America's Fallen Cities: Hartford
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2024
- Going to be focusing on other topics for the next few weeks now that we have a much larger community here and there's so much to talk about.
But don't worry, this series will come back.
#architecture #urban #urbanism #cities #transit #hartford
The sad thing for Americans to realize is how walkable their cities used to be 😨 The United States used to be a _world leader_ in public transport...
I feel like the only way I can convince my fellow Americans to go for public transit/passenger rail is by saying “we used to have the greatest in the world”; never underestimate how motivated by a sense of national superiority nearly every American can get.
But our government has been bought out by oil and automobile interests among others leading to suburban sprawl and the death of many of our cities
Try riding some public transport in the USA and see the diversity at work all around you, with diverse security guards that look on and do nothing
@@MichaelKnickersoh brother stop watching Fox News.
Something that made the country truly great in the past, yet most of the MAGA folks would say public transport is communism...
I live in the Hartford area. I grew up here and work in downtown Hartford. I try to explain to people that this city used to be a jewel, but few comprehend. This video presents that story better than I could ever explain. Thank you. I am going to share this publicly and with friends and family
Well, the motto was "Make way for the automobile." Who could have predicted that Hartford's destiny was that of a Welfare Colony.
@@MarlinWilliams-ts5ul ya. It’s been a disaster
After the 1970s Connecticut only prospers when rich New Yorkers are afraid to raise their kids in New York City. The mistake Hartford and Stanford made was that when tons of minorities left New York in 2000s with their new middle class dollars and tried to setup in Connecticut, Connecticut treated them like shit to the point thousands of them up and either moved to Providence, Boston or New York - taking an almost 20% drop in GDP with them. Making it hard for large multi-national companies to stay in places like New Haven and Hartford due to progressive new graduates not wanting to deal with CT's bullshit and just setting up in either NYC or Boston many even went to Providence - making Connecticut the worst hit state after the financial collapse and even after Covid their economy isn't keeping up with inflation.
This also contributed to Connecticut having one of the highest age groups in the country. What does that mean? Low rates of tech innovation, the #1 industry in the country right now. What sense does it make to open up a large technology company in Connecticut when no one under 40 wants to deal with people who are mentally stuck in the 1980s and who are going to call the cops anytime they see a minority in a luxury car (which was RAMPANT in the 2000s). Connecticut is fucked and it's not the fault of welfare or highways. Connecticut is the Long Island of New England and until it collapses it's not going to change.
Connecticut in 2024 produces nothing, but puts up every road block possible for outsiders to come in and make something out of the state. Massachusetts and Vermont both learned this lesson and they've been thriving because of it for almost 15 years now.
@@iamcase1245 idk about all that. Not denying any of it….ill add, imo, CT is set up to be a suburban based economy. Corporate business parks are spread out in the suburbs not in city centers. This definitely hurt during the 2000s and 2010s when young people wanted to live in vibrant urban areas. I think CT was set up well for COVID as more people wanted more personal living space. But, I agree the fundamentals aren’t there. Besides financial services and some defense manufacturing we don’t offer much
@@BrewsBrothersCT Look up the stats I mentioned, youtube wont let me post links or images but they're all online. I'm a New Yorker who contracted on-and-off all over Connecticut during the 2000s and early 2010s and saw it for myself. You'd go to a large office campus and half the contractors were from New York or Massachusetts and we were only being contracted because not only did Connecticut barely have any high-grade tech workers at the time, the young people that did graduate from Connecticut schools with high end skills were high tailing it to NYC, Boston, and even *Providence*.
The vast majority of the time when they would offer us permanent jobs we'd reject them because of the culture and no one wants to live in Manhattan but commute to Hartford for the rest of their lives. Also Boston wasn't THAT much more vibrant than any Connecticut city going back historically and Providence was a little sleepy city even in the early 2000s but they both adapted.
Destroyed history for literally ROADS and PARKING.
Ain’t it awful!
That's the modern history of the United States, unfortunately.
