urban renewal and planning disasters

[10023]

All of them?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by lio45

We think the CBC Tower clearing in Eastern Montreal was bad but it's nothing compared to this in St. Louis (which IMO takes the cake for most insane, most purposeless clearing):

well...at least we had something to show for it in a giant modernist monolith.


http://magazine.art21.org

you can see on the above (and below) photo two other massive urban renewal zones, one of which was well intentioned in that *oh my god what have we done* twentieth century way i suppose (pruitt-igoe), but the other (upper left above and center below...hiroshima flats) was truly senseless one of the three big clearance zones (there were more). the extent of the central clearing has been highlighted in this thread already, and is more extensive than shown. i think this was the worst damage to the urban fabric in the jane jacobs sense and the most obvious today as a colossal grey zone as she might call it. it was primarily middle class rowhouse and townhouse architecture and commercial that stitched downtown to midtown.


peonylee.files.wordpress.com

[edale]

What do these areas of St. Louis look like today? Was the North side of STL impacted by urban renewal, too? I know there are some vast urban prairies on the north side, but are those due to attrition or a master planned clearing?

Cincinnati cleared so much away and got very little in return. I would say I-75 and I-71 were necessary for modernizing the transportation in and through the city, but the massive clearing of the West End to make way for Queensgate- a giant light industrial and office park area- was a huge mistake. The area never took off as envisioned, and it's a major eye sore and barrier between Downtown and the west side neighborhoods.

[Obadno]

As with most western cities downtown Phoenix was decimated in the 1950's and 60's and is probably still recovering today.



http://phoenix.org/explore-downtown-...-in-the-1920s/





Its actually kind of hard to find pictures from the 80's and 90's probably becasue nobody ever was there to take pictures

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What major American city did the least damage to its core? Maybe San Francisco? I know they had major urban renewal in the Western Addition area, but the outcome wasn't that horrible, and there doesn't appear to be too much freeway or Corbusian housing clear-cutting during that era.

Was SF a bit troubled economically following WW2? Often the most aggressive cities with urban renewal were unusually flush with cash. You can see this in Europe, too, where the poorer countries often have better city centers today because they didn't have the money to following modernist principles following WW2. Spain and Italy have much better city centers than the UK and Sweden on average (of course Germany had no choice but to rebuild).

Considering what was planned for Philadelphia, I'd say that we ended up getting off with the least amount of damage. The Vine Street Expressway ()I-676) did major damage to the northern portion of our historic core; however, I-95 did less damage (though it destroyed historic building along Delaware Avenue/Columbus Boulevard and severed Philly's link to the Delaware River), US 1 did a tiny bit of damage to the Nicetown section of North Philly, and the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) essentially did no damage, except to a tiny portion of South Philly. This plan would have absolutely destroyed Philly, and I'm glad that its full extent wasn't realized!

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan

Considering what was planned for Philadelphia, I'd say that we ended up getting off with the least amount of damage. The Vine Street Expressway ()I-676) did major damage to the northern portion of our historic core; however, I-95 did less damage (though it destroyed historic building along Delaware Avenue/Columbus Boulevard and severed Philly's link to the Delaware River), US 1 did a tiny bit of damage to the Nicetown section of North Philly, and the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) essentially did no damage, except to a tiny portion of South Philly. This plan would have absolutely destroyed Philly, and I'm glad that its full extent wasn't realized!

I think I'd agree that in terms of urban renewal, Philly got off quite lightly. Not only because of the limited number of highways, but also because the city didn't really develop a "CBD" in the sense of other cities (e.g., an area of office towers with few residents) until quite late. Philly didn't also fall into the mid-century idea that you needed big spaces cleared out surrounding downtown to make way for industry.

Where Philly was negatively impacted was of course blight and white flight, coupled with really ill-thought out infill which doesn't fit Philly's vernacular at all. But most of this is pretty far out from Center City.

[Crawford]

One could argue that Independence Mall is bad urban renewal. A super dense neighborhood was flattened for lawns, mostly.

Also, the whole Market East area, with the Gallery, the bus station and the like, is bad, though this is a small geography. Really everywhere east of Broad has patchy urban renewal here and there.

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

One could argue that Independence Mall is bad urban renewal. A super dense neighborhood was flattened for lawns, mostly.

Also, the whole Market East area, with the Gallery, the bus station and the like, is bad, though this is a small geography. Really everywhere east of Broad has patchy urban renewal here and there.

Originally Posted by eschaton

I think I'd agree that in terms of urban renewal, Philly got off quite lightly. Not only because of the limited number of highways, but also because the city didn't really develop a "CBD" in the sense of other cities (e.g., an area of office towers with few residents) until quite late. Philly didn't also fall into the mid-century idea that you needed big spaces cleared out surrounding downtown to make way for industry.

Where Philly was negatively impacted was of course blight and white flight, coupled with really ill-thought out infill which doesn't fit Philly's vernacular at all. But most of this is pretty far out from Center City.

