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True they are older but Houston once had a dense city-like core, complete with street cars down every downtown street and transit connections from downtown to the suburbs and Galveston. Ever wonder why there is a train on the outfield fence in the Astros home stadium- it 's because there used to be a regional train station on that site. They tore them out in the mid 1900s and turned impressive buildings into parking lots- so the urban core was established .
Plus, Houston is historic- it was the first capital of a nation, the Republic of Texas.
When Houston once had a dense city-like core, it was a flyspeck of a city on the swamps of the Gulf. Its population has grown some 18-fold in just the last century alone; so yeah, it's kind of not surprising the proportion of Houston's "old" versus "contemporary" urban form factor is nearly non-existent. That would still be true even if its historic dense, city-like core were still entirely intact.
When Houston once had a dense city-like core, it was a flyspeck of a city on the swamps of the Gulf. Its population has grown some 18-fold in just the last century alone; so yeah, it's kind of not surprising the proportion of Houston's "old" versus "contemporary" urban form factor is nearly non-existent. That would still be true even if its historic dense, city-like core were still entirely intact.
No it wasn't!
Houston was a city of well over half a million people by the mid 1900s (600,000 by 1950), complete with a dense downtown and mass transit to the streetcar suburbs like The Heights and Bellaire and regional rail to Galveston.
Look up the old pictures of downtown Houston, in the early 1900s.
After WWII, Houston started to transform into a freeway dominated city.
They demolished most of the downtown blocks and the walk-able residential neighborhood that was part of it.
Here's an article that describes the growth:
One of the driving forces behind downtown Houston’s growth was city leader and businessman Jesse Jones. Mauran, Russell, and Crowell designed seven buildings in Houston, many of which were associated with Jones in some way. These include the Union National Bank Building at Main and Congress and the Rice Hotel. The Main Street Viaduct (a concrete bridge across Buffalo Bayou) was completed in 1913. The building boom subsided that year. After World War I, Houston’s growth exploded once more. Most of that was outside the Main Street Market Square district, which was relatively stable by that point. However, several buildings were constructed in the district, and others were altered or expanded. By the start of the Great Depression, the centers of commerce and government had begun to move beyond Main Street Market Square to other parts of downtown. George Dickey’s last major building design, the 1904 City Hall, was converted to a bus station until it burned in 1960. The exodus from Main Street Market Square was largely complete by the end of the 1960s. Around 1950, buildings downtown — including the Market Square building, which had previously housed the City Market — began to be demolished to make way for surface parking lots. In the 1960s and 1970s, both Market Square and Allen’s Landing were turned into parks. Buildings in the district began to be converted to offices around the same period. The historic buildings now remaining on Travis Street and Congress Street, facing the park, represent what once was present on all sides of Market Square.
After WWII Houston started to transform into a freeway dominated city
As does basically every single major US cities?
But of course, funny how those post-WWII "freeway sprawl" are turning into not so great areas. Sharpstown aka first automotive centric master planned community of Houston? Alief Area which was build up after that in 1970s/1980s? Even Mission Bend which was built in 1980s/early 1990s is not that good...
Meanwhile areas like Midtown is being built-up and desirable. Early 1900s suburban areas like Houston Heights is very desirable nowaday. Bellaire which you mentioned stayed wealthy.
Houston follows the pattern of your typical modern US cities anyway - revitalized downtown/core area, a ring of expensive old inner suburb, then a ring of not-so-great suburbia before you get back into wealthy outer suburban areas. Some people in that latter are moving to exurban areas no less b/c even those suburbs are getting "too crowded" for them, so there's that...
PS I grew up in Sugar Land which is why I'm a lot more familiar with that side of Houston than, let say, East which follows a totally different pattern due to all the refineries and industries.
Except for a handful of US cities (NYC, Chicago, SF , DC and maybe a few others); the rest of the cities of the United States are mitigated disasters or just U-G-L-Y from an aesthetic, planning and functionality standpoint.
They ALL are vilified in our culture (movies, press, politics) and have been bashed all along the way as dirty places for immigrants and minorities (i.e. White-Flight) .
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Originally Posted by Bitey
Your description of the pop culture portrayal of urban living is about three decades out of date. By the 90s you were more apt to see cities portrayed as professional and/or aspirational yuppie playgrounds ala "Friends," "Sex and the City," "Ally McBeal," "Living Single," "Seinfeld," "Frasier," and the like. Some did so more explicitly as part of the show premise ("Sex and the City, "Friends," "Living Single") while others did so simply because that was the writers' existing points of reference at the time.
Selected fashionable cities are shown as suitable abodes for young white singles with money.
But once they've married and had kids, would they still be depicted as living in city apartments??