European Cities that were desrtroyed during WW2 were often rebuilt closely resembling the City of old. One day may be Hartford could the same.
@@RubbishGimpy And now we in Europe are sadly following the steps of America, a lot of cities are getting "car-sized", though due to the laws in place they can't demolish historical buildings, but the new neighborhoods are a modernist nightmare, and they resorted to other terrible things like building ON TOP of the old building, ugh
Any city dominated by Pharma is gonna struggle from keeping it corporate looking.
the other ones are depressing, this one is downright horrific. The loss of places, homes, neighborhoods, architecture, etc is just makes you kind of sick to your stomach. people lived there
You should see both Niagara Falls NY and Gary IN. Both in much worse shape.
they just moved to the suburbs, you'll find tons of country manor estates and well-kept suburbs the world would be envious of just outside the downtown. the city itself is just a shell because of altered tendencies in the population (they want land, privacy, etc.).
@@bartlett2335 Yes, my family came to the USA as Colonialists for the chance at obtaining land (a lot of it) and to eventually own something similar to the English country manors once occupied by Lords and Ladies. You don't get to have that living in a city.
@@bartlett2335Cities like Boston and Portland maine also have those suburbs without the same levels of decay and abandonment in the city center. They both have lost population and suffered loss buisiness but their city centers are thriving compared to Hartford.
What happened to them, were they destroyed in a nuclear explosion?
Oh my god. It's no wonder Americans feel less proud of their country than they used to. We had something to be proud of back then. The only part of Hartford worth caring about is reduced to a single street.
This is the result of black migration north.
Because people moved back into NYC.
Pax Americana couldn't last forever and for us it was nice while it lasted, but we're only a few minutes from midnight at this point. Every Empire eventually falls.
Keep voting Democrat
@@WildsDreams45 Lol.. yes.. every empire falls, but almost none of them actually dismantle what was part of their ''golden age''. The US only cares about cars, not about functioning city districts or history. This is the sad thing, this is why everyone there should be mad at the thing that happened. Again: this doesn't happen on this scale in my country, even we've been past our ''golden age'' for centuries now.
Maybe not having to try to stay relevant, as the US dropped in democracy index, freedom index, so on, will eventually be a good thing- as a former global hegemony, doesn't have to invest as much into war as they used to. But lol, that's I think a thing the US will never acknowledge. Sad.
No, don’t finish this series please 😭. We need to see so many more - Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Syracuse, Atlanta. Heck, once upon a time even LA was great and had the largest light rail network.
You can see the history of other American cities on other YT channels.
But I think it’s good he stopped here or else it would get too depressing to make and watch.
Cincinnati is out!
And don’t worry. There will be a Season 2 soon enough
Yes please do more cities!
All those cities have one thing in common 😂
@@Shotgun_Only DEMOCRATS 🤬
I always knew something was wrong with this city, but this is somehow WORSE than anything I could have ever imagined. Thank you for making this.
Hartford isn’t alone in this urban malaise, New Haven did the exact same destructive urban renewal. My birthplace city of Niagara Falls NY did this exact same destructive urban renewal and now the city is an impoverished, violent crime infested garbage dump loaded with toxic industrial brownfields. Gary IN is another completely destroyed blue collar city that has completely empty and overgrown urban blocks. An empty street grid where neighborhoods once existed.
At least new kept a lot more stuff then Hartford
Almost all of it comes down to old laws put in place by automobile lobbies that required a parking spot for every person (not family, person) that could occupy a business, which required lots of parking when building a new business.
And the construction of the abomination that is 84, which needed a lot of prime land, since it cut literally through the center of Hartford. Meaning all the nice normal houses and the small businesses supporting them all demolished to build probably the worst 4-6mi stretch of road in the state. But a vitaly important one since it connects to so much of downtown and about half a dozen other important highways, literally 200 ft outside the borders of downtown.
Like every clearly visible problem currently in the area is from the presence of 84.
@@r.pres.4121 Truly depressing prospect. Hopefully, future generations will exercise an infinitely more discerning eye when it comes to urban historical preservation.
