American Urban Sprawl Is Worse Than You Think

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#urbandesign #urbanism #architecture #history #usa #cities #shreveport #lawton #fayetteville #sprawl

[Matty]

we all have to stop calling it urban sprawl when its suburban sprawl
real urban sprawl is just city building more city

[cantorsteve]

I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but, wanting to live in an actual city, I moved to the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1972, where I've been ever since. That was when people were leaving NY for the suburbs, so rents were high, but not ridiculous. What I did is not economically possible for most people now, so city living is sadly beyond the reach of most Americans. It's heartening that young people like yourself are raising awareness to reverse the situation. I wish you luck, but, sorry, I don't see a lot of hope.

[luenriqu]

I am from Mexico and unfortunately we have followed the same US urban sprawl patern. Even people in big cities feel proud of how Americanized We have become...😢. Mexico's downtown areas are the only walkable places in the country...because those areas date back from our Spanish colonial past. These areas are now seen as touristic places or as blue collar neighorhoods. And in my opinion the cultural heritage and colonial architecture is mind blowing.. but Mexican white collas prefer to live in gated communities with no walkable streets and cero interaction with the rest of the people. I did live in Europe and seriously when I came back to Mexico I realized how depressing our urban areas have become. Mexicans see US urbanism as a progressive patern... this is so sad.

[NorthPoleSun]

Growing up in NYC, going to these places was a shock for me. You have to drive everywhere but at the same time there was nowhere to really go. It was so boring to drive in these areas. Going to the supermarket meant crossing multiple 8 lane roads lol. What a joke

[dariuspk]

I grew up in Europe and walked to my schools from kindergarten to third grade, always on little adventures. Moved to Lawton (military) from 4th grade to 7th and i lived in a suburb outside of the main area. It was decent living but I started to wonder why I couldn’t walk to my friends houses even though we all went to the same school. Started looking at google maps a lot and made go down a rabbit hole of how weird American cities are. It was bizarre going from a walkable European village to Lawton.

Also, I went back to lawton recently for the first time in over a decade, and it’s gotten worse. Sprawl kept growing and old hangout spots like the downtown mall are a ghost town. Sprawl is killing the city

Edit: I was born in for Fayetteville 💀💀💀

[ohhgodineedmoore]

Whats more ironic are residents in these sprawls want that small town charm will vote against changes that would bring said charm

[himbourbanist]

Lawton is shocking. I went to Fort Sill for Army Basic Training and I remember being floored by how Lawton is basically just a mall with a base attached

[markmartindale]

This is not Urban Sprawl, it is SUBURBAN Sprawl.

[matthewconstantine]

I think about this in relation to my hometown of Bangor, Maine. It's population has never been large, though it's the third largest in the state. I think it peaked in the 1960s, at just shy of 40, 000 people. That's when there was a moderately sizable military base there (Airforce, I think). The population has been in the low 30, 000s ever since. Anyway. Once upon a time, it had a thriving downtown area. But folks got caught up in post-War urban renewal. They did the usual of having the interstate cut through town, destroying some working class neighborhoods. But they also tore down a big chunk of the downtown area, including a gorgeous train station, to put in parking lots. They then proceeded to drive most of the business (and thus, jobs) to the outskirts of town, where you needed to drive in order to shop or work (and of course they needed yet more parking). They turned a bunch of farmland on the eastern side of town into the Bangor Mall and its massive parking lot, and then over the next 40+ years, built up the rest of that area with big box stores, fast food joints, strip malls, and "business centers" (strip malls for lawyers & dentists).
In the meantime, housing stocks shrank as the town bought up and raised whole neighborhoods, new housing is almost non-existent, and prices are absolutely nuts.
You could not pay me to move back for a thousand reasons. But I'd also never be able to afford it. I live in DC now, and there are apartments in Bangor renting for the same price as some I find here. And I can get work and not have to own a car here. Two things that wouldn't be true in Bangor. Not to mention the airports, passenger trains, and general stuff to do that I have access to, without driving four hours to Boston. There's an insane amount of space in downtown Bangor that could be upzoned to have business on the ground floor and housing above. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say you could probably put in a thousand or more apartments without breaking a sweat. And the land the now nearly defunct Bangor Mall sits on is the same size as a "lifestyle center" I used to frequent in northern VA that had dozens of businesses and over five hundred apartments. And you know, actually generates tax revenue for the city, unlike vast seas of parking. But the town council did all the same kinds of restrictive zoning that was all the rage in the mid-20th Century. And now, the ancient NYMBY population is too scared of outsiders and change to actually try anything new while the city continues to rot. It's depressing as hell. And it seems to be a story repeated countless times across the country.

