East/west divide seems to be a thing in most western cities (but not US)

[Docere]

It seems like by the 1920s that the wealthy and executive class had already largely moved out of city limits in the older cities in the eastern half of the US.
A generation before the mass suburbanization after WWII.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

It seems like by the 1920s that the wealthy and executive class had already largely moved out of city limits in the older cities in the eastern half of the US.
A generation before the mass suburbanization after WWII.

by 1920, cook county already had 351,312 people living in it outside of the city of chicago.

if we add evanston's 1920 population of 37,234 to the "core northshore", then that corridor north of the city along the lakefront had a population of 56,311 in 1920.

but by far the biggest suburban concentration in 1920's chicagoland would've been the inner-most western burbs of cicero, oak park, berwyn, and forest park with a 1920 pop. of 109,771.

Together, those two early large suburban zones contained nearly half of cook county's non-city population back then.

however, like evanston, those inner western burbs more closely aligned with the notion of "city neighborhoods that successfully fought off annexation" as opposed to more "true suburbs" like winnetka or glencoe.



this might make for a good separate topic: Suburbia 1920: what did your metro area's sprawl-scape look like a century ago?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

It seems like by the 1920s that the wealthy and executive class had already largely moved out of city limits in the older cities in the eastern half of the US.
A generation before the mass suburbanization after WWII.

Westchester County, NY passed the half-million mark in the late 1920's. And by 1960, its population wasn't too far off from today.

The U.S. suburbanized very early. The eastern U.S., in particular, has very old upper class suburbia.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

this might make for a good separate topic: Suburbia 1920: what did your metro area's sprawl-scape look like a century ago?

Yes please do it.

[dc_denizen]

Dc definitely has a favored westside, this extends to the suburbs too

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

interesting, so the Pointes were never connected to downtown detroit by commuter rail, only street car lines?

that would be another fairly big departure in regards to the comparison to chicago's northshore burbs.

it's propably why the northshore burbs grew a bit bigger prior 1920, before MASS automobile ownership.

The Detroit interurban connected Grosse Pointe to downtown Detroit by rail, but I believe that was replaced by buses in the 1930s. After that was discontinued, the Detroit street car lines were the last rail connection that Grosse Pointe had to downtown. Several streetcar lines terminated right at the Grosse Pointe border.

Grand Trunk Western operated a commuter rail service in from downtown Detroit to Pontiac that was taken over by SEMTA (Southeast Michigan Transit Authority) in the 1970s. That line serviced downtown Detroit, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Pontiac. SEMTA also built the Detroit People Mover, and was planning to build a Detroit subway system but that was ultimately killed by political squabbling. When SEMTA's commuter service shut down in the 1980s it became the SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) bus system that operates the suburban bus network today.

[Crawford]

The SEMTA commuter rail line was also critical bc it linked the traditional executive suburbs to the World HQ for both Chrysler and GM. There were separate train stops for both HQ. Once this link was severed, there was less logic to the two HQ locations, and Chrysler eventually decamped for outer sprawl, and GM moved downtown.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The SEMTA commuter rail line was also critical bc it linked the traditional executive suburbs to the World HQ for both Chrysler and GM. There were separate train stops for both HQ. Once this link was severed, there was less logic to the two HQ locations, and Chrysler eventually decamped for outer sprawl, and GM moved downtown.

Yeah. The Renaissance Center and Detroit People Mover also made less sense when this was terminated. The DPM didn't start service until after the SEMTA rail service was discontinued, but it would have been very useful for circulating commuter rail passengers to other points of downtown.

[Steely Dan]

looking at suburban detroit in 1920, it does seem like the main initial suburban push was north along the woodward corridor up into oakland county.

in 1920 suburban wayne county (not including the enclaved burbs of hamtramck and highland park) had population of 88,853, but only 5,088 of them were over in the pointes.

meanwhile, oakland county in 1920 had a total popualtion of 90,050, with 12,341 of them living in the southeast corner along the woodward corridor (ferndale, royal oak, and birmingham), and pontiac by itself already home to 34,273 people.

it seems as though pontiac, by far the 2nd largest municipality in the 3 county region at the time, acted as a magnet of sorts drawing people up to it along the RR line.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

looking at suburban detroit in 1920, it does seem like the main initial suburban push was north along the woodward corridor up into oakland county.

in 1920 suburban wayne county (not including the enclaved burbs of hamtramck and highland park) had population of 88,853, but only 5,088 of them were over in the pointes.

meanwhile, oakland county in 1920 had a total popualtion of 90,050, with 12,341 of them living in the southeast corner along the woodward corridor (ferndale, royal oak, and birmingham), and pontiac by itself already home to 34,273 people.

it seems as though pontiac, by far the 2nd largest municipality in the 3 county region at the time acted as a magnet of sorts drawing people up to it along the RR line.

Pontiac was a major auto industry hub. It's not really a suburb of Detroit.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Pontiac was a major auto industry hub. It's not really a suburb of Detroit.

i wasn't saying that pontiac itself was a suburb (in the traditonal sense), but that as the anchor at the other end of the woodward corridor, it seems liek it might've drawn metro detroit's first biggest suburban push up that way.

before look into this, i had always assumed that the pointes were detroit's oldest and largest burbs of note in the pre-1920 era, but the woodrward corridor burbs of oakland couny were in fact bigger at the time.