Unbelievable. I never understood the scale of what happened until your videos.
OMG, The city turned into a parking lot. 🙁🙁🙁
Try walking to the city from the parking lot. It's awful. I know from experience.
@@Synergiance Oh I don't even have to go to Hartford to have to feel that unfortunate experience every time I have to do so.
@@Synergiance Clearly building more and more parking lots was just a patch up.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
@@donkeysaurusrex7881 oooo bop bop bop bop
One thing that I've noticed about our culture is that it wasn't until recently that the general public has started to even acknowledge the past. I remember growing up as a kid that our culture looked upon the older generations as fools with outdated technology and outdated beliefs. Replacing the old with the new was seen as progress, but we were too arrogant to realize that our ancestors had wisdom that was worth learning from. If we've been building beauty and walkability since ancient times, is there not a reason for it? I remember one of my school teachers talking to our class about how outdated trains are because they're slower and the routes are predetermined. I don't even remember what grade I was in, but I just looked at the photos of old trains in our history book thinking that was such an obvious conclusion, not even realizing that we once boasted the greatest railways on Earth, even by today's standards. Something that should've been passed down us with great pride was looked down upon as "outdated" and reduced to mostly forgotten history. It infuriates me when people say that America is "too big" for rail when the entire continent was already fully connected by rail over a century ago. Please continue this series. We need more Americans to know just how much was truly stolen from them.
Well said. Thank you for such an amazing comment.
This series will be brought back soon. But I do think it is important to shed light on some other talking points such as cities that are doing things right, as well as discussing some of the debates I see people having in the comments section.
C.S. Lewis referred to this as chronological snobbery.
Great comment. I hope that America can go back to dense beautiful cities again. San Francisco is beautiful for that reason, which I think is a model design wise for great cities.
@@alexanderrotmenszim from europe but looking at things like this im coming to only one conclusion similiar to this comment
It's fact that americans tried to look very modern not caring about respect to the past and europeans tried to done the same but even communist countries decided to not go too far because of people nostalgia and respect to some buildings (for example they wanted to tear down half of Poznań old town for park but they realised that this is completly not paying off)
The biggest problem with Americans is their willful ignorance. If you explain all this stuff to them, they accuse you of wanting to take away their cars. This type of attitude is even taking hold in the UK now with people complaining every time a new cycle lane is built, making the argument that nobody uses them. Well, yeah, you won't see many people using them when you're zipping along at 30-40 mph in your car. If you got on a bike and used them, you'd see that other people do use them. You also get people over here complaining that there's nowhere to park their cars in towns and cities now. They accuse councils of taking away parking spaces, but never stop to think that the reason why they can't find a parking space may be due to the sheer amount of people who drive cars now compared to in the past (and when I say past, I'm only talking like 20 years ago as there's been a huge increase in the amount of cars on the road in this country since then), meaning all of the parking spaces have already been taken by other people in cars. With amount of cars on the road now, if councils decided to give every driver their own parking space, most of our public spaces would be transformed into huge parking lots, which is exactly what you guys in America are dealing with. I think our councils are actually making the right decision by constructing cycle lanes. It's the attitudes of most of the car driving public that's acting as a barrier to a happier, healthier society.
I've always meant to visit Hartford as it is about 2 hours away. Not now! What a shame. As one old time told me, "we spent the war years flattening beautiful European cities, then we came home and did it to ourselves."
I used to go to Hartford to see the beautiful Christmas display, but one year they decided that a projector of some snowflakes would suffice as a replacement. Unfortunately, prior to that, I'd have told you to visit just to see that.
Unintended consequences--We started the car culture and the longing for our own little patch of suburbia because we didn't know what we were losing. No one was far sighted enough to see that, in the tearing up of the inner cities to build the interstates and expressways to take us out of the city, we were leaving all our community support behind. Churches and museums got left behind as fast food and malls took over. We sacrificed history and beauty and resources and culture to the lure of individualism and consumerism. What is the life of the average suburb now, about 20 - 25 years? We shouldn't forget that suburbs eventually die too as people keep driving to the "newer and better" one.
