Why America Destroyed its Cities

[tufsu1]

I found this article to be very interesting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-gruber/why-did-america-destroy-i_b_916438.html

[north miami]

......is the answer "The Public"?  tell us Stephen!

[thelakelander]

Stephen, your three points would fit into this one general point in the quoted article:

A failure in politics, ideology or management. This would be the thesis of critics of modernism, in everything from urban design to management, encompassing the arguments in favor of urban renewal from architects like Le Corbusier or José Luis Sert, to the rise of technocracy in place of traditional politics based on patronage.

[JeffreyS]

I also don't think you can underestimate the sales job done by the developers of suburbia.  They convinced this populace that was how you keep up with the Jones-es.

[peestandingup]

I also don't think you can underestimate the sales job done by the developers of suburbia.  They convinced this populace that was how you keep up with the Jones-es.

This. There was heavy propaganda going on in those times from TV & radio. That wasn't the sole reason of course, but a piece of the puzzle. Looking back on those old news reels is pretty funny (and sad too). It's so blatant.

Developers, car companies, etc knew they could only profit so much from the already-developped cities. So what to do?? Why, convince people to move out to big spreads in the 'burbs, rip up any viable public transit & have everyone drive in of course! And give it a nice patriotic ring like "The American Dream". Booyah! $$$

Well, that dream turned out to be a con-job of epic proportions. Its actually a big reason why we're in such deep doodoo right now.

[BridgeTroll]

How sinister... those evil developers and greedy corporations...

I think you have it exactly opposite.  The folks did not want to live in the city.  They wanted their own house... their own yard... their own car.  They wanted to drive themselves... not take the bus or the subway.  They did not want to live in a crowded, smelly, polluted city.  Apartments were something you tolerated until you could buy a house.  Developers simply provided what the people wanted.

You mention the propaganda (advertising) of the times as "sad".  Do you really think the ads that influence you today are much different?  If anything... the folks then were much more skeptical of "propaganda than the populace of today...

[BridgeTroll]

Just like it is incorrect to blame corporations and developers... It is pretty tough to lay it all on the planners.  The planners were planning in accordance to the peoples wants.  The people wanted suburbia... and rather than some haphazard and truly poor developments... they planned suburbia.  Planners may have been enablers... just like developers and corporations... but they were only reacting to what the consumer wanted.

[JeffreyS]

Would be nice if the world were that simplistic BT. People want it then the product or service comes into being is not the normal order of operations.

You may want a coke and that is why the store stocks them.  The truth is when it was created people were coerced (marketed) into trying it and the brand has to constantly advertise to maintain it's perceived value to the consumer.  Not evil developers just marketing what they can sell.   If you haven't looked into it sometimes it can be hard to relate to how much advertising affects us.  I can tell you I sell lots of branded products and the ones that are currently doing an advertising campaign must be heavily stocked.

Do not be naive about the developers only make what people want and need. Often product develpopers try to get people to want what they can make.

I had neighbor long ago who designed a machine that could remove clean and replace the gravel on the top of buildings that used that type of roof. The tar on the roof was easy to patch while the gravel was gone.  This was much cheaper for the customer than the traditional method of removing the tar gravel and all and replacing it.  He did well running a business with this.  Enter a national commercial roofing company who paid him an OK price up front and gave him great royalties for future us on his product.  He had it made except for the corporation mothballed the cleaner to keep it's more profitable replacement service going.

There have even been instances of Bus companies buying streetcar lines and scrapping them to sell buses.

Supply and Demand are not the only forces at work in a market.

[Lunican]

This video is a good example of planners dreams from the 1950s. At 2:40 they start talking about the advantages of spreading cities out.

"The shape of our cities will change as expanded highway transportation decentralizes our population centers into vast urban areas. With the advent of wider, faster expressways; the commuters radius will be extended many miles."

http://www.youtube.com/v/F6pUMlPBMQA?version=3&hl=en_US

[thelakelander]

I believe that what you are seeing in our downtown and urban areas is the predictable outcome of how we designed our policies and our codes.  All of the cities started deteriorating by mid century.  We are just 20 years further into the process than most.

I don't think we're 20 years further into the process.  Instead, we're 20 years behind the process.  A significant chunk of our peer cities have realized this type of growth is unsustainable and have modified their policies to encourage revitalization in their core areas.  For example, San Diego and Portland modified their land use policies as far back as the 1980s.  Lexington, KY doesn't have much sprawl because they have an urban growth boundary.  Today, because of that decision decades ago, there's ton of agricultural and rural areas a few miles from the heart of the city.  The City of Golden, CO (a Denver suburb) is funding a study to show a toll beltway planned for that area would be a money loser (http://www.gothebetterway.org/).  Over the years ,other cities like Milwaukee have taken elevated expressways done and replaced them with parks and other development. 

Here, not only does our TPO and JTA want an Outer Beltway at any expense, behind closed doors some actually want this boondoggle extended north to Nassau County as well.  Needless to say, it's no suprise why our urban core didn't see similar economic gains that many of our peer cities enjoyed over the last decade.   Its because they've recognized what bad growth is and have implemented policies to slow it down and we haven't (the mobility plan should change this).  In short, they're now decades of ahead of us and the gulf is growing.