EDIT:

actually, looking into this further, by far the most populated suburban detroit municipalities in 1920 were the downriver towns of River Rouge, Ecorse, and Wyandotte, with a combine dpopulation at the time of 28,067 at the time.

i would've never guessed that those more industrial burbs to the SW of the city were roughly 6x larger that the pointes back then. you learn something new everyday.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i wasn't saying that pontiac itself was a suburb (in the traditonal sense), but that as the anchor at the other end of the woodward corridor, it seems liek it might've drawn metro detroit's first biggest suburban push up that way.

before look into this, i had always assumed that the pointes were detroit's oldest and largest burbs of note in the pre-1920 era, but the woodrward corridor burbs of oakland couny were in fact bigger at the time.

About half of Oakland County's population in 1920 would've probably still been farmers. The rest of the population would have been in the towns along Woodward corridor with stops on the interurban (Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Pontiac, etc). So I think it's true to say that Grosse Pointe was the first (affluent) suburb, at least of those that are still independent suburbs. Detroit moved east before it moved north (see below).

Pontiac likely did play a factor in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham becoming affluent suburbs because of Pontiac's history as an auto hub with strong ties to GM. But Detroit money moved east before it moved north.



source: https://detroitography.com/2013/11/0...by-annexation/

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah. The Renaissance Center and Detroit People Mover also made less sense when this was terminated. The DPM didn't start service until after the SEMTA rail service was discontinued, but it would have been very useful for circulating commuter rail passengers to other points of downtown.

its interesting how this went in detroit vs cleveland. when did the detroit commuter line end service?

you wonder how it would have gone in both cities had the timing been different and these services built or kept intact.




the cleveland commuter train was a legacy service to the suburbs that fizzled away in 1977:

Description

On 6 January 1970, the Erie Lackawanna Railway discontinued its last long-distance passenger trains, leaving only its commuter services in northern New Jersey which are now operated by New Jersey Transit, and a single weekday round trip between Youngstown and Cleveland, Ohio. The EL tried to discontinue this train, too, but was denied permission by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, based on protests by passengers. (When I was in high school in Warren, I had an acquaintance whose father used that train to commute to work in Cleveland, and was active in campaigns to keep it running.)

Most passengers lived in Cleveland’s eastern suburbs, out to Aurora, about a third of the total route mileage. Nevertheless, the train had to run to Youngstown so that the locomotive could be turned around, despite the fact that only a handful of passengers actually rode that far.

When Conrail took over the bankrupt EL in 1976, it closed the EL offices in Cleveland, near Union Terminal. Ridership dropped sharply. It seems that most of the passengers had been EL workers using their complementary railroad passes! The train was reduced from three coaches to one, and when Conrail proposed abandoning it, there was now little or no opposition. The last run was on 14 January 1977.

more:
http://www.jtbell.net/transit/Cleveland/EL/





cleveland also had people mover plans, i think earlier than detroit, but it was eventually shot down. today the refrain for rail transit circuit in downtown is the rather muted, but lingering rally cry to 'close the loop' meaning loop the rapid waterfront line back up around csu and to the prospect subway tunnels route back to tower city. i dk if that will ever happen, maybe someday, but it remains kind of a local rail transit dream:


Transit group wants RTA to study future of Waterfront Line, including possible loop through downtown Cleveland

Published: Dec. 02, 2020
By Courtney Astolfi, cleveland.com


CLEVELAND, Ohio —All Aboard Ohio, a transit advocacy group, is calling on the already cash-strapped Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority to study the future of the Waterfront Line, including the possibility of extending it into a loop around downtown Cleveland.

more:
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/...cleveland.html





and lastly, here is more about the scuttled cleveland people mover plan:


The Downtown People Mover

How Cleveland Returned a $41-Million Federal Grant

By Natalie Neale


more:
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/798

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

EDIT:

actually, looking into this further, by far the most populated suburban detroit municipalities in 1920 were the downriver towns of River Rouge, Ecorse, and Wyandotte, with a combine dpopulation at the time of 28,067 at the time.

i would've never guessed that those more industrial burbs to the SW of the city were roughly 6x larger that the pointes back then. you learn something new everyday.

Yeah, those are/were very urban places. Ecorse and River Rouge are basically extensions of southwest Detroit that were never annexed into the city. They're somewhat similar to Highland Park and Hamtramck, but weren't enclaved.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

its interesting how this went in detroit vs cleveland. when did the detroit commuter line end service?

Detroit's service ended in 1983.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Ecorse and River Rouge are basically extensions of southwest Detroit that were never annexed into the city.

yeah, that can be a tricky aspect of "what is a suburb".

a lot of "inner ring burbs" in 1920 were really more "city neighborhoods that had avoided annexation" more so than what we think of as "suburbs" today.


and that detroit annexation map was really intersting to see. i didn't appreciate the fact that most of the western third oft eh city was annexced after 1920.

in chicago's case, the VAST majority of the city had been "annexed out" by 1900, with some more minor additions afterward here and there, like clearing/garfield ridge in the 1910s, mt. greenwood in the 1920s, and then the big ORD landgrab in the 1950s, though the preponderance of that added sq. mileage remains unpopulated.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

So I think it's true to say that Grosse Pointe was the first (affluent) suburb, at least of those that are still independent suburbs.

but back in 1920, the pointes were significantly smaller than ferndale/royal oak/birmingham.

1920 grosse pointes: 5,088 people
1920 woodward burbs: 12,341 people

before looking into these numnbers, i would've expected the exact opposite back then.

[Docere]

[deleted]

[Docere]

I have a terrible tendency to accidentally start new threads inside of existing threads. The title box throws me off.

[ilcapo]

For Sweden the wealthy side is mostly the side which is towards the ocean. (Stockholm East, Malmo and Gothenburg West).

For the cities built inland with little or no access to water i cant find any clear "favored" or "unfavored" side.