What Happened to the American Boomtown?

[the urban politician]

I’m sorry Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, but:

Nearly all of the outrageous growth you’ve seen in the past 40 years is just ONE. BIG. FUCKING. WASTE. Forgettable, throwaway, meaningless.

I’m not saying you don’t have good jobs, good industries, good amenities or good cuisine, etc. Not trying to make that kind of judgement.

But your built environment might as well get tossed into a giant hole.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I’m sorry Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, but:

Nearly all of the outrageous growth you’ve seen in the past 40 years is just ONE. BIG. FUCKING. WASTE. Forgettable, throwaway, meaningless.

I’m not saying you don’t have good jobs, good industries, good amenities or good cuisine, etc. Not trying to make that kind of judgement.

But your built environment might as well get tossed into a giant hole.

Oh boy, has Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD!) already set in? It's not even winter yet!

Jk.

[cannedairspray]

I wonder what that guy is like in real life?

[skyscraperpage17]

To live in such a great city (and it is), why is it that the folks on here from Chicago feel the need to go out of their way to bash other cities and/or brag about their city?

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Osaka is a major metro, though. It isn't Tokyo, but I think it counts as a first-tier metro.

That's my point, Japan has two "first-tier" metros, unlike say, the UK.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I’m sorry Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, but:

Nearly all of the outrageous growth you’ve seen in the past 40 years is just ONE. BIG. FUCKING. WASTE. Forgettable, throwaway, meaningless.

I’m not saying you don’t have good jobs, good industries, good amenities or good cuisine, etc. Not trying to make that kind of judgement.

But your built environment might as well get tossed into a giant hole.

I'm sorry not every city can look like New York, Boston or San Francisco.

[ThePhun1]

Nt

[pdxtex]

when i think boom town, i either think of a frontier town or center of some kind of industry. well, we made it to the west coast so we ran out of land and we shipped half of our industrial sector offshore so now migrants just follow the weather....

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Nt

Originally Posted by mhays

Are you suggesting the Houston has a better urban form than Boston? Just trying to understand here.

I love Boston's urban form, and find Houston's both unlikable and wasteful.

The conversation was about why or why not Houston is world class. Someone interjected that it wasn't because it had bad urban form but I replied that Boston did as well yet is considered world class as are other notable places such as Sao Paulo and LA.

Boston definitely has Houston beat if for no other reason than that it is geographically smaller with a denser population. Helps when your city is almost 400 years old and founded by people who rode horses everywhere or walked on foot.

[Gordo]

I think we're all wondering why in the world someone would claim Boston has "bad urban form". You seem to like grids, but that's not an element of good urban form in the opinion of most here. If a grid is a pre-req, then basically no cities outside of the Americas have good urban form, which is absurd.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Gordo

That's my point, Japan has two "first-tier" metros, unlike say, the UK.

Japan has fantastic cities, but the problem with a lot of them is that they're subsumed into the Tokyo metro area. Anywhere else, far enough away from any other big city, Yokohama would truly shine. I loved the hell out of that town.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, but there aren't other metro areas that provide the same amenities as in the secondary U.S. cities.

In, say Detroit, you have a major international airport with direct flights across the globe. You have retail like Gucci, Ferragamo, Armani. You have neighborhoods of $2 million homes full of global executives. Birmingham or Marseilles don't really have this.

Of course those cities and others have rich people, expensive clothes stores and airports with direct flights across the globe, what would make you think they don't?

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

To live in such a great city (and it is), why is it that the folks on here from Chicago feel the need to go out of their way to bash other cities and/or brag about their city?

I'm finding most of the people on this forum are morons and try to hide it in a haze of pretentiousness and haughtiness that only serves to make them look even dumber.

I grew up in Chicago and a decent half of the people that present themselves here as Chicagoans would get the shit beat of them if they acted like they do here in real life.

[mhays]

I don't think a broad insult about "most" forumers is a good move either.

[glowrock]

Thread closed due to abject stupidity.

Aaron (Glowrock)