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Originally Posted by H'ton
Prior to WWII, the US had good urban environments in select US cities but the federal government never made it a priority to aid, or assist, in building a strong build environment in the new cities that were sprouting up just in the early 1900s. When WWII ended, most Americans left the cities and vilified them. Our government was content on letting them rot!
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Now most of our cities are lacking in infrastructure, planning, mass transit, quality buildings, etc.
Indeed, the post-WWII years were a dramatic turning point. Railroad and streetcar suburbs already existed of course, but mass automobile suburbanization not only gobbled up farmland, but also demanded changes within the cities themselves. Because individual vehicles are wasteful of space (compared to public transit), new roadways were needed to bring all those car commuters to their downtown jobs.... mostly likely, those new highways were cut through "old" urban neighborhoods. And many downtown buildings were demolished to make room for parking lots, for the cars to sit during the workday.
So it wasn't only a case of federal inaction... government policies at all levels actively undermined the vitality of central cities and close-in urban neighborhoods, by encouraging workers to move out, and by bisecting and degrading the inner city residential areas with dirty, noisy elevated highways. [btw, I've read that Eisenhower didn't envision, and didn't want, the interstate highway program to rip up city neighborhoods... but that's how it turned out].
H'ton, you're also correct about architecture... look at the many public buildings built during the WPA era, or earlier.... not only is the architecture itself pleasing, but these buildings would often incorporate murals or other artwork. Even everyday buildings like post offices were elegant. Compare the mostly bland, nondescript modernist public buildings of today.... many contemporary schools don't even have windows.
Except for a handful of US cities (NYC, Chicago, SF , DC and maybe a few others); the rest of the cities of the United States are mitigated disasters or just U-G-L-Y from an aesthetic, planning and functionality standpoint.
Why is the United States so Anti-City?
How do you define cities? Are you from the US?
Older cities like those mentioned and a dozen others were built in a compact physical space conducive for easy and efficient movement on foot or by horse. Most of the "disaster" or UGLY urban centers came after the automobile. NYC grew up on an island and is a cluster of old cities that consolidated. DC was planned but confined to the federal district. San Francisco is on a peninsula, was largely destroyed in 1906, and rebuilt. Chicago was also largely destroyed and rebuilt. Those places also developed public transit - trolley systems that allowed people to expand the urban fringe. Look at New Orleans for a possible example. Of course, San Francisco is another example. St. Louis was confined but had streetcars and outlying areas were connected by rail or trolleys. Later, interstate highways made commuting by car feasible to more distant suburbs in most cities.
There are some hybrid cities. I think Kansas City would be one example.
Some newer cities with explosive postwar growth are simply huge sprawling population centers. My city had a population of 35k in 1940. It now has a metro of about 1 million, still fairly small but not small on the regional basis. That is half the state population. It arguably has three downtowns -- one dating from the 1700s to the present, one from 1880 to the present, and one developing since the late 20th century. There is a close-in airport, a flagship state university, a large secure defense research center, and an air force base checkerboarded in the city. Growth developed around and among those defined sites. A major river runs through the city with only a few bridges so the far side - the newer developed side of the river - has growth expanding outward from the bridge approaches. It is almost an organic growth pattern.
A lot of Americans are racist and materialistic as a result. The stuff that people in the suburbs say about cities you would think scary movies were real. Also despite cars having more cons than pros Americans refuse to accept this.
It’s a good thing we have the east coast and other super old cities that are close to what real cities should look like.
Go 20-30 minutes (or more) outside the touristy city center of European cities and you’ll see sprawl too. It won’t be on the same scale of our lots, but it doesn't resemble of what you think when someone says London, Paris, Munich, Dublin, etc. I’ve seen, and/or been personally in these areas. If anyone doesn’t think this is the case go on Google earth?
Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, DC aren't freeway-dominated.
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We witness this with more and more immigrants heading directly for the suburbs upon arrival, as opposed to the more traditional pattern of landing first in their respective ethnic enclaves in the city and then fanning out to suburbia over the next generation or two.
When immigrants are frequently told that cities are nothing but crime infested warzones, of course that's the result.
The suburbs in this country absolutely suck with few exceptions(the Northeast). I'd rather deal with a small town or mayybe a far flung exurb than to ever move back to a suburb.
A lot of Americans are racist and materialistic as a result. The stuff that people in the suburbs say about cities you would think scary movies were real. Also despite cars having more cons than pros Americans refuse to accept this.
It’s a good thing we have the east coast and other super old cities that are close to what real cities should look like.
In the Sunbelt the suburbs tend to be more racially diverse than the cities they surround. That is definitely the case for Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, LA, the Bay Area, and Miami.
Equating racism with living in a suburb is ill-informed.
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