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Yes, somehow, with the rise of "suburbia" the idea of neighborhoods being organized around a "main street" where the key stuff was (groceries, pharmacy, dry cleaner, post office, school, whatever) disappeared. Or became artificially blocked with winding roads and non-gridded streets. Which is why we are so unwalkable today. My parents lived in a suburban area of Sacramento a few years ago, and they lived pretty close to the main street. The school was nearby, and there were sidewalks and crosswalks connecting all the strip malls and such. But the thing was, although as the crow flies, it was only about 1/2 mile from the main street, with the street layout it was more like 1.25 miles from main street. There was no way to walk through the neighborhood to get to the main road.
The grids were caused by mass transit or rail. A lot of small towns were street car burbs(which can be quite urban) or had a rail station on that main street. The automobile meant that people no longer needed to walk to the street car or to the rail station to get somewhere and so the grid became less valued. People also wanted peace and quite as well as an rural like ascetic and larger yards and so winding roads become the norm. Before the street car cities could have all sorts of pattern, the street car encouraged grids.
Immigration is another big factor. Immigrants tend to live in cities more often than suburbs. Immigration in the 1950s/60s was the lowest it had been since at least the 1850s. Starting in the '70s and really kicking off in the '80s was the wave of immigration from Latin America. Although that's not entirely true. Highest foreign born population is, of course, Miami (60%), followed by Santa Ana (48), Los Angeles (41), Anaheim (40), and San Francisco (37 percent), NYC (36), Houston (28). California is 27% foreign-born in total, NY 20%, Miami 17%, Texas 16%. Take away immigration, and it looks very different.
So while it's fun to make up fictional pieces about why suburbs since 1950 were what was built because roads are subsidized, that really doesn't explain anything. Urban areas with their expensive transit systems are more subsidized than suburban areas. The fact is most Americans just prefer living in the suburbs. I don't know why that bothers people so they make up fairy tales to justify why people prefer something they don't. But clearly for some people it really does bother them.
Are you just talking about Boston proper? It has a few areas like West Roxbury. Boston is surrounded by miles and miles of suburbs. That used to be rural land.
That wasn't what I was referring to. It was mentioned that 40% of the US population was rural in 1950. Since the rural population is much lower today, that suggests that some of the postwar suburban growth was from rural to suburbia rather than from city or existing suburb to new suburbs, as I would have assumed. But that couldn't have been true for Boston, Massachusetts was urban in 1950 (and maybe 1910) as it is today; urbanization was complete by the early 20th century. Very little of Boston's postwar suburban growth could have been from rural to suburbia. Same is probably true for New York City and a number of other Northeastern metros, at least coastal ones.
Missouri, on the other hand, has had a similar population and growth in the 20th century as Massachusetts, but it became less rural as throughout the 20th century, so it had more newer suburbs as it urbanized (urban in the sense of not rural).
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[Sacramento, on the other hand, kept annexing. It also had a much smaller urban area. Even the streetcar suburbs represent only a small amount of Sacramento because most of the population occurred after they'd long gone bankrupt. Most of it is auto-suburbs that were later incorporated. Sacramento also has intentionally had a long-standing policy of driving out as much of the smaller urban population it had, which I don't think Boston ever did. I mean, Sacramento really did try and not have any urban population quite hard. It completely neglected Midtown for decades and went even farther in downtown and pretty effectively completely removed all the population there.
Boston did demolish one of its more urban neighborhood: the West End. Except there's plenty of other urban neighborhoods nearby so the loss wasn't as drastic. And the North End is very similar to the demolished West End, actually slightly denser:
Our railroad "suburbs" are places like Elk Grove, Roseville, Folsom. They weren't really suburbs at that time. They were towns that grew around the railroad where the trains took on water. They didn't really suburbanize until the '80s. If you look at the suburbs that mostly grew in the '80s and '90s of Boston (not even sure what those are) I bet they're pretty suburban looking too.
I'm not even sure if any such place exists; it's fairly recent, most Boston suburbs would have been mostly built out by then.
Philly, maybe. Boston, not so much. SF's population is 1/10 that entire area. Boston is about 1/7 of the metro population.
It also depends on how you define the metro area, you can pick and choose your measure. But they're all a dense city within a much larger metro area. And as for Boston, there are a number of communities that have similar transit ridership to Boston proper and then a further ring that still above the usual American average, so look at just the city proper is a bit misleading. Same might be true of San Francisco to a less degree.
Philly contains more of its population in the city proper than Boston or San Francisco.
The neighborhood style and layout changed, a change in home construction doesn't really affect how dense or walkable a neighborhood is. I can never figure "suburbs became more sprawling around 1950" brings up discussion on better home standards.
