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It's funny how urban planners 50 years ago had the same argument for sprawl that the urban planners today have against sprawl. In the video, it said that cities were getting congested, and they can no longer be sustained. There was even an argument that there was a need for fresh air.
The same way those today say suburbs were not planned properly, were the same way many those 50 years ago said cities were not planned properly.
In 1962 we were still an enormously wealthy country, the top tax rate was 90%, and gas was less than 50 cents a gallon. The highway lobby, a combination of auto manufacturers, oil companies, and companies that built highways, marketed the idea of highways through the first half of the 20th century, and crippled railroads and cities in the process--while the taxpayer paid for both the highway system and life support for highways and transit.
In 1962 we were still an enormously wealthy country, the top tax rate was 90%, and gas was less than 50 cents a gallon. The highway lobby, a combination of auto manufacturers, oil companies, and companies that built highways, marketed the idea of highways through the first half of the 20th century, and crippled railroads and cities in the process--while the taxpayer paid for both the highway system and life support for highways and transit.
They worked in concert with many, many others and those others are now working to convince people to move back into the city. When people become dissatisfied with their current neighborhood, and if they're convinced to move for no good reason, all kinds of people make money - real estate agents, title companies, developers, home inspectors, urban planners...
Te cities themsleves never drew the working man for its lifestyle really. It was the concentratio of transportation and energy to inductrialize by desgn of the inductialist. WII actaully showed a weakness in that transportatio system . Hitler for example did not creat the super Hwy system as its now called because of civilian considwerations;but military. Prior to WWII we wre sing little of our industrial capabilty and it was concentatrate to cities. Eisenhower saw what Hilters hwy system meant and pushed for it in this country.It lead to great wealth for many denied before and freedom from the city for millions; rather than the concentrating of wealth in cities by the politcal machines there.The landscape of power has really shifted since.Even in to the 60's New York state for example was able to get 1.60+ for every dollar it sent the federal government. Texas where I live got about 75 cents.As the song says "things they are achanging"
The highway lobby, auto and oil lobby, and the suburban tract home lobby actually still want us to keep moving farther out into ever-retreating rows of suburbs--suburban neighborhoods have become the ultimate disposable consumer product, for all the reasons you mentioned. How do you expect central cities to respond--simply accept their fate and let themselves collapse as the suburbanites retreat in the distance, or try to market the advantages of city living to those who would be interested?
"The same way those today say suburbs were not planned properly, were the same way many those 50 years ago said cities were not planned properly"
In 1952, there had been little building of new housing in most cities (DC among others was an exception of course) since 1930, and most of the housing stock in slower growth areas was from before 1917. A lot of it was from before 1900.
So yeah, those cities mostly were NOT well planned. They had gads of very low quality tenement housing. They had high quality middle and upper middle class housing, which had been converted into apts or rooming houses for the poor. They did not accommodate the auto (and truck) well, and their transit facilities were obsolete. The manufacturing facilities were mostly obsolete - not only because they were old, but because multi story light manufacturing is intrinsically costly - and they had factories cheek by jowl with residential areas, creating various conflicts. They often had inadequate sanitation treatment (no not bad enough to make cholera a problem, but bad enough to make water pollution an issue)
No one today, who's sane anyway, is suggesting we build circa 1900 cities. We are trying to take whats good about those cities, and the best of whats modern, and combine them in new urban development. At the same time we should try to take whats best about suburban development, and combine it with what we know works better than the 1950s suburbs.
Another GOOD video...... I like seeing this stuff.....
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