Exactly, most older inner ring suburbs are in just as bad of shape as the central cities. The more prosperous folks flee to the lower density outer ring suburbs with their wide highways, huge yards and McMansions. The doughnut hole has greatly expanded to include the central cities and first ring suburbs entirely.
@@karenryder6317 The dutch had the foresight and gave up on following the US urban planning model. I'm pretty sure the US government had the foresight too, but who needs foresight when you get money from lobbyists?
@@stefaniliev7040 Britain has relatively recent come to this conclusion too, the car, the motorway and out of town malls don't really work in small Countries. After 60yrs though, its the public who are the ones who don't want the change their minds.
Yep I lived in Hartford for many years and now live in West Hartford. Hartford is still making the mistakes of the past. CCMC (tax exempt children's hospital) is about to build another parking garage for a cool $40 million, in a neighborhood where car ownership rates are among the lowest in the country and childhood asthma rates are some of the highest in the region. The president of the Bushnell is fighting to prevent a massive bomb crater of a surface lot from being developed into a mix use neighborhood so his suburban customers can park for free (parking is included in ticket prices, who does that help again?). You flashed a photo of the Bushnell parking lot on a busy day, but 99% of the time it's just an empty lot. Hartford has great people but also a lot of problems.
My opinion is to just let the city municipality go bankrupt like Detroit. I highly doubt those new developments contribute enough in property tax to even pay for the maintenance 10 years down the line. Hell, some of those parking lots look run down already
Parking garages are good. They mean you can have fewer parking lots.
Everybody here complaining about the city while living in the burbs and driving everywhere. I wonder what is driving this demand for parking...
I grew up in CT. Everybody thinks they're progressive but they wouldn't dare live next to minorities in the city center. Nothing is going to change until the people do.
breaks my heart as a new englander
Same, I love that once beautiful city and the stuff that remains in it like Wadsworth Atheneum and the Mark Twain house.
I moved from Hartfords suburbs to the city proper because I recognized its beauty. The downtown was almost entirely replaced, but much of the surrounding city fabric remains. There are still beautiful, historic buildings that need to be saved. There is a small force in Hartford fighting the good fight. Carey Shea is one of the leaders of that movement. She has worked tirelessly to save a house owned by the local church who wanted to turn it into a parking lot. She also saved a historic building owned by Hartford Hospital who wanted to tear it down for seemingly no reason. But there are still places that fall to the hand of foolish people. One instance was a historic chapel owned by a neighboring synagogue. We could not convince them not to tear it down despite being built by women in the 1880s.
Man… watching any video or doing any research of American cities pre “Urban Renewal” era is just amazing. It’s almost unbelievable how much history, architecture, cityscape, culture, ways of life were destroyed.
Yes, we destroy the old for the new; or, we just let the old rot and decay until it falls down on its own, then we replace it with something new. We do that in small towns just as we do that in larger cities. Letting go of the past for the sake of progress has always been the way we do things in the USA. When we're not willing to let go of the past, we are chided.
@@laurie7689 More like we throw out the perfectly functional 'old' the moment something new and shiny comes along, even if it's worse than what we had before. Typical symptom of the throwaway, consumerist culture that we've created.
@@Hanstra Unfortunately, human progress has almost always been about replacing the old tried and tested ways with new learn as we go ways. I suppose that is what Human dreams and hopes prompt us to do. We tend to be a species that looks to the future while paying little attention to the past and present. We have a "The End Justifies The Means" mentality.
this is so saddening. its actually crazy how little of the original hartford is left.
25 years ago my partner and I visited Hartford on a trip down the East Coast and I remarked to him, "This is a fifth-rate town." Now I know why - three fourths of the city was made blighted, torn down and replaced with parking lots and highways! 😳
Beyond sad.
