Hilariously sassy commenting this episode. I love it and I love your passion for city planning for HUMANS! "If the traffic noise is too much, you can just crawl down into a hole, a shopping underpass, because having busy pedestrian streets with shops would spook the cars too much, and we can't have that" 😁
The most heart breaking episode of them all. This really made me appreciate my native city of Rome much more, as all in all it has been mostly spared by the brutality of car-dependent infrastructures
Well Rome started bulldozing its center for grand road projects already decades earlier. The Via dei Fori Imperiali did far more damage to architecture history and urbanism, and not just Rome's, than any of the other projects. The Via della Conciliazione completely destroyed the original vision of Bernini, who designed St. Peter's square to exactly be the large open counterpoint (the catharsis) to the dense streets (tension) between it and the Castel D'angelo. The Corso d'Italia is also literally Rome's equivalent of Prague's Magistrála. It was absolutely not spared unfortunately.
@@serebii666 indeed it was not spared, but even those aren't comparable to what has been done in many other European cities later on. Hopefully such mistakes will never happen again
@@lucaventinove3151 I would argue they are comparable, or potentially worse, since unlike the other projects, that generally followed at most the edge of their old towns (except Bratislava), or developed in already empty spaces (Warsaw, Berlin), in Rome the Via della Conciliazione intentionally destroyed the Baroque city center and it's urbanism, while the Via dei Fori Imperiali destroyed not only the Baroque and Medieval Rome, but also the remnants of Ancient Rome, while directing car pollution to damage surrounding extant treasures, all for Mussolini's megalomania, not even "functional" reasons "for the greater good". Just because Mussolini dressed the surroundings up with slightly more palatable Rationalist architecture to our current perspective does nothing to replace what was lost, from the very city core, especially since archaeologies could not take place in time due to his ego. In the Socialist countries monument preservation standards and building archaeologies were standard by the 70s. It was pillaging to the highest degree to destroy and pave over all the up to 3000 year old Roman Fori so that a dictator could welcome Hitler in a fancy parade. The Meta Sudans survived for 1800 years only to be wantonly demolished in 1936 with no fanfare. That is tragic.
Rome is literally one of the most car dependent European cities I've been too. Cars parked everywhere even on little narrow streets that should be mostly pedestrianized but aren't for some reason, constant idling traffic on any street with two or more lanes, unbearable road noise on the tiniest possible sidewalks while cars and motorbikes fly down the streets. They're at least trying to build out a cohesive enough transit network that more people might be able to get around without cars, but right now Rome is an awful city to be a pedestrian in compared to other similarly sized European cities.
fun fact: the buildings above the tunnel of the east-west route in warsaw were demolished during its construction and rebuilt in detail after its completion
"The intersection itself is a beautiful marble of engineering as you can see, with amazing markings on it, as if the engineer just downloaded Intersection Marking Tools and wanted to see what it can do" :D
Nothing cou;d prepare me for the devastation, but I have to say WOW, the result looked so realistic. I really like the urban planning knowledge you put into these videos.
WW2 did less damage to the city, than mighty road planners. Gives me chills, but honestly - I admire, that you can calmly destroy some of the best places, that you created, to put there 3-lane road instead. I couldn't make it. Awesome episode!
One of your best episodes in a series that honestly keeps getting more and more enthralling! The blend between researched graphics and Google Earth shots at 21:20 is fantastic. Altengrad should almost be treated as a case study for students of the future and I hope if you don't teach university level you will consider doing so in the future. Altengrad is a perfect synthesis of your perception of the Eastern Bloc and would be an amazing tool for educating.
When I first started watching this series I thought it was just gameplays from Cities: Skylines, meanwhile it has turned into an amaizing documentary series! I think this is by far your best work. Keep it up!
I love the dedication you put into this build and the realism of it. It was possible to only do some very mild changes, the game would not complain that much. But you decided to go for the realism and I love that. Though I must say it hurts inside to see those terrible pedestrian connections being born, like others pointed out, they can be smelled directly from the picture.