[FrankGruber]

Hello, this is Frank Gruber -- somehow the Facebook page for this site found the Facebook page for my book, and sent the link. I'm quite gratified that my article sparked this excellent discussion. Thanks. I might try to respond more substantively later, but I just returned from vacation and I have a lot of work to do! The only thing I'd say now is that nothing is inevitable when it comes to patterns of growth.

[thelakelander]

apples and oranges in the context of the governing process.  During the 90s and 2ks lmost all the other cities have embraced partial elements of the new urbanism ethos and begun the process of reversing the sprawl mandate of early planning.

We started with the city destroying demassification programs 20 years before anyone else, and so had more damage to repair by the time the mid 90s rolled around and the other cities began the process of rational design, following Seattle and Portland's citizen based community planning boards.

I'd say its apples to apples and to a degree, we're saying the same thing.  I just happen to believe that Jacksonville's plight is not unique, other than the fact that the governing tide began to change a decade or two ago and we're still struggling to keep the same old bad policies alive.  There was a reason I felt that Jax was 10 years behind everyone else when I moved here in 2003 and I'd argue to say that gulf has grown since then.

Historicially, from my studies, my position is what happened here during the mid 20th century is no different from the majority of American cities.  Massive demolition in DT and freeway construction in DT Jax didn't really take off till the 1950s.  The majority of American cities had followed suit within the same decade and certainly by the early 1960s.  The 1970s and 80s were a mess for everyone and several cities did more or just as much destruction as we did.   A few that come to mind are Tampa, Tuscon and Charlotte.  Some others also got hit economically by being one horse towns (ex. Detroit, Buffalo, Youngstown, etc.) with nothing to fall back on when the horse died or picked up and moved.   Another set was so far in the economic dump, they didn't have the capital to launch major urban renewal projects, which luckily ended up in the wide scale preservation of their historic building fabric (ex. Savannah, Charleston, etc.).

However, many cities began to change what we continue to do in the 1980s/90s (a period, I'd argue was the worst for Jax's urban core).  For example, in the 1990s Charlotte started implementing policies to change their course (they were just as bad as us for decades).  While they were opening their first streetcar line, we were busy taking out LaVilla.  A decade later when they were opening their new LRT line, we were busy wiping out Brooklyn to expand Riverside Avenue.

Now they are seeking to implement a modern streetcar system and we're working to stop urban innovation and creativity from happening (anyone try to operate a mobile food truck business, open an urban farm or paint a mural on a building wall these days?).

If we had taken the same path as Charlotte and Salt Lake City did in the 1990s, I'd say we'd be further ahead of where they stand right now, even with our large number of demolitions between the 1950s and 80s.  Now it's not a suprise that we're so far behind both of them when we were essentially equals 20 years ago and on a separate tier 50 years ago.

[thelakelander]

Btw, here is a before and after comparison of Uptown Charlotte:



Uptown Charlotte a year or two ago:



Btw, take a look at how the LRT line integrates with buildings at each stop.....

[thelakelander]

Several of the highrises are mixed use, residential and hotels.  However, they also have a good chunk of office space.  I'll have to go back and verify but Uptown's vacancy rates are better than DT Jacksonville's.

[thelakelander]

The rebuff in the early 20's would not be in vain, as some communities did benefit by this effort to establish in law, planning and zoning authority. For instance, the City of Orlando successfully operated under a special act that was passed in the 1923 session of the Florida Legislature giving the community the official, legal authorization to establish a Zoning Commission. Immediately thereafter, Orlando engaged a planning consultant to prepare their first master plan. Once completed, Orlando put into effect their plan by means of a comprehensive zoning and map. The City of Coral Gables was soon to follow under its own special act passed by the Florida legislature in 1925. A number of Florida municipalities and counties (e.g., City of Miami and Miami beach) also have special acts dating back to the 1920's and 30's.

All three of those South Florida cities have fared pretty well.  Coral Gables is beautiful, Miami Beach is one of the densest historically preserved cities in the US and Miami is no slouch when it comes to urban density either (although walkability could certainly be improved).

You are correct in identifying the 50s as the era where wholesale destruction became obvious.

The Feds were pouring money into the GI Bill, and after all those military funded kids graduated from college, they all got GI bill loans to build houses in tract housing developments whose highway access was made possible by work projects care of the federal government.

Don't forget that Dwight Eisenhower (I Like Ike!)  is the man who began the construction of the Interstate Highway system.

This is when the ideas of the City Planners basically got federally funded, and it was like hooking them up to steroids.

I guess this is the point I was trying to make when it comes to wholesale destruction.  Yes, local planning may have started here in the 1920s but massive destruction didn't take place until federal dollars became available.  During this period (40s-70s), the majority of American cities were negatively impacted at the same time by urban redevelopment schemes, expressway construction, planning based on racial separation, etc.  Heading into the 1980s, I don't think urban Jax was any worse off than any other urban core in America.  Unfortunately, things may appear that way today because we have not followed the urban reinvestment trend that many places have over the past two decades.