Atlanta 1950s and now

Let me guess what kind of people predominantly lived in the neighborhoods that were bulldozed.

Blue=Black, Red=White.
- So you have a before version?
Sadly, I don't think there's enough uncertainty to consider it a guess.

Sure the designers of this monstrosity thought, "There are only black people living there, so it's a win-win" -.-

You can thank Robert Moses for that.

The expressway must expand in order to acommodate the increasing needs of the expressway

Am I the only one who finds the 1950s version also not nice from an urban planning perspective? I mean, it is a car-centered design anyway.

Still, do you see how many trees there are? That place must've still looked nice and was certainly transformable into a really nice place without unreasonable effort.

Now, it's basically a wasteland.
- Nah not really, such low population density requires cars to be used. If you think tearing that down would be simple, then yes. But I think that even in Atlanta that would be difficult. The reason why those highways are there is that more people wanted to live in that kind of neighborhood.
- Yea just get rid of the poor people right?
No, the 1950s version (actually more like 1900s; those houses were already decades old at the time they were photographed) was good. It was a traditional street grid with small blocks, and there were streetcars going all over the place. Sure it was mostly single-family (probably with more than a few duplexes sprinkled in), but it had great bones for densifying later when demand justified it.

I live only a few miles from the area pictured, in a neighborhood with the same development pattern. Even though it's been damaged by the removal of the old streetcars and having zoning superimposed upon it after the fact (which causes problems by mandating things like too-large setbacks and minimum parking requirements, as well as outlawing corner stores within residential areas), it's still mostly fine.
That's what I was thinking. Neither solve the problem. The 1950s one just resulted in bigger traffic jams. What solves the problem is robust public transportation.

JUST ONE MORE LAME,I SWEAR TO GOD, JUST ONE MORE LANE AND WE'RE DONE. ONE MOAR LANE. MOAAAAR

A little lane of asphalt please,

More pollution if I freeze,

Running over children these,

A fresh bouquet of cancers.

(Parody of Glass of Water)

“Trains Are Too Expensive And Would Take Years To Build“ - guy who remembers the interstate being built.

"only roads pay for themselves"

Looks like what happens with headphone cables in the pocket.

I've been playing cities skyline and I'll be honest, when my city gets like that I just restart.

And Cities Skylines massively fudges things by treating cars Jetsons-style (take up negligible space when sims get to their destination). If the game accurately modeled parking, it would be way worse (and no longer fun to play, which is why the developers didn't do it).
- Cities Skylines 2 fixes this a little, there're actual parking lots built into businesses and extra parking lots you can build. The scale is still a little funky, but it's more in line with the general scale of the game now.
Now play Workers and Resources?

Nice little neighborhood you got there. Would be a shame if someone needed a new highway, wouldn’t it?

You can take this picture in just about any city in the US too. NYT did a pretty good piece about it, gifted so y'all can read it: Can Removing Highways Fix America’s Cities? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/27/climate/us-cities-highway-removal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.60w.uuX5.Oo4CsHZXGv8Q&smid=nytcore-android-share

Cool illustration, thanks!

How do roads even end up like this? The cloverleaf is as extreme as I'm willing to drive through. If anything like this came up in Google maps for my drive I would just nope on home.

Engineer answer: being a stack interchange, it's actually easier to navigate than a cloverleaf because there's only one exit in each direction instead of separate "A" and "B" exits with an entrance ramp and weaving in between. The complexity in this case simply comes from the fact that it's superimposed on top of what used to be a street grid, so they added a bunch of exits to local streets.

Big-picture answer: the desire to put freeways there in the first place is the product of mental illness.
Just follow the arrows
- Yeah they only seem complicated from the air, on the ground you just read the signs and it's always clear, or if you're using your phone - just go in the lane it tells you

Cities should be built around people, not motor vehicles.

@arc you mean, would we have to really use public transport ? 😟 🤔 @sexy_peach
- Yes, or cycle / walk.

It’s a good thing removing all those homes definitely didn’t cause or contribute to any way more serious problems in society. Right?

/s

Is that a swastika block?

Any block is a swastika block if you ignore the right set of roads.