I'm an international student who has been living in Petržalka for nearly two years. I would love to hear that rant you mentioned. The district has a lot of issues but of all the places I've both in around Europe and West Africa, there's a lot I cherish here. The forestation of the district is genuinely one of my favorite things about this place. It is hard to not feel in touch with nature with the panel blocks being surrounded by trees. Of course, the irony is that the gigantic 4-5 lane road's sound pollution is damped by the excessive amount of trees. That's the other thing, is that those 4-5-6 lane roads, seem to not get that much traffic. Compared to what I witnessed on larger roads in Budapest or Amman's different districts. I assume they overestimated the necessity for such huge roads. It is a pain in the ass to cross them, however, especially the ones without traffic lights. Though the city has been (slowly) turning some areas into more bike friendly especially around Námestie hraničiarov, which hopefully in the future will lead to the bike path to the lovely Starý most and then to the Old Town. Talking about transport, with the city working on the Tram Line 3 expansion into deeper Petržalka, it'll be a lot easier to get into the inner city, without having to take sometimes several buses to reach Farského for the tram stop. I am looking forward to the tram line since it has been delayed a handful of times, but it will make life quite easier. To pivot back to nature, the Chorvátske rameno little river is great. It is fantastic for some late-night walks, with a great pedestrian path alongside it. The lighting at some parts is lacking of course, but the fact that I can take a walk and see Nutria swimming in a little river near where I live is amazing. Not to mention Lake Draždiak, which is great for camping, swimming, and recreational fishing. As nice as it is, the biggest issue has got to be the fact that it's a lake in the middle of a residential area. Meaning mosquito infestations. In my apartment, which is a good bit away from the lake, each apartment came with built-in mosquito nets for the windows, since it sometimes becomes more than just a nuisance. Regardless the fact that I do not have to for example, hop on a train from Budapest, and take it for a few hours to Balaton, just makes me feel like this part of Bratislava can be quite liveable. Honestly, Petržalka is such an interesting place to live, that has such great potential but is sadly lacking in a lot. EDIT: Forgot to mention the bs that is MOST SNP. Everything about it is annoying. I would go on a rant about how horrible it is if you want to go to Aupark. Crossing an urban highway on foot is a nightmare. Honestly Petržalka is not for everyone. But I definitely have a soft spot for this place in my heart.
But that's today's situation, some 50-40 years ago was quite different. Tram was not there, greenery was worse, shops were missing (actual words of the citizens from TV clips) and so on.
@@Akruas Sure, not contesting that at all. Petržalka's construction was rife with lack of funds, systemic corruption and just bad planning. I'd argue the lack of some commercial spaces is still relevant. Just wanted to comment about what Petržalka is like today, since it is (slowly) turning more and more liveable, from what the planner's created.
@@KittenRaee Oh it definitely is a horrible thing to do in real life, but the game just looks very realistic because of it. It's kinda the same with surface parking. Looks horrible, but fits the feeling of most mid-west american cities
The full on snark and sass regarding the horrible history of the highways (which sadly was reflected in the USA in our major cities at the same time) helps a bit with the very sad destruction of the station plaza. 100% agree with you and will support your continued verbal disdain of the "at what price" policies.
4:29 I love how detailed your video’s go. Like I would never have asked why did they build it this way, how you like describe cities did give me A new perspective on how\why they build it. Keep up the good work 👍 (Sorry if it is not grammatically correct)
This is HANDS DOWN the best Cities Skylines project on youtube! If someone built an American city through history in this much detail, I would cry haha
Oh god, the bulldozing to make way for car infrastructure for that series will be even more painful than this one. Just the merciless shredding of roads to make way for grids patterns.
Very interesting, I recommend taking a look at Skopje, since it also has a highway cutting through the middle of the city but it's build like a boulevard with bike lanes. I also recommend taking a look at the neighborhood Novo Lisice since it's build more for pedestrians where there's parking for cars near the boulevards and between the buildings there are pedestrian pathways and in the middle there are parks with soccer fields and other amusements. Overall I think that Skopje is an interesting city to review since there is a mix between western style architecture and eastern style architecture from the international urban planning done after the earthquake in 1963
This is one of the best Cities Skylines projects ever on TH-cam. I really hope you do another project like this on the new game. Maybe an American City from it's small Frontier foundation all the way to it's Colossal Mega City. Honestly the best.
I haven't been a grammar nazi on TH-cam for a while but I just couldn't hold myself back this time, I'm so sorry. it's = it is its = belonging to it (same logic as 'his' or 'her') Other than that I agree, it really is one of the best CS projects out there. Every time he uploads I'm overcome with joy.
What should be the name of the new city/series be? I imagine it has to start with the letter "A" to fit with the ongoing theme. Maybe "Amity"? What would be a more American name...
You do such a fantastic job on your builds! I agree that it may not be good city planning, but you get 11/10 for realism! I can see the next International Auto Show being held here.
When I went to Bratislava I found out that in order to build the highway through the city centre they had to demolish a very beautiful synagogue near the cathedral
Im watchig this series for over a year now and I just love it. I personaly think this series is better than Asturis because it shows how eastern european cities (and Im from poland) changed over decades. Learning about some of the architectural styles there, changes about urban planning, etc while showing it in the game and also in real life from google maps and I just love this city. Amazing work with all the details, historic accuracy and overall this series.
I was dreading this episode ever since Akruas built the old town. My first thought was "oh god in the post-war there's going to be big motorways cutting through this beautiful town" 😭
ปีที่แล้ว +1
Honestly this is exactly the period that I was mostly looking forward for! In a weird, horrible, twisted way, these huge changes to the city infrastructure are amazingly interesting to watch. And I look even more forward for hopefully reaching modern day with the series and maybe seeing humanism take the lead over these project again.
Oh my, I hate it and love it at the same time! It's sad to see the blocks and squares go, but what you're doing in this episode really achieves such new levels of realism, that cannot be matched by any other creator! And it surely reminds me of the city I live in, which you even showed as a "bad" example, i.e. Warsaw. There's another example of bad planning, that is Wisłostrada, a road that's necessary given the volume of traffic, but at the same time it cut the city center off from the riverside for years. There's a part of it that has been covered by a tunnel and it became one of the most trendy areas of the city, also due go to the revitalised riverside boulevards (Powiśle).