Because the big rant is that VA loans only paid for new construction, therefore somehow "subsidizing" the suburbs, which is UNTRUE! There had been an unofficial moratorium on home building during the depression and WW II. There was a lot of need for more housing. Plus, some of the older housing WAS sub-standard, regardless of what many "This Old House" types like to think. You can't get a loan on a house that's not up to at least minimum standards. Considering the house we rented that was built in 1953, those standards weren't all that high!
I'm going to assume that Katiana was being ironic when she said "Add to that there was literally NO housing built from the beginning of the depression in late 1929 until after WW II (~1946)." Housing took a dip then, but it was still being built--my first house was built in 1944. In California there were a lot of WPA housing projects and migrant housing in the wake of the Dust Bowl, including "model" suburbs, and a lot of housing was built during wartime to facilitate military bases and military production. I suppose we are most infuriated by our own faults--I didn't bother doing a Wikipedia dive for California's population and guesstimated 4 million instead of 7 million--and have to be careful when I say "literally" when it comes to statistics. But it's safe to say that the overwhelming majority of housing in California was built since World War II--if not 90%, then maybe closer to 75-80% (figuring 7m in 1940, ~40m in 2010) and almost all of it was built around the suburban model. It didn't have to be that way--and many Depression era public housing experiments explored ways to build more communally oriented/higher-density but still comfortable neighborhoods, but they were put down as "collectivization" and otherwise Communist-inspired. The suburban pattern is based on low density--and mass transit works worst in low density. Which is why people who live in low-density suburbs generally don't use it, it is ill-suited to that housing form.
I'm going to assume that Katiana was being ironic when she said "Add to that there was literally NO housing built from the beginning of the depression in late 1929 until after WW II (~1946)." Housing took a dip then, but it was still being built--my first house was built in 1944. In California there were a lot of WPA housing projects and migrant housing in the wake of the Dust Bowl, including "model" suburbs, and a lot of housing was built during wartime to facilitate military bases and military production. I suppose we are most infuriated by our own faults--I didn't bother doing a Wikipedia dive for California's population and guesstimated 4 million instead of 7 million--and have to be careful when I say "literally" when it comes to statistics. But it's safe to say that the overwhelming majority of housing in California was built since World War II--if not 90%, then maybe closer to 75-80% (figuring 7m in 1940, ~40m in 2010) and almost all of it was built around the suburban model. It didn't have to be that way--and many Depression era public housing experiments explored ways to build more communally oriented/higher-density but still comfortable neighborhoods, but they were put down as "collectivization" and otherwise Communist-inspired. The suburban pattern is based on low density--and mass transit works worst in low density. Which is why people who live in low-density suburbs generally don't use it, it is ill-suited to that housing form.
Every state was different. The midwest and rust belt were more affected by the depression than other parts of the country. My grandfather was a carpenter, and he basically never worked again after the Depression gained a hold and was ruined financially.
Yes, you underestimated CA's population by a 40%, to make the situation sound worse than it was.
If you'd drop this Communism BS, I'd quit talking about Agenda 21.
That wasn't what I was referring to. It was mentioned that 40% of the US population was rural in 1950. Since the rural population is much lower today, that suggests that some of the postwar suburban growth was from rural to suburbia rather than from city or existing suburb to new suburbs, as I would have assumed. But that couldn't have been true for Boston, Massachusetts was urban in 1950 (and maybe 1910) as it is today; urbanization was complete by the early 20th century. Very little of Boston's postwar suburban growth could have been from rural to suburbia. Same is probably true for New York City and a number of other Northeastern metros, at least coastal ones.
Missouri, on the other hand, has had a similar population and growth in the 20th century as Massachusetts, but it became less rural as throughout the 20th century, so it had more newer suburbs as it urbanized (urban in the sense of not rural).
Boston did demolish one of its more urban neighborhood: the West End. Except there's plenty of other urban neighborhoods nearby so the loss wasn't as drastic. And the North End is very similar to the demolished West End, actually slightly denser:
I'm not even sure if any such place exists; it's fairly recent, most Boston suburbs would have been mostly built out by then.
Oh, I get you. You're saying how much of it is people moving form a rural area to suburban. Hard to say, some people may have moved from rural areas to suburban. Overall, however, more people live in rural areas today than in 1950. Stops at 1990. I'm sure there's more recent but that's what popped up in Google. So while that may have happened, for every rural -> urban (including suburban) move there was more than one move back out to the rural areas either from immigration or urban -> rural. http://www.census.gov/population/cen.../urpop0090.txt
Oh, I get you. You're saying how much of it is people moving form a rural area to suburban. Hard to say, some people may have moved from rural areas to suburban. Overall, however, more people live in rural areas today than in 1950. Stops at 1990. I'm sure there's more recent but that's what popped up in Google. So while that may have happened, for every rural -> urban (including suburban) move there was more than one move back out to the rural areas either from immigration or urban -> rural. http://www.census.gov/population/cen.../urpop0090.txt
The link I posted also came from the census bureau and said 40% rural in 1950. Your link says 36% in 1950 and 24.8% in 1990.
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