From my eyes as a New Yorker, Hartford is a city? Doesn't even look like one lol and I grew up in the more surburban parts of NYC
@@Demopans5990 Was a city.
@@Demopans5990 It used to be until it was demolished. I guess that's what the video is trying to explain.
Both Hartford and New Haven wanted to become slumless cities by demolishing as much of their old housing stock and old commercial buildings as humanly possible. However urban renewal and the interstates failed both cities and now they are two dead empty urban cores. At least both Bridgeport and Waterbury still have a significant amount of their old urban cores.
What was done to America from the late 1950s through 1980s was a crime against humanity... the loss of architecture amd destruction of our cities and communities was absolutely criminal.
Do you want to live in a city that's 46% Hispanic , 36% black, and 15% white. Are you sending your kids to those "culturally enriched" public schools? Its called white flight and the crime was forced integration..
The truth is people don't want to live in cities. A city is where you live when you can't afford a home in the suburbs! You move up and you move out of the city and get yourself a nice house with a yard.
@@thomaskalbfus2005that's just not true... if the cities were nice people would love to live there... Americans are just used to their cities being dumps... if we had invested in our cities like Europe and not destroyed them it would be like there where everyone wants to live there and the suburbs are lame...plus, most American cities also have houses with yards...
@daveweiss5647 I live in a city, but it is not a city city, it has a population of about 20,000 people not the millions of New York City, which is usually what I think of when I think of a city. Really big cities have problems because too many people decided to live there.
The government of New York City has decided that it has better things to do than arrest people for petty larceny or vagrants. New York City is the Venue where they are trying to arrest Donald Trump to get him out of the presidential race, that is they have a political motivation to arrest him and they are trying to find something they can call a crime so they can have an excuse to arrest him, it is so Dukes of Hazzard! The people standing outside the court house cheered when the biased Jury found him guilty on 35 counts of whatever. So my take on this is that too many New York City residents don't want a presidential race that is competitive because most of them are immigrants from the third world and having a dictatorship for them is normally how they think a country should be run!
@@thomaskalbfus2005 You are correct about NYC (and basically every major American city) being hopelessly and criminally corrupt dumps... because they are one party incompetent corrupt governments that have run them into the ground... with good leadership they could be good places to live... but are not... it is a great American tragedy and a symptom of tue rotninfecting our country... you are also correct about the corrupt travesty that just took place their... this is no long a free or just country...
This, in part, is a manifestation of stupid, apathetic consumerism and our appalling need for convenience in all things ... 😔
It's possible to have convenience without demolishing everything. If you somehow magically slashed NYC area rents by a half, living within walking distance next to everything is convenient, and it's pretty hard to say NYC is mostly parking lots
@@Demopans5990 I think 🤔 I meant convenience in the sense of pre-packaged food, goods and other items that are found on the shelves of all strip mall convenience stores and fast food eateries... these have made suburban/exurban sprawl possible along with their car obsessions ...
Would you rather spend your time shopping or looking for a place to park?
@@thomaskalbfus2005 Park ? Don't have to. Live in the city. Public transportation. Or walk. Ride a bike. It's wonderful !
@thomasb.smithjr.8401 much better to ride a bike in the countryside on quiet residential roads without a lot of traffic.
This video could have been made about any of Connecticut's "major" cities: Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury, or New Haven. All of them were thriving and bustling cities until the last half of the 20th Century. Connecticut made a big bet on fostering a suburban, car-oriented culture and for 50-odd years, that thrived. CT had the ultimate suburbs in Greenwich, Westport, Darien, New Canaan, etc. Now that GE abandoned its headquarters in Fairfield, CT lost one of its economic anchors and its bet on the suburbs is being paid off with stagnant income, shrinking population, and no major cultural center. I feel very sad about my former home.
It's unbelievable that such a wealthy state right next to NY and Boston has terrible cities across the board
Bridgeport is horrid. At least New Haven (with all its issues) has Yale. Sadly they gutted almost the entire west and south sides of the areas surrounding the New Haven green in favor of brutalist designs and parking lots. And the coliseum is one of the ugliest structures I've ever seen. But hey, parking.
