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Yeah, Dublin. But I guess most british cities are more spread out than european ones. In Europe the city's proper are densely populated with mainly apartment blocks, but there are suburbs to every city, in countries like France or Sweden they are densely populated slum areas, but in most countries, especially Germany they are middle class, upper middle class areas with mainly single family housing. Frankfurt has loads of suburbs and a huge metro area, but it still is a densely populated, growing city and more attractive than the sprawling suburbs.
Yeah, Dublin. But I guess most british cities are more spread out than european ones. In Europe the city's proper are densely populated with mainly apartment blocks, but there are suburbs to every city, in countries like France or Sweden they are densely populated slum areas, but in most countries, especially Germany they are middle class, upper middle class areas with mainly single family housing. Frankfurt has loads of suburbs and a huge metro area, but it still is a densely populated, growing city and more attractive than the sprawling suburbs.
Actually, Sweden doesn't have any slum areas. France does, but not Sweden. And to even compare the "slums" of Paris with the "slums" of Stockholm only proves it. France has huge problems with their slum areas, hence the Paris riots.
No slums in Sweden, that's something we're proud of and have received reputation for not having. And middle class lives in the suburbs as well. All sorts of people do, actually, from all sorts of "class"-levels. The government has taken care of making that happen.
The cities are not that big, and we don't have any "down right poor" people. We have a very good social network preventing this. We're socialists
And the Stockholm suburbs are not densily populated. Trust me, I've lived in two and have family in other. Plenty of parks, houses between appartment buildings, more parks, town squares, shops... Most suburb appartment buildings aren't that tall (Swedish standard, so they might be dworfs in US standards) with not many people living in them.
Rinkeby north of Stockholm and Rosengård outside of Malmö are the only suburbs that can be remotely compared to slums, but they are not slums either. They're just compared to that because the majority of the residents there are immigrants. But still no slum.
(Just google it, you won't find any "slums" in Sweden. I did, I even tried to find the name Rosengården by googling "Malmö" and "slum"- no luck what so ever. If there were any, the people there would be crying "it's unfair!" and the government would have to take care of it. That's how we do it... we're PC...)
I'm kind of confused about the question, so I cannot answer it without clarification: what's US sprawl? Night life? Parties? Social life? Lots of life? Ok, I don't know... I'll google it...
I'm kind of confused about the question, so I cannot answer it without clarification: what's US sprawl? Night life? Parties? Social life? Lots of life? Ok, I don't know... I'll google it...
Sprawl - LARGE tracts of land outside of the city full of low density single family homes, strip malls, and sometimes light industry. The suburbs. Often considered to be poorly designed and difficult to navigate (by more urban standards of typically linear streets). Populated by commuters who drive cars to work. It's a term often used by people of a more urban bent to try to be derogotory to people with families who don't want their kids to grow up near drugs and crime. It's the modern form of the "American dream."
I think the only countries that have truly American style sprawl are America (obviously), Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The type of building that you will find just about everywhere else that I can think of is generally more traditional city and village planning which results in a higher density.
Yeah but those other countries didn't have the dynamic that we had when this all started playing out back in the 1950s.
The troops returned home from the war. There were racial tensions and the Court came out with Brown v. Board of Ed which resulted in integration for public schools. Most white people didn't want to integrate, so that provided an obvious motive to leave the cities.
Eisenhower had his idea to create the national highway system which made suburbia all throughout the USA a possibility. Added to that were the loans being given to veterans for the purchase of new homes.
When all that combined it resulted in the creation of the "suburban nation" that the USA has become.
Thankfully a lot of people are beginning to realize that perhaps this whole patern of development wasn't the brighest idea, and we are starting to see a little bit better building and zoning. Its not a complete change, but it is still a step in the right direction.
Yeah but those other countries didn't have the dynamic that we had when this all started playing out back in the 1950s.
The troops returned home from the war. There were racial tensions and the Court came out with Brown v. Board of Ed which resulted in integration for public schools. Most white people didn't want to integrate, so that provided an obvious motive to leave the cities.
Eisenhower had his idea to create the national highway system which made suburbia all throughout the USA a possibility. Added to that were the loans being given to veterans for the purchase of new homes.
When all that combined it resulted in the creation of the "suburban nation" that the USA has become.
Thankfully a lot of people are beginning to realize that perhaps this whole patern of development wasn't the brighest idea, and we are starting to see a little bit better building and zoning. Its not a complete change, but it is still a step in the right direction.
Surely that happened all over the world in similar ways...
Didn't a lot of troops across Europe go home at the same time and - in the UK particularly - start living more inter-racially? The British built suburbs like crazy in the 50s and 60s, and the 60s they certainly produced some real monstrosities in high-rise housing estates there. Fortunately the density of bad building made for easier demolition!!!
However it is the USA which stands out as the leader of ugly sprawl, meaning (to me) endless expanses of concrete featuring strip malls, neon signs, fast-food outlets, gas stations and big box stores spread-out, strung-out along highways and in full view of every traveler.
We just need some stricter zoning and planning - it's not actually communism to do that you know
Never said it was communism to have better zoning. I'd largely be in favor of having better zoning, if that means a focus on transit oriented development and walkable communities.
However the fact that the vast majority of towns in the USA are focused around single-family homes with big lots, and have built up the infastructure to encourage people to drive their cars around instead of walk or use public transit has a lot to do with our recent history as a nation.
The UK doesn't have anywhere near the history that the US does of racial strife, and during the 1940s and 1950s was not nearly as diverse as it is today.
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No slums in Sweden, though
)
Night life? Parties? Social life? Lots of life? Ok, I don't know... I'll google it...