Altengrad is definitely the realest CS project from all. I'm enjoying all of the episodes so much I just realized you made and I watched 73 of them. I don't want it ever to end, but I know it's getting closer with the launch of CS2. After this project please consider building your dream city. I'm really interested to see how it's gonna look like.
One of the best episodes so far. This series is doing such an amazing job of teaching history and urban planning. Even though I hate car dependent infrastructure and its consequences, I always find seeing carcentric projects (from a distance lol) very satisfying to watch , just to enjoy seeing the traffic flow.
Recently I read a book about the rebuilding of Warsaw and I must say that that east-west thoroughfare is a fascinating topic. For example, when they were planning it there was a real struggle if they should avoid the Przebendowski Palace because some planners thought that passing around it would show weakness of the modernist city planning. Another fun fact is that the first escalator in Poland was installed to connect the tram stops on the lower level to the square above. (btw the space where this escalator is bizarre, it has major Moscow metro vibe just without the metro) Also, I can confirm that being around that trench part of the Łazienkowska Road is a horrible experience...
I was aware of the decimation of the east from trips to various cities, but I wasn’t aware of how spookily similar the plans and language were to those in London in the 60s. It’s almost as if they were given a common crib sheet by some lobbying master planning firm. If you haven’t read about it, look up the Ringways plan (and the ‘pedways’ concept in the City).
As someone, like many, that lives in a city essentially cut in two and massacred by the rise of American car infrastructure, this episode especially hurts haha. Loving this series a lot!
You left out Budapest, that's also a disgusting city (I'm Hungarian btw). This video was so shocking. I literly saw almost every Europian city in front of me before the highways came in. This is brutal and I think only the Dutch citys survived this. Great video, this shows the actual damage we have caused.
My home town cologne got a medium-sized east-west street already before WW2, and then a huge north-south stroad afterwards, but the highway planned to cut through the city (it would've went through several neighborhoods and the most important park of the city) was mostly avoided (the part that was built sucks but it is and was not super Central)
You showed the area with my home in Warsaw near Łazienkowska street :D Basically everything there was rebuilt completely after the war, little to no old streets remained the same
Fascinating look at the historical perspective of transport and infrastructure in the Eastern Bloc. Thank You from a late US Boomer whose childhood was the 60’s and 70’s. Love the progress of your cities. 👏🏼❣️
I love the Altengrad series more and more. So much of my childhood memories took place within the eery superimpositions of 1870s and 1970s architecture (Frankfurt, West Germany in this case, which happily razed its own city center post-war for the sake of housing speculation). It's so haunting when both epochs are present in one spot. And in the process, both become peripheral and hated, and in my imagination they are inhabited by non-human ghosts. Funnily, 50 years after the 1870s boom houses were built in central europe, people probably hated them just as much as we are hating on the 1970s (anti)urbanism now.
The entire series is amazing Follows histories of so many cities where a lot of old and beautiful architecture was destroyed which I hate but still I love the series and how well done it is both with historical accuracy, European architecture and other things Sometimes it feels as if I visited it or live there
One of the things I don't like about most Cities: Skylines creators is making their cities perfect and as efficient as possible. I much prefer cities that have imperfections because that's how it is in real life, and it can also give character to a city.
Oof, this was brutal. Very-very well done in terms of historical accuracy, but damn, our poor old Altengrad! Looking forward to seeing how the city develops into the future. Keep up the great work!
36:08. You ever gonna do some changes to the old train yard right there at some point? I mean, those steam engines have been sitting there unused for the past 40 years at this point; I'm surprised they haven't been taken to a scrapyard or some kind of railroad museum by now. (Certainly fits with the time period as, by the 1970's and 1980's, the Age of Steam was largely over across the planet beyond a couple of small holdouts like heritage railways and other attractions.) That aside, this meme I'm putting in fits perfectly with projects like the one in the video. "Did you do it?" "Yes." "What did it cost?" "Everything."
Nice job on the cut troughs. I wish you created some more context at the start of the video. Where is this highway in relation to the rest of the city? And is it a replica of a typical north-south highway? (I assume it is) Also, if you're planning for a major highway ring-road, feel free to complete half of it in the next decade. Working with incomplete networks is part of the fun.
Visually speaking I really like highways tightly squeezed into historical cities, the Tokyo Shutoko also comes to my mind. I find driving on them to be fun too. But I know these projects were a mistake and I would be mad if one was built under my window. So if they were to be demolished I wouldn't protest it. It's just me enjoying these things for what they are while they're here.
This one I was really able to identify with: the similarity to the same kind of thing going on in the United States at the time was really striking. The only thing missing was the purposeful destruction of ethnic neighborhoods that happened here. Still, the whole thing of neighborhoods sliced in half with no way for humans to cross, the rabid destruction of historic neighborhoods to feel "modern", the indescriminant destruction of walkable cities to service cars that just want to travel *through* them was such a bad thing. It's sad to see it happen to Altengrad, but so very realistic. I am curious if some of the same criteria were used to choose neighborhoods to run through: maybe not as racially motivated, but choosing the poorest neighborhoods that could not fight it as well. Very thought-provoking episode, Akruas, very well done!
