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No, but I see nothing wrong I saying I dislike much of what was built post-1945, both from the style and (more so) layout. As well as the decline in city neighborhoods that I like (or at least would if they hadn't declined).
I understand. But some people have an attitude of superiority, like they have finer character. That's what bugs me. You know, like the people who call LPs "vinyl".
Yeah, these popinjays with their noses in the air bemoaning "ticky-tacky" houses and the sterility of the postwar burbs. I'd like to put some of those jasper's down at 22nd and Millard in 1935 and see how they'd like it.
Well it's an internet forum. If I don't care for those houses, I don't see why I shouldn't be free to complain about them. And more importantly, why on earth couldn't they have more pedestrian-friendly and less autocentric?
(and also see the two posts I made on the subject that linked a few posts up — no one has really acknowledged my points).
Dunno much about Chicago, but I do know in many older cities, postwar suburbs that were initially built to accomodate a growing population of the metro then instead started to replace parts of the city as white flight starte.
Yeah, these popinjays with their noses in the air bemoaning "ticky-tacky" houses and the sterility of the postwar burbs. I'd like to put some of those jasper's down at 22nd and Millard in 1935 and see how they'd like it. Maybe Johnny Regan could show them how to steal juice from the power company and run it into people's apartments. He used to tap into the gas lines too.
The suburbs are an attractive option to many. They were especially attractive to those in the situations you describe back then.
Just because I don't want to live in one doesn't mean I begrudge my purple-heart earning grandfather for leaving a small apartment in the city for a suburb.
You see the difference right? We can examine the effects of suburbanization without being offensive to our elders, can't we?
scroll down a bit for the old nytimes clipping comparing a view of Midtown Manhattan during the smog and 3 hours later after it rolled out. Still exists on hot hazy days but not as bad as that. And then there were cigarettes… When Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan was cleaned and renovated in the late 90s the entire ceiling was coated in a layer of thick black grime. It was assumed it was from automobile exhuast. Turned out it was almost entirely from cigarettes.
Quite happy that smog like that is not a regular thing in most places. When people slam the EPA for this or that ... These photos should be shown.
So these fellas come home and put their noses to the grindstone and finally make some decent dough and go out and buy nice, neat, new houses in the burbs and there are people here who begrudge them that? Shame.
No, there are not. Nobody is trying to kick the Greatest Generation out of the suburbs (except Death--the youngest World War II veterans are in their 80s now, so there aren't that many still around.) Nobody is even saying they are bad people for having lived there. But many adults seeking homes in the present day have little interest in living in a neighborhood exactly like their grandfather's house, just as the World War II veterans weren't as interested in living in the same neighborhoods as their parents or grandparents. They are looking at neighborhoods that physically resemble ones more like the World War II generation's parents called home--but with a lot of improvements since their time, from cleaner air to Internet access.
You see the difference right? We can examine the effects of suburbanization without being offensive to our elders, can't we?
Of course we can. But some folks here seem to think that advocating for alternatives is tantamount to throwing Grandpa bodily out of his split-level onto the street.
Yeah, these popinjays with their noses in the air bemoaning "ticky-tacky" houses and the sterility of the postwar burbs. I'd like to put some of those jasper's down at 22nd and Millard in 1935 and see how they'd like it. Maybe Johnny Regan could show them how to steal juice from the power company and run it into people's apartments. He used to tap into the gas lines too.
the ticky tack phrase was popularised by Pete Seeger Little Boxes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia who WAS a revolutionary, and disliked the social and political mores of suburbia more than the architecture. I don't know, but I bet by now he has come out against gentrification.
Anyway, its now 2012. People born after WW2 are facing retirement. While as historians its worthy to know the motivations for the suburban migration, I don't think we need to worry too much about insulting the 'greatest generation" - just as we can critique late 19th century urban developments without worrying about insulting veterans of the Army of the Potomac.
Last edited by brooklynborndad; 08-16-2012 at 07:34 AM..
Reason: seegar is still alive
didn't you like the city neighborhood you grew up in?
yes and no. When i was preteen loved it, the quiet, tree lined streets, the general comfort of it.
As a teen, attending HS in Manhattan, with friends from around the city, with an interest in Manhattans bookstores and museums and what was not yet called "vibrancy" i wished I lived in Manhattan, and not a 45 minute subway ride away (though some days I still liked the quiet of my block after a day in the noise of Manhattan). Also even then, the neighborhood had become too "religious" (orthodox Jewish) for me (Reform and commmited to the secular world)
I think the neighborhood is very good in its bones, its grid, etc. The influx of the ultraOrthodox has made it a place I would no longer consider living in - and the new construction that accommodates that influx has taken away many of the older prairie style houses that gave the area part of its character.
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