Was the 80s the peak of the suburban era and the nadir of cities in the US?

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

For movies, I actually think Disney got closest to late 1980s NYC as far as vibes go even though it was animated

Manhattan is portrayed as perfectly normal. Regular people on the streets, new construction, lots of obvious wealth, but still an obvious shady and violent element for people who go looking for it in certain neighborhoods.

https://youtu.be/D6YTXjOwSL8

https://youtu.be/tTFVhlpsuiA

They got it right except for the alleys.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

They got it right except for the alleys.

That’s what makes it an authentic fake NYC movie.

Along with their “artistic liberty” movie friend, the Chicago Hot Dog Cart.

[MolsonExport]

The nadir from New York must have been 1976 when Taxi Driver was filmed. One of my all time favorite movies. New York was mightly bleak in the late 70s and early 80s.

Look at how bad things got in the South Bronx:
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then and now:
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[PhillyRising]

Philadelphia lost more people in the 70's, but the city hit rock bottom in 1990 when it almost went into default. It began a very slow turnaround in the 90's and it took a long time to pick up speed. I'm just worried it's crime wave, and yes I know it's a national trend right now, is going to derail 25 years of progress...but he city has a much better footing economically then it did in the 70's and 80's as it was shedding the last of it' 20th Century manufactoring sector that it has been shedding for a few decades.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by craigs

I think the early 1980s were the peak of suburbia and the nadir of urban America; by the end of the decade, however, there was building momentum in some areas of some cities provided by the Yuppies who worked in downtowns and wanted to live in city neighborhoods. This was especially notable at the time in parts of Boston, New York, and San Francisco but it was not limited only to parts of those cities. The big rush back into cities didn't come until a big cohort of Gen X fled the suburbs in the 1990s, but there was already a turnaround in the works by the end of the 1980s.

Yeah, I guess I meant the early 1980s. There was a turnaround in the late 80s, but I would still say that cities had to overcome some obstacles then. New York's highest murder rate was in 1990, even when it was turning around. However, it was probably a Chicago situation in which a few rough neighborhoods were hiking up the numbers.

[TonyTone]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

Philadelphia lost more people in the 70's, but the city hit rock bottom in 1990 when it almost went into default. It began a very slow turnaround in the 90's and it took a long time to pick up speed. I'm just worried it's crime wave, and yes I know it's a national trend right now, is going to derail 25 years of progress...but he city has a much better footing economically then it did in the 70's and 80's as it was shedding the last of it' 20th Century manufactoring sector that it has been shedding for a few decades.

Based on that video of the Bronx in the 70's & 80's above Philly will always rebound if they can from that.

I don't think there is any area in Philly even in the badlands that look as bad as the bronx in that era.

Like you mentioned Philly has a better footing economically now then ever before even with all the b/s going on, if we had even half of NY economic jobs, and etc we wouldnt see a lot of the problems we are seeing today.

[Crawford]

To be fair, most of those South Bronx devastation videos are showing the same few blocks, around Charlotte Street. There was really only one small geography that had the post-apocalyptic look. The Bronx was bad but that area was a massive outlier. If you lived on the Grand Concourse, the main street of the South Bronx, there was never abandonment.

And I'm not sure that films reflect reality so much as a general gestalt. You can see films turn negative towards urbanity in the late 60's, which roughly corresponds with when cities became very troubled, but it's a bit more nuanced than this.

[mrnyc]

yeah the 80s were schizo. as you can clearly see as exemplified from the bx there — the early early 80s were the nadir of cities, a trend that started in the late 60s. however, yeah the yuppie era and the basquiat artsy era led to a revival in interest of cities. definitely a corner was turning by the mid to late 80s for cities.

btw the last bx is burning era lots were almost all redeveloped only within the past five to ten years, with more continuing. thats a long time of steady rebuilding to replace such an epic fail era, but thats how bad it was. like a clearcut forest in a sea of poverty.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

btw the last bx is burning era lots were almost all redeveloped only within the past five to ten years, with more continuing. thats a long time of steady rebuilding to replace such an epic fail era, but thats how bad it was. like a clearcut forest in a sea of poverty.

I first started exploring the South Bronx in the late 90's, and there was no widespread abandonment anymore. There were still scattered vacant lots all over the place, but the really devastated parts had been rebuilt by then. There certainly were no empty apartment blocks or anything; they had long since been renovated or demolished. I think the early 80's were the bottom, and things slowly turned around soon thereafter.

