tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post305858412478465002..comments2024-02-01T04:37:41.878-05:00Comments on Cap'n Transit Rides Again: They can't go back to OhioCap'n Transithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17057887736728828646noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-18942141652782391362015-04-22T03:35:58.859-04:002015-04-22T03:35:58.859-04:00Hi. Philadelphia here. We can take about half a ...Hi. Philadelphia here. We can take about half a million before we start getting toxic, but there's only one of us.CComMackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12550551241647726298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-59529095219889217322015-04-17T09:13:30.289-04:002015-04-17T09:13:30.289-04:00I went back to Ohio... but my city was gone!
Yeah...I went back to Ohio... but my city was gone!<br /><br />Yeah.... amazing that that song is from 1984. Cities like poor old Akron are even more gone now.<br /><br />At least Chicago survived and is recovering. The only real city left between the east and west coasts...<br /><br />(Denver's trying to become a real city, but it's got an immense amount of sprawl to overcome.)<br /><br />There aren't any real <br />(non-car-dependent) cities south of DC, either. neroden@gmailhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07475686367097445497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-13599410913911063932015-04-08T15:25:24.375-04:002015-04-08T15:25:24.375-04:00Among other great transplants are Miles Davis, Les...Among other great transplants are Miles Davis, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Zora Neale Hurston, Alfred Stieglitz, Andy Warhol, and Jackson Pollack. Adrianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08649760273829165071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-51307628573535230482015-04-08T09:55:30.525-04:002015-04-08T09:55:30.525-04:00Good piece that pretty much hits the nail on the h...Good piece that pretty much hits the nail on the head, and pretty much is in line with what I'd been suggesting, elsewhere, all along. So many of our once great American cities (e.g. Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, the list goes on and on) have been hollowed out, are mere lifeless shells of what they once had been, full of not much besides a lot of depressing parking craters, and surrounded by lots of far flung, unwalkable, car dependent 'burbs. <br /><br />The growing number of people who want to NOT own a car and who want to live in walkable, mixed use communities with good public transit have very few options outside of a few big, mostly coastal cities (all the usual suspects: NYC, Boston, SF, DC, Portland, etc). It's simple supply & demand. And places like NYC will never be able to meet the all the demand. Obviously the once great cities of the Heartland have to be made once again viable.capt subwayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11238954255206457928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-70853299757403920182015-04-07T17:54:01.918-04:002015-04-07T17:54:01.918-04:00Whatever you might say about highway bypasses, 3si...Whatever you might say about highway bypasses, 3sigma, they're not "excellent features." In fact, I think they're horrible. They've destroyed a lot of towns here in the US, and if they haven't done that in Europe it's because there are lots of factors compensating for them.<br /><br />If there are goods or people that we really can't have on our main streets, then they should be <a href="http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2012/04/right-way-to-connect-roads-and-streets.html" rel="nofollow">on the rails</a>. That's the way to do bypasses.Cap'n Transithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17057887736728828646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-22487205886905472672015-04-07T01:13:29.543-04:002015-04-07T01:13:29.543-04:00It would also be nice to replace the dead industri...It would also be nice to replace the dead industrial zones that surround downtown cores of many cities with mixed zoning high density residential areas to remove the separation of downtowns from the rest of the communities.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148443796474857605noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-57304374187641167522015-04-06T21:31:23.661-04:002015-04-06T21:31:23.661-04:00The elephant in the room is nostalgia, a poison th...The elephant in the room is nostalgia, a poison that concentrates in the brain with time and distance. People really got shot back in the 80s, and whinging about the conceptual violence of the latest generation moving to the city is nothing less than the fugu poisoning of someone pining for the good old days of golden memory.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08126713655693985933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-73612159227502411562015-04-06T20:16:17.125-04:002015-04-06T20:16:17.125-04:00Second comment: I've followed Vanishing New Yo...Second comment: I've followed Vanishing New York's blog for a while. I think Jeremiah Moss proposes a flawed argument: that somehow the New York he grew fond of, that being the one of the 1980s, is the "real" one who ought to be frozen on time. Reading his texts, he often passes as bitter, condescending and hypocritically dismissive of other people's lifestyles, even as they accuse these same other people of being oblivious to the cultural tenets he particularly likes or longs for. <br /><br />3sigmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13369072260705843916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-88471908208324391612015-04-06T20:12:22.556-04:002015-04-06T20:12:22.556-04:00First, I'll pick up on one specific suggestion...First, I'll pick up on one specific suggestion you made: highway bypasses are excellent features to have when they are accompanied by a conversion of the city streets/avenues that served the route into something pedestrian-friendly. That is how European cities often did and do it regarding through traffic. You ought to want grade-separated bypasses that take traffic out of regular streets.<br /><br />As for the main issue, I think there is more than urban form at play. The modern service-based economy on the one's hand is less reliant on physical production assets like factories; on the other hand relies a lot on soft agglomeration effects like Silicon Valley. <br /><br />If you want a job in high finance, or marketing, New York offers unmatched opportunities. Many top employers in law and consulting are also located in New York. A handful of US metros (from Los Angeles to Boston) concentrate a lot of these business of this service-based post-modern economy.<br /><br />So I think many people might not actually particularly like living in New York, but they put up with it because there is why their high-paying jobs are.3sigmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13369072260705843916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-45717146929745721592015-04-06T13:37:51.897-04:002015-04-06T13:37:51.897-04:00Thanks for writing this. I was just talking about ...Thanks for writing this. I was just talking about that article in the New York Times yesterday. I was raised in an "exurban" area, moved to Chicago after university, and am now in Vancouver, Canada getting a Master's degree. I can't wait to leave. Vancouver is a terribly boring city if you're not into nature and hiking, and are into architecture and more vibrant urban areas.<br /><br />A lot of new developments in Vancouver feature chain stores that Moss laments. I really don't like it, but I am conflicted. It depends on what your priorities are. If they are to be more environmentally friendly, then you'll welcome people into the city where they can live without a car and do their shopping at the stores they're used to. <br /><br />Whenever I read the tangents of people like Moss, I wonder if people like him are being as selfish as the "yunnies" for wanting to keep the city the way HE likes it. At this stage in our history, I think it's critical that we have more people living in cities where their environmental footprint is lower, even if that means shopping at chain stores (and far and few between are local businesses who produce local wares. A small hardware store is going to be selling the same stuff as Home Depot). You can go to cities around the world and find chain stores in varying sizes. Paris is still Paris, even with Carrefour City, a micro-version of the massive Carrefour grocery stores found at suburban shopping centres.<br /><br />There's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on in my mind on this subject... Thanks for sharing your thoughts!Shaunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01223411132455968503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-53214544766803542272015-04-06T12:18:37.636-04:002015-04-06T12:18:37.636-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-57143454247679683822015-04-06T09:50:41.183-04:002015-04-06T09:50:41.183-04:00The fact that so many old-timers seem intent on pr...The fact that so many old-timers seem intent on preserving the ultimate in suburban-style living - cheap and easy access to automobiles - seems lost on Moss. Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01349855140934939665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-64170512083213336282015-04-06T08:33:00.215-04:002015-04-06T08:33:00.215-04:00kids get off my lawnkids get off my lawnAtrioshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08805645910734740132noreply@blogger.com