@@glennhavinoviski8128 New Haven is in the process of remedying a decent amount of that right now. Lots of new housing and mixed use developments going up in those areas + more bike infrastructure on certain streets. Still lots of people complaining about a lack of parking though. Better than nothing.
@@kevincosgrove4954 That's probably why its wealthy, the lack of big cities where homeless people can live and beg on the street thus dragging down the average income. New York City makes New York poorer with all those homeless people, slums, and crime ridden neighborhoods.
@@glennhavinoviski8128 Well if you send your child to Yale, do you want him or her getting mugged on the city streets?
A native of Hartford, I remember trips to the city in the early 1960s before all of the damage was done. Suburbs of West Hartford, East Hartford, Farmington, Avon, Canton, and Simsbury, and Bloomfield have sprung from the still-decaying city. Recent efforts to encourage the conversion of vacant office buildings into residential units offers hope that the downtown will be transformed.
I was born and raised in Connecticut and have always known in my adult life that Connecticut is the “forgotten ugly middle child”stuck between Boston and New York. Your video proves me right. The politics here suck.
Connecticut is a suburban state, what do you want?
I moved to Hartford twice. Once in the late 80's and then again in the early 2000's for work. Being from the South, the first thing I noticed was how rude the people were - even at my place of employment. Co-workers would openly "mock" my accent to my face and behind my back. Also, it was just natural for me to say "Good Morning" to people when I arrived at work. They would either walk right by me or just stare. I lived in East Hartford and would take the bus home. The same 20 people would be at that bus stop in the morning and evening, and no one talked to each other - dead silence. How sad. When I first moved to Hartford - someone told me "The people who work in Hartford don't live there and the people who live in Hartford don't work." Totally true! I will never go back.
That's most of the Northeast. We're all pessimistic Catholics
I recently moved to Boston from NYC and I'm surprised how unfriendly New Englanders are compared to New Yorkers.
New Englanders are just pretentious posers.
I grew up in Connecticut. People are cold. Try getting a girlfriend.
I grew up in CT and I agree!
Oof. And I bet people in Hartford still complain about parking, despite the city now seemingly being made entirely of parking lots and garages
Probably cost insanely high with aggressive parking enforcement holding it hostage
My grandfather (who lives nearby in the suburbs) whenever I bring up how bad Hartford is, agrees, then says "But they keep developing these parking lots. Where am I going to park?!" I understand his perspective that the elderly may worry about further walks but that mentality is a big reason the city continues to decline and wither
From Hartford, it’s really easy tbh
Thank you so much for these videos. It's important to keep this history around for people who say "America is too spread out for transit."
No, we had cities just like Europe did for hundreds of years and we chose to destroy them in favor of sprawl. There's nothing natural about this outcome, and had we not bulldozed so much of our core city centers, we might be able to talk about Hartford like we talk about Delft, or Utrecht, a smaller city near a megacity that has lots of charm without being overwhelming.
One thing people fail to realize is that the railroads were owned by robber barons who were in the business of making money first, moving goods and people second. No one had the stomach for bailing out the evil railroaders when expansions or improvements were necessary. Most people were happy to see them fail. They had a nice shiny new car which took them directly to and from their nice shiny new homes in the suburbs. What could go wrong?
Live near Hartford and this is devastating to see. My dad, who grew up in nearby New Britain (which has a similar story to Hartford and would be an excellent addition to the series), tells me a similar story about how the city he grew up in was torn down for highways and reduced to the poor, concrete-laden city it is now.
New Britian still has The Eastside and Krakovia, so there are some bright spots. Amato's is gone, though.
would you have preferred that he stayed and you had the opportunity to attend the awesome public school system there? Nothing beats immersing one self in diversity and the cultural enrichment it offers school age children. Its sad he moved you to the suburbs and deprived you of these experiences.
