Dense housing winning out in Houston

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by JManc

You would think the illustrations, especially the very last one, would give some of you some context of the era the book was written rather than go off on a tangent about suburbia and antisocial behavior. Look at the truck pulling the house away...that's not a Ford F-150 King Ranch Edition. Plus...the now historic buildings surrounding the house not too mention the long gone streetcars.

The illustrations cover the auto age from the Model T era into as late as the post war 40s, where the taxi cabs no longer have the squared off design of the 30s.

The move out of the city was a move out of a city that had little or no improvements made since the 1920s when the highrises were built (middle column on the right).

Between 1930 and 1945 nothing significant was built in US cities, and, trolleys/elevated trains had become dirty and in poor repair due to a decade and a half of deferred maintenance. In addition, the cities themselves were dirty places due to decades of coal burning, whether due to utilities with in city power plants, manufacturing facilities, or for heating purposes on a building by building basis.

People after WWII were truly sick of the grime and the deferred maintenance. With the great optimism generated by victory in WWII, people in the US wanted to get away from the poverty they remembered in the Depression as well as the noise and the grit.

In many ways, the 2009 movie "Up" is the same story.

[Kenneth]

no low income people will be living there.

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

That's from a children's book written in the 1950's, when American cities actually were fairly dark, grim places. I remember reading when I was a child myself.

Yeah I remember it too. Video version from the 50's on YouTube too

http://youtu.be/Y881yjtFluQ


Reminds me of chicago. We have lots of small cottages crammed between larger buildings.

[ardecila]

Wow, so much urban/historical baggage in that cartoon... disdain for the working classes and immigrants, urban renewal, even the development of fire codes.

The ominous, "scary" city in those panels was always more appealing to me than unpleasant. The mashup of different eras and scales is still one of the greatest things about cities IMO, especially when things get hidden over time.

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

In many ways, the 2009 movie "Up" is the same story.

Except "Up" didn't make any judgments about cities or density; airlifting the house was supposed to be an escape from emotional trauma, not environmental.