Wonderful engineering and utility of the city design, plenty of Progress and Advancement. Thanks for taking time to record this vid both with Cities Skylines material and authentic examples from the different cities. Amazing. Finally someone putting the game to a proper use instead of listening to the ecologist propaganda that is built in the citizen satisfaction mechanism.
When you look at the photos and scans of Pragues urban highway, you can rarely see any cars on it. I assume it has most of the traffic twice a day, and those who move on it at that time, think it is used all the time, because they do not see it empty.
I find it interesting how much Soviet-era city planners took from American cities (a grid of major north-south and east-west avenues and an emphasis on planning for the car). Also, I was surprised to see a single point interchange. They're commonplace in the US and sometimes built in a few other countries (e.g., Canada and Germany), but I didn't expect it for the Soviets.
I recently went to Prauge and this looks so much like the big highway through the city. Such a cool city but I feel sorry for the people who live right beside this highway.
Ugh I feel so sorry for the train station. I shouted noooo when you demolished the grand boulevard and square in front of it 😅 awesome episode though!!
Ah yes, the horrible Highway in front of Prague main Station. The first time I was in Prague and wanted to go Home again I arrived at the Station by Bus at the Stop next to the park deck. Because I was a little late and only had a few more minutes until the Train departed I ended up running accross that highway because I couldn't quickly figure out how to get over there safely. These urban highways truly were one of the worst ideas of that time period. However this makes me wonder, will the Altengrad Series also go into the Future (2030s maybe) and apply some modern concepts like getting rid of these Highways again and making cities more human friendly and walkable again?
Oh man I wish that in the future all these sunken urban highways will be covered by concrete constructions allowing dirt on top to grow grass, parks and such. There was such project in one of USA cities. They moved whole highway, that split city in half, into the tunnels. Now there is plenty of parks and pedestrian/bike roads on top of it.
You should look at my city "Tychy" in Poland, this is city which was build entirely from scratch after WW2 just for place for people to sleep which work in Katowice, there's settlements(?) named from A to Z and each one ist different from one another, and it's really hard to find here buildings which not look like their where built in XX century
It is sadder than the ww2 episode and the destruction of the old gate. :( I mean the fact that the highway could have just as easily gone on the other side of the train station so as not to demolish the plaza makes it even sadder
This was the sassiest episode you've ever produced and as an urban planner, I'm here for it.
agree. im also urban planer. good knowledge here
Hilariously sassy commenting this episode. I love it and I love your passion for city planning for HUMANS!
"If the traffic noise is too much, you can just crawl down into a hole, a shopping underpass, because having busy pedestrian streets with shops would spook the cars too much, and we can't have that" 😁
I did not have Akruas hating on carinfrastructure for 37 minutes straight on my 2023 Bingo card, but I'm here for it
The most heart breaking episode of them all. This really made me appreciate my native city of Rome much more, as all in all it has been mostly spared by the brutality of car-dependent infrastructures
Roma resta comunque invasa dalle auto, purtroppo
Well Rome started bulldozing its center for grand road projects already decades earlier. The Via dei Fori Imperiali did far more damage to architecture history and urbanism, and not just Rome's, than any of the other projects. The Via della Conciliazione completely destroyed the original vision of Bernini, who designed St. Peter's square to exactly be the large open counterpoint (the catharsis) to the dense streets (tension) between it and the Castel D'angelo. The Corso d'Italia is also literally Rome's equivalent of Prague's Magistrála. It was absolutely not spared unfortunately.
@@serebii666 indeed it was not spared, but even those aren't comparable to what has been done in many other European cities later on. Hopefully such mistakes will never happen again
@@lucaventinove3151 I would argue they are comparable, or potentially worse, since unlike the other projects, that generally followed at most the edge of their old towns (except Bratislava), or developed in already empty spaces (Warsaw, Berlin), in Rome the Via della Conciliazione intentionally destroyed the Baroque city center and it's urbanism, while the Via dei Fori Imperiali destroyed not only the Baroque and Medieval Rome, but also the remnants of Ancient Rome, while directing car pollution to damage surrounding extant treasures, all for Mussolini's megalomania, not even "functional" reasons "for the greater good".
Just because Mussolini dressed the surroundings up with slightly more palatable Rationalist architecture to our current perspective does nothing to replace what was lost, from the very city core, especially since archaeologies could not take place in time due to his ego. In the Socialist countries monument preservation standards and building archaeologies were standard by the 70s. It was pillaging to the highest degree to destroy and pave over all the up to 3000 year old Roman Fori so that a dictator could welcome Hitler in a fancy parade. The Meta Sudans survived for 1800 years only to be wantonly demolished in 1936 with no fanfare. That is tragic.