@@mikeborrelli193 He moved well before I was born. Also I did some of my student teaching in New Britain so got a taste of the diversity there, and that was very eye-opening, but NB has a reputation for being a very poor school system now. (Had some field experience at one of their middle schools and it was very rough, but my student teaching at NBHS was really good.)
Born in Hartford grew up in New Britain and lived there until I retired. I saw how both cities were devastated by highways and corruption and lack of planning. I now live in New Mexico and miss the multi-ethnic food and culture back home. And the proximity to the ocean. Oh well.
My hometown of Rockville, CT followed the same pattern on a smaller scale. Urban renewal saw the elimination of a large part of a thriving business district, which was replaced by a strip mall. The remaining business eventually closed or move to a new center near the highway. The one fortunate thing was that many of the old factories and houses were preserved and/or designated as historical, so at least the place still has character.
I really wonder what the folks in the mid-20th century thought they were going to accomplish with these plans, vs. what actually happened.
For many of them they won the war and the building of these new suburbs was seen as a way to escape the crowded and dirty cities. The idea initially was people who owned homes could have the space for their own lawns and gardens.
The problem is that homemaker generations disappeared, the cute suburban houses became ugly prefab mcmansions, the suburban street went from trees and beautiful fence work to boring and desolate homes on an empty field.
But boomers entering the workforce, the rising prices of automobiles, the loss of third spaces contributed greatly towards this.
Their plan was efficiency for car circulation.
At the time urban planning Orthodoxy all over the world took a very strict view of land use zoning; an area for industrial, an area residential, an area for retail and an area for office space. These were separated mainly because faster transport enabled people to travel from one area to the other so industrial workers and their families didn't need to breath in toxic fumes while at home and the middle classes could bypass these things entirely.
The difference between the US and, say, European cities is that most Europeans didn't have access to cars due to higher fuel prices and car taxes so they relied on public transport meaning cities used less space. Also, a lot of European cities are built in what were historically defensive landscapes (river crossings, valleys, hills, peninsulas) so they lacked available land to expand exponentially.
It's not necessarily about having more respect for existing urban heritage. I've lived my entire life in Europe and work in conservation; generally people are indifferent until it's gone; the difference is that during this exact period we lacked the necessary resources to demolish our own urban spaces as much as the US did.
US cities in most cases didn't have these restrictions so the car was able to define all urban planning after the war.
They were living in the moment. They wanted quick solutions to complex problems, which almost always creates larger problems later down the line and future generations are lumbered with the task of trying to solve them. It's what we saw with asbestos and PCBs and it's what we're seeing with plastic now.
As far as I can find, the city was dying before the changes occurred. Those with money moved to the suburbs after WWII. Major businesses soon followed and the city center started to decline.
The city itself had some serious flooding issues and experienced multiple devastating floods in the early 20th Century. This helps explain why so many people left the city center when suburbia became an option. It also explains the expansive development for roads. The building of the I-91 also built the dikes that prevents flooding today.
It seems the city leaders saw the writing on the wall and made radical changes in hopes of saving a city that didn't have much of a purpose anymore. It looks like it didn't work, but there probably wasn't anything that could actually save the city.
Excellent work. Very sad but personally reaffirming as I've been thinking along these lines for years. Glad I'm not alone.
Maybe, in the not too distant future, a group of forward thinking civic minded people will restore this once proud city to its rightful state by taking for their inspiration the transformation that has occurred in Dresden Germany (which you did mention). Dresden, a bombed out shell of a city after WWII, has been and still is being restored block by block based on the photographs and documents still in existence. Nothing short of a miracle to see. Thanks for this illuminating series and the thought and care taken in producing each upload.
Truman's post WWII aide was given to rebuild German cities and then, ironically, the US very soon thereafter began tearing up our own cities with "urban renewal (and redlining)" and interstates/super-expressways! Good ole Robert Moses had a fanatical vision that most of us bought into.