[Wigs]

this movie seems pure cheese today, but when I saw it as a teen in the later 90s it made 80s NY look like a cesspool of crime and debauchery. surreal to the point and corny enough you knew it was fantasy but still made NY seem attractive to most males looking for fun and excitement

I remember pre-Wikipedia trying to scour the internet for more info on the real life Alphabet City
(did everyone or at least all Italian American dudes want a Camaro or I-ROC after this film)

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[Segun]

I don't know if suburbia or the city was at its peak, but the mall was. Some cities prospered, some didn't, some suburbs prospered, some didn't.

Was there such a thing as a declining mall in the 80s? Were there any?

[homebucket]

The Bay Area might be unique in that I don’t think the suburbs have actually peaked yet. The suburbs here seem to be growing and expanding at a faster pace than its core city, SF, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic especially with WFH. The suburbs are busier than ever and downtown SF is still remarkably sleepy. I saw something that said the suburban mall Santana Row has already surpassed its pre-pandemic activity levels. Valley Fair mall is expanding like crazy as well.

There’s currently 19.9 million square feet of vacant office space in SF and it’s continuing to grow as companies are starting to conduct layoffs and/or consolidate office space.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Segun

I don't know if suburbia or the city was at its peak, but the mall was. Some cities prospered, some didn't, some suburbs prospered, some didn't.

Was there such a thing as a declining mall in the 80s? Were there any?

Well I know in Buffalo's example when Walden Galleria opened in 1989 (still the largest and most successful to this day) it seemed amazing and did steal market share from all other older Western NY suburban malls (3 other major malls built between 1971-1985).
Looking back it was probably the height of success for 2 storey malls which have gone out of fashion in a lot of places. They succeeded not just by an excellent central location/close to the airport and Canadian shoppers but in the Aughts in part by building an open air wing featuring a bunch of mostly chain restaurants to stay on trend.

In 2021, Walden Galleria was listed among the top 20 most visited shopping centers in America, attracting over 23 million visitors from the United States and Canada

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The Bay Area might be unique in that I don’t think the suburbs have actually peaked yet. The suburbs here seem to be growing and expanding at a faster pace than its core city, SF, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic especially with WFH. The suburbs are busier than ever and downtown SF is still remarkably sleepy. I saw something that said the suburban mall Santana Row has already surpassed its pre-pandemic activity levels. Valley Fair mall is expanding like crazy as well.

There’s currently 19.9 million square feet of vacant office space in SF and it’s continuing to grow as companies are starting to conduct layoffs and/or consolidate office space.

That's rough for SF. Calgary has had a slowdown since oil&gas went rubbish around 2014 and downtown still has 14M sq feet of vacant office space.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by jd3189

I was just thinking about it a few days ago. It seemed like the 80s was the best time for American suburbs. Shopping malls were en vogue, LA was on its way to eclipse Chicago as the 2nd largest city, and a lot of the major films and TV shows of that era took place in the suburbs. On the other hand, US cities were dealing with white flight, crime, reduced public funding, and gentrification was not as widespread. It wasn't until the 90s that things started to shift toward cities again and a lot of the hallmarks of suburban living back then have had issues since.

What do you guys think? I could be wrong but it kinda makes sense?

The low point was probably about 1965-1980, during and after the urban riots of the 1960s, and high crime and economic stagnation/ inflation of the 1970s. After 1982, as the economy hit bottom, stocks boomed so by the mid to late 1980s things began to move up in the cities. Demographics also helped, as the baby boom generation moved out of the crime prone teens and early 20s. Unfortunately, we seem to be going in the wrong direction, with crime rising again and homelessness out of control. Still, we are below late 1970s level of crime.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The Bay Area might be unique in that I don’t think the suburbs have actually peaked yet. The suburbs here seem to be growing and expanding at a faster pace than its core city, SF, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic especially with WFH. The suburbs are busier than ever and downtown SF is still remarkably sleepy. I saw something that said the suburban mall Santana Row has already surpassed its pre-pandemic activity levels. Valley Fair mall is expanding like crazy as well.

There’s currently 19.9 million square feet of vacant office space in SF and it’s continuing to grow as companies are starting to conduct layoffs and/or consolidate office space.

It will get worse, since Musk says he may layoff 75% of Twitter staff. I bet many office buildings are converted to housing, especially the older ones.

[Comrade]

From 1960 to 1989, Salt Lake lost 29,518 people - or a little over 16% of its entire 1960 population.

The city sucked. Mo one wanted to live in it. There just wasn't a draw, especially for Mormons who had bigger families and wanted bigger homes, so, they moved out to the suburbs.

It's funny because my grandparents lived in the city their entire lives. But all their kids moved out to the suburbs - all but one: my mom. So, we were the only ones who lived in the city (1990s).

[TempleGuy1000]

Bigger cities do have different types of suburbs. For true, inner ring suburbs (think like the 50s dream), I think the peak was somewhere in the 1970s. By the 80s, the cracks had begun as the exburbs and beyond developed. I think of some popular media from the 80s like Back to the Future. The 80s depiction of 'Hill Valley', a fictional LA-area suburb, is somewhat negative especially compared to the 50s depiction and I think there is truth in that.

I do think a lot of exburbs and outer suburbs peaked in growth % in the 1990s. The Toll Brothers in Philadelphia got incredibly wealthy selling people the McMansion lifestyle with even bigger yards and more of auto-centric lifestyle vs. the earlier suburbs.

Originally Posted by TonyTone

Based on that video of the Bronx in the 70's & 80's above Philly will always rebound if they can from that.

I don't think there is any area in Philly even in the badlands that look as bad as the bronx in that era.

It was just as bad. Lower North Philadelphia is nearly unrecognizable at this point (in a good way). You just posted that picture in Poplar the other day. Why do you think all those bizarre single family homes exist? The federal government blew up that area twice in the second half of the 20th century. Once when they built the all the projects and then again when they realized the projects were massive failures.

IMO, the 1970s was the bottom for most, if not all, US cities. Manufacturing economy was going down the toilet. The downtown gentrification had not really begun. Crime was far higher than it is today. Cities infrastructure problems causing blackouts. Labor strikes were more common (the philadelphia school district went on strike 7 times in the 1970s). The local cultural institutions that helped stabilize many urban neighborhoods for generations died a hard death in that era.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Crawford

To be fair, most of those South Bronx devastation videos are showing the same few blocks, around Charlotte Street. There was really only one small geography that had the post-apocalyptic look. The Bronx was bad but that area was a massive outlier. If you lived on the Grand Concourse, the main street of the South Bronx, there was never abandonment.

And I'm not sure that films reflect reality so much as a general gestalt. You can see films turn negative towards urbanity in the late 60's, which roughly corresponds with when cities became very troubled, but it's a bit more nuanced than this.

There is some truth to this, for sure. On the other hand, I recall my visits to NYC in 1985, 1986, 1990, and 1994. The first visit: Times Square was absolutely a miserable place, filled with aggressive hobos, junkies, hookers, and porn theaters. If you arrived early enough, like we did (parking at the Times' building garage), you would see hundreds of people sleeping on the sidewalks. Harlem was a no-go zone. Passing through the Bronx on the subway, you could see burned out cars littering the roads. Swathes of the city were basically abandoned. Alphabet city was a very sketchy part of town. Gentrification was not happening yet (except maybe, ever so slightly, in Greenwich village). There was a garbage collector strike, and the subway trains/stations were absolutely disgusting (every surface completely covered with graffiti/scratchiti, half the people hopping the turnstiles, a fetid stench of pee and mildew everywhere).




NYT

By 1990, Times Square had changed considerably. Harlem was walkable on the main drags, although the neighborhood was in the grips of the worst of the crack epidemic. By 1994, gentrification was spreading North, and East of the commercial areas, spreading into Brooklyn, and even the notorious South Bronx (by then, Charlotte street had bungalows and raised ranch homes....completely incongruous with the rest of the neighborhood, but better than 1945-era Berlin landscape).

[TonyTone]

Originally Posted by TempleGuy1000

Bigger cities do have different types of suburbs. For true, inner ring suburbs (think like the 50s dream), I think the peak was somewhere in the 1970s. By the 80s, the cracks had begun as the exburbs and beyond developed. I think of some popular media from the 80s like Back to the Future. The 80s depiction of 'Hill Valley', a fictional LA-area suburb, is somewhat negative especially compared to the 50s depiction and I think there is truth in that.

I do think a lot of exburbs and outer suburbs peaked in growth % in the 1990s. The Toll Brothers in Philadelphia got incredibly wealthy selling people the McMansion lifestyle with even bigger yards and more of auto-centric lifestyle vs. the earlier suburbs.



It was just as bad. Lower North Philadelphia is nearly unrecognizable at this point (in a good way). You just posted that picture in Poplar the other day. Why do you think all those bizarre single family homes exist? The federal government blew up that area twice in the second half of the 20th century. Once when they built the all the projects and then again when they realized the projects were massive failures.

IMO, the 1970s was the bottom for most, if not all, US cities. Manufacturing economy was going down the toilet. The downtown gentrification had not really begun. Crime was far higher than it is today. Cities infrastructure problems causing blackouts. Labor strikes were more common (the philadelphia school district went on strike 7 times in the 1970s). The local cultural institutions that helped stabilize many urban neighborhoods for generations died a hard death in that era.

Good point, I think "The Blum" is a very good example of how bad it was, that area is just now rebounding after decades of combined efforts to rejuvenate the community, not just rebuild over the old and move new people in.