Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
But my experience is most midwestern cities tend to have a "ring of ruin" surrounding the downtown,  so once you get past the parking craters the neighborhoods are mostly boring detached single-family houses. . |
Yes, you can see from Galena, IL and Mackinac Island, MI that the area behind the main business street was usually just some old wooden housing or brick warehouse stuff.
Most small and medium sized Midwestern cities and towns were not that well-established before the Model T was mass produced, so they didn’t think too hard about demolition.
For example, Pontiac, IL is about as intact as a traditional prairie town can reasonably be. A pretty grand Main Street, and right behind that is
Often 3/4 of the population growth happened after the car was invented, so why not tear down the old shacks for space to park the car.
For Illinois, these towns on the map would have been the genuine “historic” towns that developed before cars become too popular.
Most were never that viable economically and became stuck as farming towns or county seats. Others like Quincy fell into true economic decline later, and don’t have many intact traditional neighborhoods left.
So Chicago and Galena (being an easy drive from Chicago) survive that era as mostly intact and walkable.