Rome is literally one of the most car dependent European cities I've been too. Cars parked everywhere even on little narrow streets that should be mostly pedestrianized but aren't for some reason, constant idling traffic on any street with two or more lanes, unbearable road noise on the tiniest possible sidewalks while cars and motorbikes fly down the streets. They're at least trying to build out a cohesive enough transit network that more people might be able to get around without cars, but right now Rome is an awful city to be a pedestrian in compared to other similarly sized European cities.
fun fact: the buildings above the tunnel of the east-west route in warsaw were demolished during its construction and rebuilt in detail after its completion
"The intersection itself is a beautiful marble of engineering as you can see, with amazing markings on it, as if the engineer just downloaded Intersection Marking Tools and wanted to see what it can do" :D
Nothing cou;d prepare me for the devastation, but I have to say WOW, the result looked so realistic. I really like the urban planning knowledge you put into these videos.
I knew that the day would come where blocks would be bulldozed for the sake of a fat highway but it still makes me so sad 😢
WW2 did less damage to the city, than mighty road planners. Gives me chills, but honestly - I admire, that you can calmly destroy some of the best places, that you created, to put there 3-lane road instead. I couldn't make it. Awesome episode!
I can see that being a quote by a communist party member in the country
One of your best episodes in a series that honestly keeps getting more and more enthralling! The blend between researched graphics and Google Earth shots at 21:20 is fantastic. Altengrad should almost be treated as a case study for students of the future and I hope if you don't teach university level you will consider doing so in the future. Altengrad is a perfect synthesis of your perception of the Eastern Bloc and would be an amazing tool for educating.
When I first started watching this series I thought it was just gameplays from Cities: Skylines, meanwhile it has turned into an amaizing documentary series! I think this is by far your best work. Keep it up!
Next time please consider showing the impact of these changes on the entire city in the cinematics!
Sometimes i wonder if this is a history channel or a gaming channel and i love it! ❤
Altengrad episodes are the highlight of the week
I love the dedication you put into this build and the realism of it. It was possible to only do some very mild changes, the game would not complain that much. But you decided to go for the realism and I love that. Though I must say it hurts inside to see those terrible pedestrian connections being born, like others pointed out, they can be smelled directly from the picture.
I'm an international student who has been living in Petržalka for nearly two years. I would love to hear that rant you mentioned.
The district has a lot of issues but of all the places I've both in around Europe and West Africa, there's a lot I cherish here.
The forestation of the district is genuinely one of my favorite things about this place. It is hard to not feel in touch with nature with the panel blocks being surrounded by trees. Of course, the irony is that the gigantic 4-5 lane road's sound pollution is damped by the excessive amount of trees.
That's the other thing, is that those 4-5-6 lane roads, seem to not get that much traffic. Compared to what I witnessed on larger roads in Budapest or Amman's different districts. I assume they overestimated the necessity for such huge roads. It is a pain in the ass to cross them, however, especially the ones without traffic lights. Though the city has been (slowly) turning some areas into more bike friendly especially around Námestie hraničiarov, which hopefully in the future will lead to the bike path to the lovely Starý most and then to the Old Town.
Talking about transport, with the city working on the Tram Line 3 expansion into deeper Petržalka, it'll be a lot easier to get into the inner city, without having to take sometimes several buses to reach Farského for the tram stop. I am looking forward to the tram line since it has been delayed a handful of times, but it will make life quite easier.
To pivot back to nature, the Chorvátske rameno little river is great. It is fantastic for some late-night walks, with a great pedestrian path alongside it. The lighting at some parts is lacking of course, but the fact that I can take a walk and see Nutria swimming in a little river near where I live is amazing.
Not to mention Lake Draždiak, which is great for camping, swimming, and recreational fishing. As nice as it is, the biggest issue has got to be the fact that it's a lake in the middle of a residential area. Meaning mosquito infestations. In my apartment, which is a good bit away from the lake, each apartment came with built-in mosquito nets for the windows, since it sometimes becomes more than just a nuisance. Regardless the fact that I do not have to for example, hop on a train from Budapest, and take it for a few hours to Balaton, just makes me feel like this part of Bratislava can be quite liveable.
Honestly, Petržalka is such an interesting place to live, that has such great potential but is sadly lacking in a lot.
EDIT:
Forgot to mention the bs that is MOST SNP. Everything about it is annoying. I would go on a rant about how horrible it is if you want to go to Aupark. Crossing an urban highway on foot is a nightmare.
Honestly Petržalka is not for everyone. But I definitely have a soft spot for this place in my heart.
But that's today's situation, some 50-40 years ago was quite different. Tram was not there, greenery was worse, shops were missing (actual words of the citizens from TV clips) and so on.
@@Akruas Sure, not contesting that at all. Petržalka's construction was rife with lack of funds, systemic corruption and just bad planning. I'd argue the lack of some commercial spaces is still relevant. Just wanted to comment about what Petržalka is like today, since it is (slowly) turning more and more liveable, from what the planner's created.
This Episode looks absolutely horrible and I love it. Never thought destroying such a large area of the City would actually improve it.
