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Getting rid of houses in a flood-prone area, pretty smart!
St. Louis could get away placing I-44 on ground level similar to LSD, Columbus Drive, or Michigan Avenue through Grant Park in Chicago. I've never heard a Chicagoan say that LSD cuts the city off from the lake--the drive only enhances the charm of the city!
What's the point of obscuring the arch from the freeway? You can see it approaching the city, but you end up disoriented once you reach it.
I never liked the weird routing of I-55 on the Illinois side. Logically it should go north of Downtown and cross the river into Illinois between just outside of Downtown and Alton to reach Springfield.
Getting rid of houses in a flood-prone area, pretty smart!
St. Louis could get away placing I-44 on ground level similar to LSD, Columbus Drive, or Michigan Avenue through Grant Park in Chicago. I've never heard a Chicagoan say that LSD cuts the city off from the lake--the drive only enhances the charm of the city!
What's the point of obscuring the arch from the freeway? You can see it approaching the city, but you end up disoriented once you reach it.
I never liked the weird routing of I-55 on the Illinois side. Logically it should go north of Downtown and cross the river into Illinois between just outside of Downtown and Alton to reach Springfield.
I-55 follows the route US 66 took between Chicago and St. Louis. Alton was connected to St. Louis via US 67. And I'm guessing you're arguing that 55 should have supplanted Riverfront Drive along the Mississippi, for that would have been the way to get the highway from Downtown to where it could cross the Mississippi closer to Alton. US 67 crosses both the Missouri and the Mississippi to connect St. Louis and Alton.
I don't find Minneapolis to be particularly urban in character. To me Minneapolis is very Similar to Seattle and Denver, it benefits from having very good regional, state governance, wasn't really a Great Migration destination and therefore never suffered from white flight to the extent other areas had. It also never really had the heavy industrial heritage as much of the rest of large Midwestern metros and it shows. I do commend the Twin Cities as a model for progressive urban policy, particularly when it comes to their zoning and transportation policy, but I wouldn't say the Twin Cities are anymore urban then any other Midwestern city not named Chicago, healthier yes, but urban no.
Minneapolis did lose 29% of its population 521,718 in 1950 to 368,383 in 1990 which is a 29% drop by comparison Chicago had lost 23% of its population during the same period and 25% between 1950 and 2019.
Getting rid of houses in a flood-prone area, pretty smart!
St. Louis could get away placing I-44 on ground level similar to LSD, Columbus Drive, or Michigan Avenue through Grant Park in Chicago. I've never heard a Chicagoan say that LSD cuts the city off from the lake--the drive only enhances the charm of the city!
What's the point of obscuring the arch from the freeway? You can see it approaching the city, but you end up disoriented once you reach it.
I never liked the weird routing of I-55 on the Illinois side. Logically it should go north of Downtown and cross the river into Illinois between just outside of Downtown and Alton to reach Springfield.
There are other potential flood mitigation measures that other cities around the world have done. Would they have worked in St. Louis? Maybe. The part that was destroyed was also pretty historic and densely built and that might have been charming. If they had been able to find a way to mitigate flooding issues, historic buildings at a waterfront location is sometimes pretty attractive.
People driving through St. Louis on I-44 underneath the arch don't really get St. Louis or its businesses any dollars and I think there's laws that make routes paid for using federal highway funds unable to be tolled. I think if it's already trenched, then capping it should be relatively easy and what it would offer is a nicer place for people who are visiting and actually exploring the city as well as more attractive as a place to run a business or to live.
A lot of these cities seem to have their freeways in odd places and were pretty destructive in tearing down parts of neighborhoods and cutting neighborhoods off from each other, but I think St. Louis sort of has it worse than average.
There are other potential flood mitigation measures that other cities around the world have done. Would they have worked in St. Louis? Maybe. The part that was destroyed was also pretty historic and densely built and that might have been charming. If they had been able to find a way to mitigate flooding issues, historic buildings at a waterfront location is sometimes pretty attractive.
People driving through St. Louis on I-44 underneath the arch don't really get St. Louis or its businesses any dollars and I think there's laws that make routes paid for using federal highway funds unable to be tolled. I think if it's already trenched, then capping it should be relatively easy and what it would offer is a nicer place for people who are visiting and actually exploring the city as well as more attractive as a place to run a business or to live.
A lot of these cities seem to have their freeways in odd places and were pretty destructive in tearing down parts of neighborhoods and cutting neighborhoods off from each other, but I think St. Louis sort of has it worse than average.
It didn't look like anyone dropped pins for MSP, so I added some below (I did not include downtown). Honestly, nothing can compare to Chicago's urbanism in the midwest. I'm gonna vote for Minneapolis - maybe at some point in time some other midwest cities would have beat it (especially St. Louis), but the development here has been strong for a while and it is getting more urban and dense by the year. Pretty much no other midwest cities can say this the same way. However, I'm stoked to see cities like St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cleveland getting the love they deserve because they are super overlooked and underrated. I appreciate all the pin drops in other cities, especially St. Louis. I am ashamed to admit it is one of the few cities in the US I haven't been to. After seeing the streetviews, I would maybe vote for St. Louis if I had been there at some point. The problem for me is: Isn't a good chunk of the city abandoned, vacant, or underutilized? This drops the urbanity to an extent when much of the beautiful urban fabric is uninhabited. Nowhere in Minneapolis is like that. I'll admit since I haven't been to St. Louis, I could be wrong. The urban fabric looks amazing.
I'm surprised not to see more mention of Cincinnati; while the metro doesn't have the large feel of Cleveland or Detroit, the city itself is very dense with row housing and 19th century buildings. It was dense enough to warrant construction of an underground subway system (halted by the Great Depression) which would've only been the second in the Midwest after Chicago.
St Louis and Milwaukee beat Minneapolis when it comes to prewar urbanity, but Minneapolis leaves them in the dust in terms of 21st century urbanity (which is a real thing). The city has added hundreds of urban format midrises in the last 15 years. A lot of that has gone in the gaps of the cities' old fabric and has helped glue it back together. I'm not sure if that means that Minneapolis is more urban than those cities yet, but if not it is close and headed in that direction.
Minneapolis and Saint Paul are connected by a street car line, Cleveland has a "streetcar" suburb (Shaker Heights) and they have an actual heavy rail line going from their airport to city center and off to the suburb of East Cleveland. not to mention that suburb East Cleveland has similar density and a similar housing stock to our main cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul).
You get to the Twin Cities suburbs and its very low density suburbia for miles and miles.
Minneapolis and Saint Paul are connected by a street car line, Cleveland has a "streetcar" suburb (Shaker Heights) and they have an actual heavy rail line going from their airport to city center and off to the suburb of East Cleveland. not to mention that suburb East Cleveland has similar density and a similar housing stock to our main cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul).
You get to the Twin Cities suburbs and its very low density suburbia for miles and miles.
First of all, streetcar and Light Rail are completely different. Next, the light rail in MSP also goes from city center to the airport and other parts of town. Lastly, this thread is about cities in the midwest, not their suburbs.
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