But that's not the block's fault ;)
Those are the state government offices next to the Capitol building. It's not actually a swastika, but if it can be mistaken for one it's not a great look. 😬

I'm not American so I might not fully understand the repercussions of this. (houses being demolished and stuff)

But I honestly prefer the current version. It seems to have more green spaces. The highways could be shit, but if it meant better public transportation them I'm all for it (buses for instance). Maybe kill a few lanes and get a train going there or something...

I don't know, the old layout seems very claustrophobic to me. The newer one seems to have more potential.

Edit: Upon reviewing the picture again, I think the previous version had a lot of parks that seemed "claustrophobic" but it's just because it's a B&W picture... So maybe I'd change my mind and go with the older one.

they demolished a medium density neighborhood for highways so suburbs can commute in and out of inner city. when you destroy neighborhoods and create "green space", people don't just stop existing. they either get pushed to the suburbs if they can afford it, or (most likely) the ghettos.

and how does highway create public transit?

highway is a mechanism to separate the undesired that cannot afford cars. kill a few lanes and build trains would mean "those people" can reach "our neighborhoods".
I really like donoteat's video for why this is a problem

https://piped.araozu.dev/watch?v=rseaKBPkRPU

It's not about the 'feeling' claustrophobic or not having green areas, it's about the US's obsession with cars and it's consequences in the people
- I haven't checked the video yet (but I 100% will) but that's absolutely how I feel too. I'm from Europe and the big cities are usually easily navigated without a car. Smaller cities maybe not so much BUT, you can still kindof easily walk to ride a bike somewhere.
  
  I'm always surprised when watching American movies that there's not sidewalk if you leave the city centers. That's is absolutely incomprehensible to me lol I can walk from my city to the next 3 or 4 neighboring cities all by walking and using the sidewalk.
I'm not American so I will say that this is still terrible.

If you want to live in green space, move to soviet-era district:
But I honestly prefer the current version. It seems to have more green spaces.

Those "green spaces" are worthless freeway medians that do nothing but attract homeless camps. Here's a street view of some of it -- complete with panhandlers and tents in the background -- so you can see what I'm talking about.

Edit: LOL, nothing like downvoting a local for telling you the truth.
- The homeless don't think those "green spaces" are worthless. Without them, where do you think they go? Just disappear??
- ? I hadn't even read your comment until now.
  
  I don't mind your guy's opinion at all, that was what I wanted to know when I left a comment. I even started by saying that I'm not even a local precisely because I wanted the locals opinions.
  
  You all went out of your way to downvote me though, I'm not even quite sure why.
  
  Also yeah, those underpasses look nasty af.

“What do you mean, why's it got to be built?” he said. “It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses.” Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast.

FYI, unless I'm mistaken, that is spaghetti junction and it's not actually in Atlanta, but just northeast of it in Doraville

Edit: I was severely mistaken...

Sadly, that’s the intersection of I-75/85 and I-20, right in the middle of downtown ATL. Here’s a more recent picture showing some more context.

Also, here’s an article talking about the history of I-20 being built through Atlanta: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/program/divided-by-design/atlanta-ga/
- Also, here’s an article talking about the history of I-20 being built through Atlanta: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/program/divided-by-design/atlanta-ga/
  
  There are still some chucklefucks who want to build I-485 (tunneling under the rich white neighborhoods north of I-20 and bulldozing straight through the poorer and blacker ones south of it, of course).
As another said, that's not spaghetti junction (Tom Moreland interchange), but frankly people get pretty fast and loose with how much of the surrounding area they'll call 'Atlanta' anyway. The actual city of Atlanta proper is much smaller than most people would think by just looking at a satellite photo, and the distinction between the many cities usually doesn't matter much unless you live there.
when people say Atlanta to people that don't live in the surrounding area they really mean the greater metro Atlanta area.
- People from Atlanta really love to gatekeep the city, though. You live ITP? You live in Atlanta. OTP? You live in some redneck shithole whose name isn't worth remembering.

Zoom out slightly.

Always wondered why Atlanta is pronounced "Atlana"

https://www.insider.com/city-names-you-didnt-know-you-were-pronouncing-wrong-2019-10#schenectady-new-york-7
- I guess it's good to know I don't pronounce most of those incorrectly.