Induced car demand and disruption of walkability is absolutely not an improvement, that's an opposite of an improvement
@@KittenRaee Oh it definitely is a horrible thing to do in real life, but the game just looks very realistic because of it. It's kinda the same with surface parking. Looks horrible, but fits the feeling of most mid-west american cities
@@roecki9824Just that this is not a mid-west American city
This 37 minute video really shows how akruas feel about the carinfrastructure, and i am all for it!
Great episode as always!
I like the brutally honest discussion of the history of car infrastructure.
The full on snark and sass regarding the horrible history of the highways (which sadly was reflected in the USA in our major cities at the same time) helps a bit with the very sad destruction of the station plaza. 100% agree with you and will support your continued verbal disdain of the "at what price" policies.
4:29 I love how detailed your video’s go. Like I would never have asked why did they build it this way, how you like describe cities did give me
A new perspective on how\why they build it. Keep up the good work 👍
(Sorry if it is not grammatically correct)
This is HANDS DOWN the best Cities Skylines project on youtube! If someone built an American city through history in this much detail, I would cry haha
Oh god, the bulldozing to make way for car infrastructure for that series will be even more painful than this one. Just the merciless shredding of roads to make way for grids patterns.
I could listen to your historical 'lectures' for hours and hours and hours
Very interesting, I recommend taking a look at Skopje, since it also has a highway cutting through the middle of the city but it's build like a boulevard with bike lanes. I also recommend taking a look at the neighborhood Novo Lisice since it's build more for pedestrians where there's parking for cars near the boulevards and between the buildings there are pedestrian pathways and in the middle there are parks with soccer fields and other amusements. Overall I think that Skopje is an interesting city to review since there is a mix between western style architecture and eastern style architecture from the international urban planning done after the earthquake in 1963
This is one of the best Cities Skylines projects ever on TH-cam. I really hope you do another project like this on the new game. Maybe an American City from it's small Frontier foundation all the way to it's Colossal Mega City. Honestly the best.
I haven't been a grammar nazi on TH-cam for a while but I just couldn't hold myself back this time, I'm so sorry.
it's = it is
its = belonging to it (same logic as 'his' or 'her')
Other than that I agree, it really is one of the best CS projects out there. Every time he uploads I'm overcome with joy.
What should be the name of the new city/series be? I imagine it has to start with the letter "A" to fit with the ongoing theme. Maybe "Amity"? What would be a more American name...
Could Asserton be an American city name?
But yeah I'd love ("love") seeing one of the railroad cities turn into a car dependent hellhole one time
You do such a fantastic job on your builds! I agree that it may not be good city planning, but you get 11/10 for realism! I can see the next International Auto Show being held here.
Yet another amazing episode! Love your (justified) sarcasm throughout it
I shed a tear when seeing the transition in front of the main train station. Love the sassy commentary about car infrastructure.
When I went to Bratislava I found out that in order to build the highway through the city centre they had to demolish a very beautiful synagogue near the cathedral
The dreadful day of the C A R has come at last...
Thank you as always for the great content!
Well, you weren't lying, it was very ruthless episode.
Passing Wilsonová in Prague every morning, I was waiting for this episode to come for a long time… Bittersweet - Thank you for your content!
Im watchig this series for over a year now and I just love it. I personaly think this series is better than Asturis because it shows how eastern european cities (and Im from poland) changed over decades. Learning about some of the architectural styles there, changes about urban planning, etc while showing it in the game and also in real life from google maps and I just love this city. Amazing work with all the details, historic accuracy and overall this series.
I was dreading this episode ever since Akruas built the old town. My first thought was "oh god in the post-war there's going to be big motorways cutting through this beautiful town" 😭
Honestly this is exactly the period that I was mostly looking forward for! In a weird, horrible, twisted way, these huge changes to the city infrastructure are amazingly interesting to watch. And I look even more forward for hopefully reaching modern day with the series and maybe seeing humanism take the lead over these project again.
Oh my, I hate it and love it at the same time! It's sad to see the blocks and squares go, but what you're doing in this episode really achieves such new levels of realism, that cannot be matched by any other creator! And it surely reminds me of the city I live in, which you even showed as a "bad" example, i.e. Warsaw. There's another example of bad planning, that is Wisłostrada, a road that's necessary given the volume of traffic, but at the same time it cut the city center off from the riverside for years. There's a part of it that has been covered by a tunnel and it became one of the most trendy areas of the city, also due go to the revitalised riverside boulevards (Powiśle).
Altengrad is definitely the realest CS project from all. I'm enjoying all of the episodes so much I just realized you made and I watched 73 of them. I don't want it ever to end, but I know it's getting closer with the launch of CS2. After this project please consider building your dream city. I'm really interested to see how it's gonna look like.
One of the best episodes so far. This series is doing such an amazing job of teaching history and urban planning. Even though I hate car dependent infrastructure and its consequences, I always find seeing carcentric projects (from a distance lol) very satisfying to watch , just to enjoy seeing the traffic flow.
The Bratislava highway so close to that church... gives me terror movie chills...
