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SOMEONE I FORGOT TO QUOTE: "Blah, blah blah...how did urban sprawl happen?"
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Originally Posted by xdv8
It was more like the federal government created new types of loans that encouraged suburban building. Then the state, federal, and local government closed the deal by thinking it smart to put the interstates directly through the city. Sprinkle in a little white flight and voila!
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Originally Posted by Faer
If you wanted to talk about how large road construction increased sprawl and was often directly damaging to inner city neighborhoods, and how this all took a bite into other transit, et etc, or how governments incentivized suburbanization, even to the point of wrecking city neighborhoods, I'd be right there with you. However, the US highway system (est. 1926) was in place LONG before post WWII suburbanization got underway place, and that suburbanization was already underway when Eisenhower began the interstate program (est. 1956). Suburbanization happened because Americans post WWII became middle class, more prosperous, cars became cheaper and this provided people had a level of mobility they never had before. The bought cars and moved to a bigger house on a 1/4 acre lot in the burbs because they could. This seemed an obvious better deal to people. They weren't cognizant of the traffic issues we have today, or rising fuel costs, or pollution, or even the issues created by sprawl. And thus transit usage declined. I'm more than willing to point the finger at where issue lay, private or public, but to deny free market forces had a huge affect on suburbanization is silly - it wasn't even possible without purchasing a product on the free market. Please don't be so condescending in the future.
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Originally Posted by wpipkins2
You missed school desegregation and civil rights. Those were the main reasons for white flight.
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Originally Posted by UKyank
Or more accurately it was a if you build it they will come cause & effect. The traits of the suburbs: new construction; land plots; new infrastructure; opportunities, etc were desirable elements to that generation of people & finally became an affordable possibility during this period & thus it attracted moving. Now you could rightfully argue that various governmental & private policies put roadblocks on African Americans who would have liked to enjoy this same opportunity & kept them from moving as well but to say that the primary motivation for suburbanization was racist is incorrect.
Yes and no. After 1960 or so, it was definitely mostly white people running away from black people which caused urban population decline. But in the late 1940s and 1950s, it was a different dynamic. The cities were not seen as dangerous, but they were incredibly overcrowded because so little housing was built from 1929 to 1945. As a result there was huge pent-up demand. The problem was that lenders set up credit systems which effectively barred black people from moving into the suburbs (which mostly remained in place until around 1980 actually). So white people weren't leaving the cities because they were personally bigoted during that period - but racist structures within the housing system ensured that nonwhites couldn't follow whites into suburbia.
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Originally Posted by wpipkins2
The great migration began in the 1910's and diversified northern cities. This coupled with European immigration led to the over crowding of northern cities. Cities were just as segregated in 40s an 50s as they are today. Polices were put in place by the fed for suburban expansion. I'm not saying that all white suburbanites were racist or running away from scary cities but the suburbs were designed as a safe haven for white people. Black veterans that served in WW1 and WW2 could not move to the suburbs and could not get loans to update or modernize the homes in cities. The "numbers" man was the go to resource for home loans and mortgages for the black middle class. White privilege and bigotry played a major role in the suburban expansion of US cities.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
Of course there was segregation in prewar cities. Up until 1948 restrictive covenants based upon race were legal - they could insert into your deed a clause that you could not sell to a black person (or a Jew, or a Latino, or whatever). Still, while cities were roughly as segregated in the 1940s as today, but segregation got much worse in many cities in the period from 1940 to 1970. You can look at historic maps of race in Social Explorer if you wish. In 1940 virtually every Pittsburgh neighborhood had a black population - even if it was only a few percent. By 1970 segregation had gotten much worse, with some city neighborhoods literally having zero black people.
There's a great book I read years back called Sundown Towns - it basically covers the history of blacks in the northern U.S. from Reconstruction until the Great Migration started. It makes the point that in the period initially after the Civil War, lots of black people moved up north. Because most blacks at the time were from rural areas, they moved to small northern towns which were overwhelmingly white. During this period virtually every small town in some states, like Ohio, had a few black families. But as race relations got worse (due to the efforts of white people) during the Gilded Age, black people were forced out of the communities they settled into by mobs at gunpoint. They ended up being forced into the big cities because nowhere else would have them. These communities of northern blacks ended up being the nexus which the later Great Migration followed - which is why the northern black communities ended up being urban.
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Originally Posted by wpipkins2
My great grandmother migrated from Pittsylvania County VA to Scottdale PA. Her brothers financed her education at the Pennsylvania Normal School for Colored Women (Cal State U). Other black families followed then dispersed throughout the Mon valley and city proper. Pictures from the 1920s show black, serian, and asian men who mainly migrated there to work in the coal mines. My great grandfather worked in the coal mines but also had a farm with a boarding house on the property. My families life mirrors your post.
^ Reading this above back-and-forth discussion between intelligent, well-versed, informed people is what made me decide to come back this morning after swearing off this forum. Thanks, y'all, for restoring my faith in City-Data!
