Big cities are dying. This should shock you.

[wngsprd]

Were you here in the 60's and 70's?

When I was a kid, downtown was bustling with two-way streets, many shops, restaurants, 5 theaters, department stores, etc... Town and Country shopping center in Mishawaka was the big shopping district that wasn't in a downtown. Scottsdale Mall was built, downtown businesses started moving out. They curved Michigan St. around the downtown area, blocked off Michigan St. and made it a pedestrian mall, and made all the streets one-way. It killed downtown.

Urban planners did this to dozens of cities nationwide with taxpayer money. Maybe an example of so-called experts applying test book solutions to situations for which they had no deep understanding.

 

[wngsprd]

Seattle is such a special place. Hope it recovers.

 

[Frankenkubota]

It's so unnatural to live in cities, cramped together with people we have no attachments to. It ain't gonna change. I read years ago the most efficient way to house humans is in cities in massive apt complexes. Truck supplies in, somehow get rid of the waste.

Look at China. My buddy goes there all the time and says there are big empty cities already built, just waiting to be filled with people.
Chinese people i hope.

I guess all cities are screwed up but, The Pacific NW is unique. I could point out some facts that illustrate that but, everyone knows exactly what i'm talking about. If that floats your boat, good on ya.

I am A political, but I can't help but think of the "leaders " in Portland and Seattle and how similar they seem to be to our new cabinet members.

Best Seattle story i got........I Moved to the area from the bible belt and lived there for 7 years. Halloween was coming up and in Seattle there was a big brew ha ha about possibly canceling halloween. Cancelling halloween comes up in the SE on a regular basis. Some of the folks down here think it's anti religion or anti jesus or something. So cancelling halloween was not new to me.

Turns out Seattle schools were going to cancel halloween because the Pagan Witches thought they were being singled out and disrespected. Now I will be the last person to disrespect a Pagan witch but.......

Worst traffic Ive ever seen.

 

[MossRoad]

Your perception and my perception are obviously different

Depends on the perspective I guess. Having lived here my entire life, we were scared driving through Gary, East Chicago or Detroit. I can't think of anywhere on 20 through town that would look anywhere near as bad as those places.

 

[fried1765]

Cities around here are booming, so much so they are running out of development land.
Particularly at the moment there is an extreme housing shortage, new and rental.
Since the main covid scare, thousands of people are moving from NSW and Victoria to Queensland and Northern Territory.
This has put a huge demand on rentals and more than 1000 people are waiting in line in our local city. This has driven rental prices up more than $100 week in some cases. Not sure how folk can afford to rent and cater to family needs but it must not be easy. Both work and one pays the rent and the other basic needs I guess. If they could raise a deposit it is cheaper to buy a new home but at the price of rentals it is impossible to save.
A home might be on offer for $400 per week but people are offering a lot more just to secure a place. Some beautiful farming land disappearing into sub-divisions and still not enough.

Even considering the USD/AUD exchange rate, many US cities have rents at 10X your weekly rate!

 

[DrRod]

While cities are inherently efficient because they shorten travel times, make concentrated resources [like air ports] possible, and cut energy use [apartments use less heat and AC than a free standing house]. But the ultimate value of a city is that it fosters chance interactions among people who just might create something together. Not just a product but restaurants, schools, music, even new ways to view the city.

 

[fried1765]

Seattle is such a special place. Hope it recovers.

It is probably not at the bottom yet!
Maybe 30 years for recovery?

 

[Sigarms]

While cities are inherently efficient because they shorten travel times, make concentrated resources [like air ports] possible, and cut energy use [apartments use less heat and AC than a free standing house]. But the ultimate value of a city is that it fosters chance interactions among people who just might create something together. Not just a product but restaurants, schools, music, even new ways to view the city.

+1

The biggest issues cities face is ironic because it all comes down to a crapload of people in one area

Take a hard working farmer, and if he wanted to improve his life in the city, he could. Take a hard working city person and place them in the country, and if he wanted to improve his life he could.

Both the city and "country" have lazy and hard working people, good people and bad people.

 

[om21braz]

Many think what is happening in these cities is new, history tells us otherwise. Just because we have smart phones and smart cars doesn't make us immune to the same problems from years ago. Gibbon pretty much cited the reasons.

 

[Sigarms]

Meanwhile in Cleveland... (please be forwarned, if a man naked rollerblading on the highway wearing nothing but a panda head mask along with what appears to be golf club, please don't open the link)

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To read about it

Man filmed naked, rollerblading on Ohio highway still a mystery

If the guy was stone sober, in some ways, I have to kind of admire him:laughing: