What cities came out of urban renewal least damaged? (planner, architect, projects)
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That's a surprising statement. Have you ever been to the Bronx, or East Harlem? A good portion of the LES was bulldozed to put in all those ugly, brown high rises that border the East River. In my mind, replacing tenements with housing projects was the height of folly. Just look at rehabbed "slums" where the old housing has been restored and is now considered beautiful and historic. Because NYC has the most housing projects in the nation, I would say it has been the most negatively affected by urban renewal, not y the least. Think of what was lost to build those high rise slums. It was a cheap attempt at social engineering that didn't work.
That's kind of what I was thinking - there are a lot of those mid-century tower-in-the-park type developments scattered throughout NYC. It might have the most overall urban renewal of any city but that probably is because it is huge - as a percentage it's not much of the "urban" part of NYC that was damaged. Versus somewhere like Los Angeles that bulldozed a San Francisco-like neighborhood, one of the most traditionally urban parts of the city to create the urban renewal projects on Bunker Hill. The neighborhood does provide some great amenities so I wouldn't say it was a total loss, but proportionally took away more from Los Angeles.
I guess I lump expressway projects in when I hear "urban renewal." Was thinking of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
In this thread, I was thinking of neighborhood in or near the city center. But yea, the expressway was rather disruptive but I imagine the decline of the South Bronx would happened with or without the expressway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eddyline
Both sides of Manhattan are cut off from the river fronts by expressways.
I've heard Robert Moses called an urban terrorist for all the damage he did to the city.
The expressways (though the west side one is just a boulvard south of 59th street) didn't really destory much of anything; there wasn't much there adjacent to the river except industry. Even today, in say Midtown, the west side by the river is rather dead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TOkidd
That's a surprising statement. Have you ever been to the Bronx, or East Harlem? A good portion of the LES was bulldozed to put in all those ugly, brown high rises that border the East River. In my mind, replacing tenements with housing projects was the height of folly. Just look at rehabbed "slums" where the old housing has been restored and is now considered beautiful and historic. Because NYC has the most housing projects in the nation, I would say it has been the most negatively affected by urban renewal, not the least. Think of what was lost to build those high rise slums. It was a cheap attempt at social engineering that didn't work.
Most of the Lower East Side was not bulldozed, it was mostly along the East River. In earlier decades, those projects weren't much worse than the adjacent tenements. When some tenements lied abandonded and looked like this there were more pressing issues:
Worries about damage from urban renewal are a bit irrelevant when the non-urban renewal housing stock is falling apart. Of course, now the old tenements command high rents but the time not so much. As for The Bronx and East Harlem, in the most decayed neighborhoods, the projects were most intact housing stock.
In this thread, I was thinking of neighborhood in or near the city center. But yea, the expressway was rather disruptive but I imagine the decline of the South Bronx would happened with or without the expressway.
The expressways (though the west side one is just a boulvard south of 59th street) didn't really destory much of anything; there wasn't much there adjacent to the river except industry. Even today, in say Midtown, the west side by the river is rather dead.
Most of the Lower East Side was not bulldozed, it was mostly along the East River. In earlier decades, those projects weren't much worse than the adjacent tenements. When some tenements lied abandonded and looked like this there were more pressing issues:
Worries about damage from urban renewal are a bit irrelevant when the non-urban renewal housing stock is falling apart. Of course, now the old tenements command high rents but the time not so much. As for The Bronx and East Harlem, in the most decayed neighborhoods, the projects were most intact housing stock.
Robert Moses called the west village one of the worst slums in all the United States when he was trying to bulldoze it for a freeway. Falling apart housing stock yesterday becomes the some of the most sought after real estate in the United States today...but not when "urban renewal" has taken hold, then it's gone forever
LA had Bunker Hill, an upscale Victorian neighborhood, razed. Many structures were torn for highways and parking lots. Then LA lost the streetcars... It would be fascinating to see what LA would've looked like with say a half-century of development before "car culture" took full swing.
SF was planned to have freeways branch through the city by tearing down countless buildings, but luckily enough protesting stopped that horrific plan from ever happening.
LA had Bunker Hill, an upscale Victorian neighborhood, razed. Many structures were torn for highways and parking lots. Then LA lost the streetcars... It would be fascinating to see what LA would've looked like with say a half-century of development before "car culture" took full swing.
SF was planned to have freeways branch through the city by tearing down countless buildings, but luckily enough protesting stopped that horrific plan from ever happening.
LA also lost some funiculars, I think, and had a lot of road widening done (along with the destruction of many buildings to go with it).
SF seems pretty intact as does NYC (well, compared to its massive size). I think Portland was left pretty alright and then there's the usual short list of Boston, Philly and DC to add. What other major US cities made it with a lot of their old neighborhoods intact and not bulldozed over with fairly little destroyed for parking lots?
Oycrumbler posted this in his thread that was redundant....
Boston actually got pretty hard-hit by urban renewal, the West End is completely different and actually quite similar to LA's Bunker Hill in magnitude of loss. Government Center is another example (used to be Scollay Square and Boston's "red light district").
Portland Maine and maybe Bethlehem PA didn't seem too gutted by urban renewal, based on my brief visits. Their downtowns are not surrounded by a swath of UR low-densitiy/instutional no-mans-land the way some cities are here in the Midwest, and retain a lot of density and connection to surrounding neighborhoods.
I'm thinking Scranton, PA...maybe...but I think that city got its renewal later, so what went in downtown was more infill-oriented.
Read Jane Jacobs - pretty famous battle between her and Robert Moses
Yeah, but urban not-renewal was even more damaging to Jane Jacobs' conception of NYC than urban-renewal was. Think Greenwhich Village. Completely destroyed as far as Jane Jacobs line or reasoning goes. Median income of around $100,000, lucky to get into a studio where you can practically touch all four walls for $2,000/month, white as NYC gets. Find me a Rober Moses slum clearance that did as good a job of slum clearance as Jane Jacobs and I'll eat a hat.
San Francisco's slum clearance is a bit different. You have some neighborhoods that were destroyed (Fillmore) explicitly in slum clearance, but for the most part you just didn't have any because the majority of the city was destroyed in the 1906 quake. So while you had plans pre-1906 to do slum clearance in the Civic Center neighborhood, it really wasn't slum clearance that cleared the slums. Depending on how you look at it, San Francisco was definitely either the most "destroyed" by slum clearance or the least "destroyed." I actually prefer the term changed. "Destroyed" is subjective. Is Stuytown an example of destroyed? How about Gaslamp in San Diego? Opposite approaches to renewal, neither of which I would apply "destroyed" to, but that's subject to interpretation. How about Seattle? Is Denny Regrade, now Belltown, destroyed? I mean, literally, it was completely destroyed.
In 1963 there was support to tear down the Pike Place Market and repace it with a hotel , Hockey Arena, and apartments it was supported by the mayor . But luckly it never happened Pike Place Market is the heart and soul of downtown Seattle.
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