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Originally Posted by g500
Im surprised there wasnt an underground subway system installed downtown. Probably a little late for that now, and also maybe cost-prohibitive for geographic reasons. Wonder if something like that is / was ever considered...
There is a portion of the "T" that is subterranean. The "T" is underground between First Avenue Station and the North Shore. It's a small segment that is underground, but for the Steel Plaza, Wood Street, and Gateway Center stations, at least, it truly does feel like a "real subway".
My complaint with the "T" is that it only links the North Shore with the South Hills suburbs via Downtown. There SHOULD be an underground "T" leg linking Downtown and Oakland, either via Uptown or the Hill District. Like it or not, folks, despite how much better most of you on here think buses are than trains there are still many people who'd PREFER to ride a train than take a bus, either due to real (or perceived) notions that a train offers more leg room, more comfort, and a more "luxurious" experience than the bus.
Right now if you live in Beechview, for example, which is a neighborhood trying to reinvent itself right now, and wanted to get to work in Oakland, you'd have to take the light rail to Downtown and then transfer to a bus to Oakland. Ideally if you lived in Beechview (or Dormont, Castle Shannon, Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, or South Park Township for that matter) and wanted to get to work in Oakland there should be a train running every 20 minutes at peak hours that specifically stops just once Downtown at First Avenue to let some Downtown peeps off but then forks off of the line to head east up through Uptown to Oakland. Oakland is not only the city's second-largest employment center, but it is also the STATE'S third-largest employment center. It's silly that it's only accessible via bus, and, to my knowledge, other than the 54 you'd have to live in/around the East End to take the bus to work in Oakland WITHOUT a transfer to a second bus. This is why the East End is becoming bonkers expensive---people don't want to take TWO buses to work despite how much some on here might say (two buses isn't bad at all). Imagine how much more popular Beechview would be if someone could live there and take a train directly to work in Oakland? It would help to revitalize Beechview, which has a rundown business district and drug issues right now, and help to alleviate the housing crunch as most Oakland workers try to pile atop one another in the East End.
Are there any corridors that were studied or suggested for an east-west rail line? If so, what were the recommended ones? Is it altering MLK Busway? Also, were there any studies on how the T can get around the underground single track restriction to get to Union Station?
Did anyone propose maybe a loop line that goes from downtown Pittsburgh then east (underground?) along Fifth Avenue (possibly switching to Forbes) until hitting Neville Street to veer north until running alongside or in the MLK Busway back down into downtown to form the loop?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 06-09-2017 at 09:46 AM..
Im surprised there wasnt an underground subway system installed downtown. Probably a little late for that now, and also maybe cost-prohibitive for geographic reasons. Wonder if something like that is / was ever considered...
The T is an underground system in the portion downtown between First Ave. station and North Side station. That's about a 1 mile segment of the system that includes 4 underground stations, and a tunnel underneath the Allegheny river. The initial subway portion was completed in the mid 1980s when they were paving over or tearing up the streetcar tracks on most downtown surface streets.
Are there any corridors that were studied or suggested for an east-west rail line? If so, what were the recommended ones? Is it altering MLK Busway? Also, were there any studies on how the T can get around the underground single track restriction to get to Union Station?
Did anyone propose maybe a loop line that goes from downtown Pittsburgh then east (underground?) along Fifth Avenue (possibly switching to Forbes) until hitting Neville Street to veer north until running alongside or in the MLK Busway back down into downtown to form the loop?
If you google "spine line" you can see some east-west studies. I believe estimates to bury a line to Oakland from downtown would have been $2Bln.
If you google "spine line" you can see some east-west studies. I believe estimates to bury a line to Oakland from downtown would have been $2Bln.
Fact is this wouldn't be a tunnel situation, like downtown it would be a dig-up and cover. Maybe not all but most. Could just hear all the crying about the route being torn up and the traffic cluster crap.. Everyone would be screaming, at least those utilizing that specific commute. No doubt it would be multi-years in the making.
Would it be all that hard to have a dedicated downtown-to-Oakland express bus lane? I think about this a lot when I'm on a 61 or 71 bus going through Uptown. I would so dearly love to have a bus that could just zoom from Duquesne from Carlow. It's not that long of a stretch but it can take forever...strikes me as more feasible than extending the T, anyway.
It's silly that it's only accessible via bus, and, to my knowledge, other than the 54 you'd have to live in/around the East End to take the bus to work in Oakland WITHOUT a transfer to a second bus. This is why the East End is becoming bonkers expensive---people don't want to take TWO buses to work despite how much some on here might say (two buses isn't bad at all). Imagine how much more popular Beechview would be if someone could live there and take a train directly to work in Oakland? It would help to revitalize Beechview, which has a rundown business district and drug issues right now, and help to alleviate the housing crunch as most Oakland workers try to pile atop one another in the East End.
My water is fine. Maybe you need to replace your service line?
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