Agreed on both points. There's a hugely suburban-scale neighborhood just north of Center City, called West Poplar, which could be considered a renewal disaster--though I didn't include that neighborhood since those homes went up after the Urban Renewal area. Independence Mall wouldn't have been so bad if the planners of the day would have only demolished buildings between Market and Chestnut; the Market-to-Arch section is unnecessary, and the Arch-to-Race section should have never happened. We could also get into the huge Urban Renewal atrocity that was the expansion of universities, along with the University City Science Center, that occurred in West Philly, but at least the beautiful Victorian neighborhoods ended up being preserved.

My point was about highways more than anything. Had every road in that plan been built, Philly would not be on the upward trajectory that it is on now. We did endure a lot of white flight and years of blight through disinvestment, but it could have been a lot worse. That plan would have been a catastrophe.

[lio45]

White Flight is easily reversible, unlike the Hiroshima-caliber damage in the St. Louis examples shown. That's a huge difference.

[The North One]

Philly has some really crazy juxtapositions.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9777227,-75.1662912,3a,75y,103.88h,102.8t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sljSGAqQgkJP7P1U9notTiw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by lio45

White Flight is easily reversible, unlike the Hiroshima-caliber damage in the St. Louis examples shown. That's a huge difference.

When you think about it, there really are only a handful of major cities where traditional residential neighborhoods right next to the CBD - with no highway in the way - survived. Basically it's Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, San Francisco, and New Orleans.

[edale]

Originally Posted by eschaton

When you think about it, there really are only a handful of major cities where traditional residential neighborhoods right next to the CBD - with no highway in the way - survived. Basically it's Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, San Francisco, and New Orleans.

^ Cincinnati, too. At least north of Downtown. The neighborhoods west of downtown were obliterated, but OTR is still there directly north of the CBD.

Originally Posted by edale

What do these areas of St. Louis look like today? Was the North side of STL impacted by urban renewal, too? I know there are some vast urban prairies on the north side, but are those due to attrition or a master planned clearing?

The Pruitt-Igoe site had been an urban forest until it was recently cleared for the new $2 billion NGIA West facility.

Mill Creek Valley is now a sparse collection of SLU buildings and sports fields.

The riverfront is now the Arch grounds.

Most of the loss on the north side is due to attrition (racist housing policies, concentration of poverty, white flight). North St. Louis was actually the denser half of the city when the city was still at its peak. The riverfront was a huge loss architecturally (I've heard it was the largest collection of cast-iron facades in the US outside of NYC) but losing the near north side and Mill Creek Valley were actually much more detrimental. At peak St. Louis ranked right below Philly, and if not for these massive scars St. Louis' core would feel similar to Philly's Center City.

Mill Creek Valley is the giant empty swath on the right in the image below.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by eschaton

When you think about it, there really are only a handful of major cities where traditional residential neighborhoods right next to the CBD - with no highway in the way - survived. Basically it's Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, San Francisco, and New Orleans.

Austin, San Antonio, and Denver

[uaarkson]

St. Louis might be the most stunning transformation of this era. Before urban renewal, it was an entirely different city.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Austin, San Antonio, and Denver

Actually Phoenix too but they've been blighted for years.


This is a nice block in downtown: https://goo.gl/maps/3koXgaxAkjs

Nice corner in an average neighborhood: https://goo.gl/maps/Ms2yCTMMrAq

This is an average block adjacent to downtown: https://goo.gl/maps/7UhwYexcTup

A ghetto block near downtown: https://goo.gl/maps/zDgsyGjW5FM2


And a totally destroyed former Barrio near downtown: https://goo.gl/maps/7wQ3ASp6MyS2

This area is currently going through the equivalent of an urban renewal project and the people that own property there have been selling their property to the airport/city for years who have then bulldozed the property for sale later for redevelopment. Its essentially a ghost town now potentially will be something...maybe...eventually

[edale]

^ I don't see anything resembling urban neighborhoods in those streetview links. Suburban, yes.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by eschaton

When you think about it, there really are only a handful of major cities where traditional residential neighborhoods right next to the CBD - with no highway in the way - survived. Basically it's Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, San Francisco, and New Orleans.

Denver has I-25 to the west of downtown, but to the north, east and south, there is no barrier to the residential neighborhoods.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

the tsc (truman sports complex) is atrocious. its also located sort of in a zone beyond the urban core where development has leapfrogged beyond it, so is not a blight on functional urbanism. i personally hate the nfl and find applying nfl-like cultural practices like tailgating to baseball annoying, but kauffman stadium itself is the last of the modern stadiums and as such is rather elegant, if horribly misplaced.

i mean the royals won the world series so it must be okay, right?

Well, it gets people from Kansas to drive into Missouri lol! Compared to Denver's urban Coors Field, Kaufman is horrible. But KC has never been big on dense urban development.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by Chicago3rd

They also built the Amtrak Station, Blue Cross Blue Shield RI, Park, Mid Rise Condos, Low Rise Apartments over the tracks. The city really is a jewel and has such great potential. The 195 Land is really starting to boom....Johnson and Wales is completing a building, as is Brown and Brown and URI are converting an old Power Plant into the states Nursing School. Keep your fingers cross. Providence has the bones that PDX had when I was there in the 1980's and 90's.

Now that I think about it, Providence does seem like an east coast Portland. I love both cities.