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  #121  
Old Posted Mar 30, 2016, 8:06 PM
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Originally Posted by hammersklavier View Post
Perhaps you haven't been to any of them? You can still see the mark, if you know what you're looking for.

Boston's retail core was observably smaller than e.g. Philadelphia's or DC's, even in its prime. In fact, in terms of retail diversity, Boston ca. 1950 would have been closer to Lexington Market in Baltimore and equivalent centers in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Cleveland, or St. Louis. This actually seems fairly appropriate for the era. That isn't theory -- that's straight-up observation of the count of major retailers (department stores):

- Philadelphia: Five -- Wanamaker's, Strawbridge's, Gimbels, Lit Brothers, Snellenburg's
- DC: Five -- Kann's, Hecht's, Woodward & Lothrop, Garfinckel's, Lansburgh's
- Baltimore: Four -- Hecht's, Stewart's, Hutzler's, Hochschild Kohn
- Cincinnati: Four -- Mabley & Carew, McAlpin's, Pogue's, Shillito's
- Boston: Three -- Filene's, Jordan Marsh, Stearn's
- Cleveland: Three -- Higbee's, Halle Brothers, May
- Buffalo: Three -- AM&A, Hengerer's, Hens & Kelly
- St. Louis: Two -- Famous-Barr, Stix Baer Fuller

You can obviously keep going with this. The point is that at the time Boston was in the middle of the pack.

Certainly, for various reasons Downtown Crossing weathered the 20th century better than most of its peers -- it's on a par with Philadelphia's Market East today -- but starting size and stamina are not the same thing. None of the F Street department stores remain in DC today, for example. Not one.
St. Louis also had Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney until the early 1960s, so that makes 3 for STL.
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  #122  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2016, 12:35 AM
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Originally Posted by JDRCRASH View Post
Perhaps NO city on Earth has had as many urban renewal and planning "failures" like Los Angeles. Bunker Hill is probably the most famous.
Dodger Stadium, many of the freeways, death of the redcars, Pershing Square (underground parking and the current 1994 version), Century City (idk if you can call this renewal since it had previously just been a backlot), Palmer buildings.

We've definitely had our fair share of mistakes but I think we've recovered more than some other cities that didn't have it as bad.
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  #123  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2016, 1:33 AM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Somewhere in Kansas City:


A dead zone when the stadiums are not in use. Could be craters on the moon.

Sorry guys, I know I'm waaaaay late to the party, but you know I was gonna eventually crash it!!

While Centropolis stole a little bit of my thunder, let me reiterate. Obviously to an outsider, The Truman Sports Complex is unsightly, and poorly planned. However, the latter isn't necessarily the case.

At the time that the Chiefs and the Royals were looking for a new place to play, this location wasn't the only one. There was the idea to build a multipurpose stadium, possibly a dome, close to downtown. However, there wasn't a viable spot to put it without decimating several neighborhoods which were already ravaged by the highways built to accommodating traffic to the suburbs. And figure this...the multipurpose stadium concept died in the 80s, which means that that dome would have long been vacated and probably demolished, and voters would have had to approve new stadiums, which could have meant one of the teams leaving town. Someone was smart enough to think of the twin stadium concept. The land that was finally designated had few, if any structures on it, which made building both stadiums relatively easy, since nothing had to be condemned and people evicted. Highways 435 and I-70 was already built, which made fairly easy access to and from the stadiums. The parking lots might be unsightly, but what's the point in building a bunch of parking garages for people to be stuck in? And as far as pushing people further out of the city, The area east of the complex was already established long before ground broke.

If there was any criticism to be made, I would say that the lack of a good comprehensive plan surrounding the complex. Just a few meh hotels, a Denny's, Taco Bell, Subway, a couple of gas stations and no nice bars or restaurants are all there is.

Hopefully, when the time does come to actually replace the stadiums, that there will be a much better plan in place. I do hope that they stay there, and not move downtown.
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  #124  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2016, 2:03 AM
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i mean the royals won the world series so it must be okay, right?

Last edited by kcexpress69; Apr 2, 2016 at 2:47 AM.
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  #125  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2016, 5:31 PM
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The Truman Sports Complex is a massive waste of land. It's bizarre for some of us from cities where land has a higher value. And of course it contributes to sprawl.

It's not all bad. I assume they at least limited the parking to what the football stadium needs, with an agreement to not have simultaneous games.

As for restaurants, it might not make sense to have 10,000 seats right there. Maybe they could have fair-type places on game days with a dining hall and/or tents nearby.
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  #126  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2016, 5:46 PM
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kansas city has very disconnected development on the east side beyond the core. there are two models of regional development really, the leapfroggy interstate driven stuff in missouri, and something resembling the dallas model of sprawl built around the jeffersonian square mile grid, southwest of the city in kansas. the kansas side is actually more plugged into the core in a contiguous fashion, where there likely would not be as much space for that kind of development.

suburban development leapfrogged hilly quarrylands and i dont know what beyond the 1930s core in kcmo to the east. its sort of the same way to the north, too. the sports complex sort of backs up to that no-mans land.
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  #127  
Old Posted Apr 3, 2016, 5:19 PM
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Unlike many US cities, Philadelphia doesn't have as many urban renewal failures. Many attempts at urban renewal were fought off, including MANY highway proposals that would have possibly eliminated the advent of Philly's current renaissance.