[vivalaleta]

Long ago, my older sister and I took spray paint and wrote "STOP URBAN SPRAWL" in big letters on the new asphalt road of a planned build between Auburn and Roseville, CA.

[davidwayne]

Soulless Urban Sprawl is devastating. Have you done a video on Las Vegas yet? It's just shopping, gambling, and sex work. Talk about soulless.

[roth]

3:30 has to be the most abysmal before and after of "urban renewal" I have ever seen.
That entire city's historic downtown cleared for a mall and parking lots....

[ericwright]

0:40 I think it's important to frame this in terms of efficiency, conservation, waste, etc. Most Americans incorrectly think their suburb is "already full", mostly due to traffic congestion and complete absence of a public realm. Instead of saying Istanbul had double the population in 1/4 the area (which most Americans will balk at), say, "Istanbul supports double the population, while wasting 75% less space, conserving 10x more wilderness".

I also think it's key to emphasize how using up more land for fewer people is wasteful and fiscally unsustainable. Or that it leads to increased property taxes. Something that will resonate with people's typical experience of life rather than a walkable urban life that almost no Americans have any understanding of.

Most Americans don't want their city to be compared to "some dirty old crowded European city". It's very difficult to compare without putting people on the defensive.

[ShowLSWH]

DFW is so funny. It’s filled with “small government, freedom loving patriots” who think spending hundreds of billions of dollars on highways is just the good old free market at work and scream and cry at zoning meetings when there’s an effort to build a shop near a residential area or allow townhomes or smaller houses in their neighbourhoods.

[bioliv]

At the international Walk21 conference this week in Vancouver, British Columbia, an eminent authority on streets boiled the walkability of cities down to the number of street intersections per square mile.

Venice has 1, 725 intersections per square mile. “It’s very complex, it’s very messy, and people walk, ” said Allan Jacobs, urban design consultant, former San Francisco planning director, and author of Great Streets.

Brasilia, near the opposite end of the spectrum, “has 92 intersections, and you don’t walk there, ” The Vancouver Sun reported Jacobs as saying. “Irvine, California is the classic automobile city. It has just 15 intersections, the lowest I’ve ever counted.”

Other places that are good for pedestrians, Jacobs said, include the Market Street area of San Francisco (300 intersections per square mile), Tokyo (988), Savannah, Georgia (538), Portland, Oregon (341), and Paris (281).

The most complex and messy stret patterns provide the most walkable and enjoyable experiences for both visitors and residents, according to Jacobs.”

– ‘Messy’ street patterns boost walking

[mrcaucasian]

You should talk about San Bernardino, CA, its a city I live pretty close to and I am pretty sure it has the highest percentage of land taken up by parking lots in the entire country. I believe around 50% of the city is taken up by parking lots which is absolutely insane, whenever I drive through it all I see is asphalt wasteland 😭

[bioliv]

This channel needs to grow just as big as "Not Just Bikes"!

[DerekGray.]

It's genuinely hurt to see urbanization destroy beautiful blocks and neighborhoods.

[brucekrause]

Growing up in Chicago, as kids we'd leave Saturday morning, with our moms' instruction to be home for dinner, and wander around everywhere, construction sites, factories, pick up games, movie. I never liked the suburbs, at 74 I still have no car

[theperfectpeanutbutterjell]

As a resident of southwest florida (very decentralized place), this place luckily isnt as bad when it comes to hollowing out of the urban cores, and even has some plans for infill in fort myers and north fort myers, but it does have a pretty unique and incredibly wasteful form of sprawl along side the typical atomized floridian developments. There are some good articles from strong towns about it if you want to read a bit.