Recently I read a book about the rebuilding of Warsaw and I must say that that east-west thoroughfare is a fascinating topic. For example, when they were planning it there was a real struggle if they should avoid the Przebendowski Palace because some planners thought that passing around it would show weakness of the modernist city planning. Another fun fact is that the first escalator in Poland was installed to connect the tram stops on the lower level to the square above. (btw the space where this escalator is bizarre, it has major Moscow metro vibe just without the metro)
Also, I can confirm that being around that trench part of the Łazienkowska Road is a horrible experience...
I was aware of the decimation of the east from trips to various cities, but I wasn’t aware of how spookily similar the plans and language were to those in London in the 60s. It’s almost as if they were given a common crib sheet by some lobbying master planning firm. If you haven’t read about it, look up the Ringways plan (and the ‘pedways’ concept in the City).
As someone, like many, that lives in a city essentially cut in two and massacred by the rise of American car infrastructure, this episode especially hurts haha. Loving this series a lot!
Our entire historic district except for one building was completely destroyed for car infrastructure.
You left out Budapest, that's also a disgusting city (I'm Hungarian btw). This video was so shocking. I literly saw almost every Europian city in front of me before the highways came in. This is brutal and I think only the Dutch citys survived this. Great video, this shows the actual damage we have caused.
My home town cologne got a medium-sized east-west street already before WW2, and then a huge north-south stroad afterwards, but the highway planned to cut through the city (it would've went through several neighborhoods and the most important park of the city) was mostly avoided (the part that was built sucks but it is and was not super Central)
Love this Altengrad series, perfect episode.
I would actually love to hear you talk about Petrzalka, perhaps in a special episode ?
Amazing to see the power of car fueled destroyment of cities.
Marvellous video again!
You showed the area with my home in Warsaw near Łazienkowska street :D Basically everything there was rebuilt completely after the war, little to no old streets remained the same
Fascinating look at the historical perspective of transport and infrastructure in the Eastern Bloc. Thank You from a late US Boomer whose childhood was the 60’s and 70’s. Love the progress of your cities. 👏🏼❣️
I knew this was coming and still my heart weeps 😢
Excellent work as always!
I love the Altengrad series more and more. So much of my childhood memories took place within the eery superimpositions of 1870s and 1970s architecture (Frankfurt, West Germany in this case, which happily razed its own city center post-war for the sake of housing speculation). It's so haunting when both epochs are present in one spot. And in the process, both become peripheral and hated, and in my imagination they are inhabited by non-human ghosts. Funnily, 50 years after the 1870s boom houses were built in central europe, people probably hated them just as much as we are hating on the 1970s (anti)urbanism now.
The entire series is amazing
Follows histories of so many cities where a lot of old and beautiful architecture was destroyed which I hate but still I love the series and how well done it is both with historical accuracy, European architecture and other things
Sometimes it feels as if I visited it or live there
Love the urban highway. Sure they are ugly and damaging to city life, but they are real
One of the things I don't like about most Cities: Skylines creators is making their cities perfect and as efficient as possible. I much prefer cities that have imperfections because that's how it is in real life, and it can also give character to a city.
Oof, this was brutal. Very-very well done in terms of historical accuracy, but damn, our poor old Altengrad!
Looking forward to seeing how the city develops into the future. Keep up the great work!
Thank you so much for showing people how Bratislava’s old town was almost completely destroyed
36:08. You ever gonna do some changes to the old train yard right there at some point? I mean, those steam engines have been sitting there unused for the past 40 years at this point; I'm surprised they haven't been taken to a scrapyard or some kind of railroad museum by now. (Certainly fits with the time period as, by the 1970's and 1980's, the Age of Steam was largely over across the planet beyond a couple of small holdouts like heritage railways and other attractions.) That aside, this meme I'm putting in fits perfectly with projects like the one in the video.
"Did you do it?"
"Yes."
"What did it cost?"
"Everything."
Nice job on the cut troughs. I wish you created some more context at the start of the video. Where is this highway in relation to the rest of the city? And is it a replica of a typical north-south highway? (I assume it is)
Also, if you're planning for a major highway ring-road, feel free to complete half of it in the next decade. Working with incomplete networks is part of the fun.
Finally some highways, I love it
I can smell that pedestrian crossing underneath the ramps...
Youve mastered this game. Well done with this series!
37 minutes long video but felt like 10 minutes, watched it in one go. Can't wait for another episode!
Ow man, I live in Prague and feel this episode. Wilsonova is such a city demolisher!
What happened to the train station is absolutely hideous. Great work!
I used to live in Bratislava, it was cool to see the city in your video!
This mass destruction is what I've been waiting 73 episodes for :)
Visually speaking I really like highways tightly squeezed into historical cities, the Tokyo Shutoko also comes to my mind. I find driving on them to be fun too.
But I know these projects were a mistake and I would be mad if one was built under my window. So if they were to be demolished I wouldn't protest it. It's just me enjoying these things for what they are while they're here.
Good for aesthetics and feels decent to go on, but the cost is often catastrophic.
I love the fact that Warsaw is an inspiration❤
Looks very realistic.
can't believe this is finally happening, after so many years, amazing
Beautifully hideous. Love it.