Besides the construction of I-95 (Delaware Expressway) and I-676 (Vine Street Expressway), which sequestered Philly from the Delaware River and cut Center City off from North Philadelphia, respectively, I would say that the biggest urban renewal failure was the Callowhill Industrial District Plan. Before this project was implemented, the Callowhill District had a housing stock similar to that of Society Hill. Like Society Hill before it was revitalized, Callowhill was also a slum neighborhood. If this project would have never occurred, Callowhill could have undergone a similar renaissance to Society Hill.

http://hiddencityphila.org/2016/02/t...of-callowhill/
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  #128  
Old Posted Apr 3, 2016, 8:44 PM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
The Truman Sports Complex is a massive waste of land. It's bizarre for some of us from cities where land has a higher value. And of course it contributes to sprawl.
The neighborhood it's in is an industrial and blue-collar area and has been for quite a while, and frankly, it's not all that far out. As kcexpress pointed out, there was nothing of note lost when they built the stadiums, and if they hadn't built them there, the site would probably be some industrial use that's seen better days. Is that less wasteful than some stadiums? I suppose that depends on your point-of-view.
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  #129  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2016, 12:38 PM
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I wonder about the highway infrastructure needed to deliver such a huge volume of cars to this location only for times that the complex is actually being used. Being so isolated, it is hard to imagine any spill over effects for the surrounding economy (perhaps there are some nearby hotels and restaurants?).
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  #130  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2016, 12:51 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
I wonder about the highway infrastructure needed to deliver such a huge volume of cars to this location only for times that the complex is actually being used. Being so isolated, it is hard to imagine any spill over effects for the surrounding economy (perhaps there are some nearby hotels and restaurants?).
i think its pretty limited, especially considering the strong tailgating culture in kc. even the baseball games have tailgating.

there was a push a few years ago to build a downtown stadium, but the location was almost too prime. i think sporting facilities should go on the fringes of downtowns, or in industrial areas with urban redevelopment potential.
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  #131  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2016, 7:28 PM
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what's the final verdict on the society hill philly urban renewal in the 50s and 60s? Pretty controversial at the time but i think it all worked out for the best, maybe one of few examples of massive urban renewal working out well in that era.

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  #132  
Old Posted Apr 5, 2016, 2:06 AM
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what's the final verdict on the society hill philly urban renewal in the 50s and 60s? Pretty controversial at the time but i think it all worked out for the best, maybe one of few examples of massive urban renewal working out well in that era.

I think that Society Hill's urban renewal is a glowing example of successful urban renewal. Society Hill went from a slum neighborhood to one of the most desirable zip codes in Philadelphia, if not the most desirable. I'm just disappointed that homes in Callowhill, which were very similar to those in Society Hill, were not saved. If those homes would have been saved, then it could have been the next Society Hill/Rittenhouse Square/Fitler Square-esque neighborhood.
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  #133  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2016, 3:49 AM
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i think its pretty limited, especially considering the strong tailgating culture in kc. even the baseball games have tailgating.

there was a push a few years ago to build a downtown stadium, but the location was almost too prime. i think sporting facilities should go on the fringes of downtowns, or in industrial areas with urban redevelopment potential.
The push is still there to bring at least the Royals downtown, although I believe it's lost a bit of steam. I was once a pretty heavy proponent of a downtown stadium, but honestly, I just don't know where you could put it without destroying several blocks of buildings and kicking out the very businesses that we've fought to bring into the area.

And like you said, tailgating has been a very important part of the culture. Not only are people hanging out, putting aside their differences to socialize and whatnot, but hundreds of thousands, perhaps more, are pumped into the local economy each game, from people buying beer, hot dogs, chips, condiments, charcoal, napkins, etc. With a downtown stadium, much of that would be eliminated with being forced to build parking garages.

I guess I just like the way things are going on in the downtown area. There's no shortage of building projects, such as hotels, and apartments that are going up, and I expect that to continue.
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  #134  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2016, 4:06 AM
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there is a site in the south crossroads that i always thought would be good, backing up to the crown center area below the turkey creek bluff. as far as i can tell, little demolition would be needed (might be a forgettable one story garage type building) and that gameday money would go to businesses in the vicinity.

1900 Locust St, Kansas City, MO 64108
https://goo.gl/maps/NGAHptBK6AJ2
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  #135  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2016, 8:35 PM
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One of the worst Swedish examples is probably Hagalund in Solna (One of the larger suburbs of Stockholm).

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagalund,_Solna_kommun (Swedish Wikipedia, the mid picture shows the neighbourhood before the 1970s.
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  #136  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2018, 11:10 PM
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  #137  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2019, 6:45 PM
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taking a trip through this thread again is very depressing.
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  #138  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2019, 10:05 PM
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Wow.....this is depressing. Albany really didn't fare well.
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  #139  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2019, 1:37 AM
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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):
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  #140  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2019, 7:25 AM
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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):
Maybe not completely. If I remember correctly, a good chunk of that section had already been destroyed in a fire. They managed to save the church, but I can't remember how much else was left in the end (not that I was there, but there was something about it in the arch museum)
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