was supposed to have a car, at least until personal helicopters were perfected (not kidding: a redevelopment document from about 1960 outlines the importance of designing neighborhoods that look good from the air for just that reason!) Stores with apartments upstairs were "substandard" because of "incompatible uses"--having commercial and residential on the same block messed up their new zoning map that put commercial uses in entirely separate areas than residential ones.
Photographic surveys of a lot of "blighted" districts reveal neighborhoods that look pretty beautiful to the modern eye--a bit worse for wear and in need of paint, but not collapsing shacks. In fact, they look a lot like the historic districts of the same city. Sure, some of them didn't have plumbing or electricity--but it was fairly standard for houses of the 19th century to not be built with those things, and adding them is no great task. My house wasn't built with electric wiring, it was originally equipped with gas jets, but at some point an electrician installed electrical wiring without having to demolish and replace the house. Similarly, my neighbor's house across the street predates indoor plumbing, but somehow a previous owner managed to get toilets installed without a wrecking ball.
Exactly. My prediction is that in 50 years they'll look back and wonder why on earth we decided to perpetuate autodependent suburbia into the 21st century by running public transit to it. Autotopia is "unsustainable," so we'll make it sustainable by giving people the option of using even more costly and way less effective public transportation to keep on living in unsustainable autopia.
Maybe they'll look back and say, "What were they thinking trying to build denser communities? Didn't they realize that auto-centric suburbia was built for good reason?? How foolish they were to move away from that model!"
I am addressing all of the posters on here who go on and on about the "post war suburbs", as if that marked some turning point in US society.
As nei said, the 50s houses were pretty small. They were often built on small lots, too. I recall reading a story about one of the Levittowns recently (there were at least two) that said there was a covenant prohibiting fences, for the puropse of encouraging socialization among the residents, something else that is supposedly lacking in the suburbs, to read a lot of posts on this forum.
I do think post war suburbs were a turning point. As I described, the change was from a higher density form to a lower density auto oriented form that prioritized automobile access over all other modes of transportation. Here's a view of Levittown:
I don't see many fences except decorative ones, so maybe it's from the fence prohibition. Regardless, fences aren't that common on Long Island anyway. The area looks completely typical both house size and lot size for the county and region. Regardless, it was drastically different from previous construction and a sharp break. The break may be much more obvious in the Northeast than elsewhere in the country (the majority of people did not live in single family homes in the Northeast in 1945). For some Northeast cities, separating the metro between pre and post 1945 construction would be a decent way to divide it up.
Generally, any suburban area that has a decent downtown has a significant portion that was built pre-1945. Not as many centers were built after that from scratch. For example, in Nassau County Long Island take a look at a commercial street in Levittown:
OTOH, a lot of people on this forum, to read their posts anyway, who do think there was a "magical transformation of American society in 1945 that transformed the construction industry from building everything wonderfully to building crud". I could go back and find examples all over this forum, in thread after thread.
Anyone who denies that this is a recurrent them on this forum is being disingenuous.
Sure you can find some examples, but I think you're missing the more common reason the postwar era is brought up, as I said before: a change in neighborhood form, layout, and density not really so much a change in single family home styles.
Other changes that occured soon afterwards: drastic declines in mass transit ridership, white flight, many old city downtowns decayed. Inner cities always had a large concentration of poor people, but urban poverty levels never were to the extreme levels that were reached in the late 60s and afterwards.
"Substandard" was a very flexible definition. A building could be declared "blighted" because it hadn't been painted recently, or was in general disrepair--a common condition in redlined neighborhoods. Single-family homes in downtowns were declared blighted because they were "obsolete housing"--downtowns weren't supposed to have big, inefficient single-family homes. But single-family homes split up into apartments were also declared blighted because they were "substandard housing"--even if the apartments were of similar size and appointment to nearby apartment buildings. Streetcars were an obsolete transit form--everyone in the future was supposed to have a car, at least until personal helicopters were perfected (not kidding: a redevelopment document from about 1960 outlines the importance of designing neighborhoods that look good from the air for just that reason!) Stores with apartments upstairs were "substandard" because of "incompatible uses"--having commercial and residential on the same block messed up their new zoning map that put commercial uses in entirely separate areas than residential ones.
Photographic surveys of a lot of "blighted" districts reveal neighborhoods that look pretty beautiful to the modern eye--a bit worse for wear and in need of paint, but not collapsing shacks. In fact, they look a lot like the historic districts of the same city. Sure, some of them didn't have plumbing or electricity--but it was fairly standard for houses of the 19th century to not be built with those things, and adding them is no great task. My house wasn't built with electric wiring, it was originally equipped with gas jets, but at some point an electrician installed electrical wiring without having to demolish and replace the house. Similarly, my neighbor's house across the street predates indoor plumbing, but somehow a previous owner managed to get toilets installed without a wrecking ball.
Agree with much of the post, but there was actual substandard housing at that time, as I described old NYC tenements. Perhaps NYC is the exception, but the oldest tenements (pre-1900) were much smaller than newer apartment and lacking much in the way of windows (how do you fix an apartment building where many of the bedrooms don't have windows?) Some got modified for more windows by demolishing part of the neighboring apartments, but others remain. They're no longer cheap, but they're not really overcrowded anymore (density declined from around 300 k / sq mile to a little under 100 k / sq mile).
Interestingly, the phrase "pre-war" (as in built in the first few decades of the 20th century) is a common selling point for NYC real estate. Thicker walls, higher ceiling, and more space in an apartment than those before or after. In case anyone's interested:
This illustrates the strongest argument against urban renewal as now conceived—namely, that it usually destroys low-income housing and fails to replace it because it is basically in the business of middle-income housing. The net effect is that the slums are simply shifted and spread. For every slum it destroys, New York creates two new ones.
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