From the start of the series I was looking forward to this build, definitely am not dissapointed 😁
This one I was really able to identify with: the similarity to the same kind of thing going on in the United States at the time was really striking.
The only thing missing was the purposeful destruction of ethnic neighborhoods that happened here.
Still, the whole thing of neighborhoods sliced in half with no way for humans to cross, the rabid destruction of historic neighborhoods to feel "modern", the indescriminant destruction of walkable cities to service cars that just want to travel *through* them was such a bad thing.
It's sad to see it happen to Altengrad, but so very realistic.
I am curious if some of the same criteria were used to choose neighborhoods to run through: maybe not as racially motivated, but choosing the poorest neighborhoods that could not fight it as well.
Very thought-provoking episode, Akruas, very well done!
Wonderful engineering and utility of the city design, plenty of Progress and Advancement. Thanks for taking time to record this vid both with Cities Skylines material and authentic examples from the different cities. Amazing. Finally someone putting the game to a proper use instead of listening to the ecologist propaganda that is built in the citizen satisfaction mechanism.
When you look at the photos and scans of Pragues urban highway, you can rarely see any cars on it. I assume it has most of the traffic twice a day, and those who move on it at that time, think it is used all the time, because they do not see it empty.
Love your customizations and the history lessons!!
Reminds me a lot of Stockholm, Sweden. Big, disgusting, highway plans of which half were built, leaving scars still very much present in the city.
I find it interesting how much Soviet-era city planners took from American cities (a grid of major north-south and east-west avenues and an emphasis on planning for the car). Also, I was surprised to see a single point interchange. They're commonplace in the US and sometimes built in a few other countries (e.g., Canada and Germany), but I didn't expect it for the Soviets.
This is not the Soviet union.
Excellente vidéo comme d’habitude malgré le massacre de cette pauvre petite gare
This is a really interesting and unique way of teaching about history, really a great video even if the subject matter isn't all too positive.
That one episode hurt me especially. Just in my heart
I recently went to Prauge and this looks so much like the big highway through the city. Such a cool city but I feel sorry for the people who live right beside this highway.
Ugh I feel so sorry for the train station. I shouted noooo when you demolished the grand boulevard and square in front of it 😅 awesome episode though!!
Dude, felt the same when visiting Prague, HBF historical building and that just unnatural feeling when crossing under the road
“What do you mean, *why has it got to be built?* It’s a bypass. You’ve got to build bypasses.”
i remember when you first built the small plasa with the small tower dingy, it's sad to see it gone and replace it with a construction zone
one thing that might look cool is maybe have an overpass from the new train station building to the old one?
Ah yes, the horrible Highway in front of Prague main Station. The first time I was in Prague and wanted to go Home again I arrived at the Station by Bus at the Stop next to the park deck. Because I was a little late and only had a few more minutes until the Train departed I ended up running accross that highway because I couldn't quickly figure out how to get over there safely. These urban highways truly were one of the worst ideas of that time period.
However this makes me wonder, will the Altengrad Series also go into the Future (2030s maybe) and apply some modern concepts like getting rid of these Highways again and making cities more human friendly and walkable again?
I like your optimism that in the 2030s we actually could get rid of the highway in real life :) Yes, the series should continue further, we'll see.
@@Akruas nice! Looking forward to seeing where youll continue with the city. Your cities are really one of a kind!
@@Akruas the Hope dies last I guess :'D
But I'm very glad to hear that! This episode was painful to watch but just because it was so realistic
This episode was hurting and entertaining at the same time.
It's really great to learn about the progression of the real-life cities. Thank you.
an artist, even in destruction!
Bro woke up and chose violence
This has got to be painful to purposely destroy 2+ years of work just for cars. But the story must be told.
Half a year ago I drove by at the prague trainstation ... was very impressive , but as you mentionend only for cars :D ...
This was the first episode that make me go "Thanks, I hate it".
I don't think the road even works because cars have to slow down at the train station.
Very good and intersting episode as always! Where did you find the raisable steel crash barrier? I searched everywhere yet I couldn't find it ^^
steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails?id=1889660581
Im sad for Altengrad's devastation. Very pedagogical video.
It's beautiful. I hate it. Wonderfully done!
Oh man I wish that in the future all these sunken urban highways will be covered by concrete constructions allowing dirt on top to grow grass, parks and such. There was such project in one of USA cities. They moved whole highway, that split city in half, into the tunnels. Now there is plenty of parks and pedestrian/bike roads on top of it.
33:53 most painful part
You should look at my city "Tychy" in Poland, this is city which was build entirely from scratch after WW2 just for place for people to sleep which work in Katowice, there's settlements(?) named from A to Z and each one ist different from one another, and it's really hard to find here buildings which not look like their where built in XX century
It is sadder than the ww2 episode and the destruction of the old gate. :( I mean the fact that the highway could have just as easily gone on the other side of the train station so as not to demolish the plaza makes it even sadder
What a fantastic episode. Please take a look in the futur to Luxemburg City :)