Hartford 400 was supposed to be the answer here - basically a big dig style answer. But it keeps getting shot down in the state Senate because it lacks bipartisan support, even though Dems have a supermajority in state government
@@jenniferperry87 I agree with you. Too many self-interests in play and zero-vision for the common good.
the problems found in cities like San Fransisco and Boston aren't the result of bad policy on social issues so much as the inherent conflict that results from such severe wealth inequality
The CT suburbs prospered when NYC was down in the 70s and 80s. NYC's revival has drawn businesses and residents back downtown away from the 'burbs.
The exact same thing around Chicago. When that city was down in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the suburbs farthest from the city boomed and prospered. Later on Chicago began to successfully revitalize and make itself more attractive and competitive.
NYC is on what appears to be a downturn that will take a while to get out from. Their downturn might help you all again!
@@adamrad2220 Then why is it so expensive?
@@AxelQC Thats the point, people will be priced out and move to cheaper areas.
@@adamrad2220 bad news man
ALL OF the USA is in a downturn now.
The state of modern cities is the great national gaslighting. America is a relatively young country, but that’s not why we lack for great urbanism.
You travel America LOOKING for America-you’ve seen it in pictures and movies-and it’s so hard to find. Because it’s gone. And no one’s parents or grandparents seemed to notice or care.
There are still some Americans left but there are less and less every year.
@@mickeygraeme2201 And it's because this country has become a place people don't care about and when push comes to shove they wouldn't be able to be bothered to defend it! Let the foreigners and foreign governments come in and take over for they can't possibly be any worse! (Unless they're Russians under Putin).
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! YOU'RE WRONG!!!
Here in Columbia SC, we have Boomers complaining about how downtown is no longer the retail and residential hub it used to be. They are completely oblivious that it their fault and that of their parents! They CHOSE to leave downtown for the new suburbs and shopping malls.
@@user-kk5ct3rb4c Show me the America in a McDonald's drive-thru. See if you can panhandle a grain of the golden soul that blooms in those old photos of Hartford in some Seattle or Louisville or Colorado Springs gutter.
Almost in tears. Every once in a while I catch a whisper of old Hartford when I’m there. But this video encapsulates it well. Thank you.
I used to work in downtown Hartford. I knew they had done some bad urban renewal but I had no idea of the scale of it. Its tragic. I'm truly shocked. Although, one good reason to go to downtown Hartford is the Wadsworth Athenaeum, which is a fantastic art museum.
Just wanted to say i'm a huge fan of these videos, keep up the good work!
Yet another great and important video. The dystopia and ugliness was not always the norm and the more that know the better!
Compare Dresden in 1945 to Hartford in 1945 then do so today… truly horrifying
Dresden is actually rebuilding everything. The parking lot in front of their rathaus (city hall) is now being re-densified.
That comparison trivializes the Dresden tragedy-- tens of thousands burned to death in a firestorm and the loss of irreplaceable architectural treasures. The painstaking effort to reassemble/recreated some of the most notable ones only reminds one of the greater loss.
@@danataplin7933 I agree and it’s why I made the comparison. Dresden was utterly destroyed in 1945 only for it to be a more beautiful city 80 years later than most American cities. I blame the lazy generation before me for these errors. The lazy masses of American society have utterly destroyed a semblance of normalcy for normal people. Everywhere you go you are reminded why America is car centric and it’s the lazy unwashed masses
@@ianhomerpura8937 yea Germans are very good at rebuilding and making sure their architecture is effective and beautiful. Rebuilding in America is adding an extra lane to the highway so the obese masses can reach costco quicker. Makes me sick
@@danataplin7933 Well you know, if they didn't vote for Hitler and the Nazis in 1932, none of this would ever have happened, but they thought another World War would be fun and look what happened!
A lot of people, who turned in their Jewish neighbors to the Gestapo and the SS so they could be shipped to death camps to be gassed and incinerated, got incinerated themselves and became piles of ashes along with their Jewish neighbors they turned over to the Nazis.
I've lived near Hartford most of my life. Most of the wealth had left for the suburbs a long time ago. The construction of Interstate 84 destroyed a thriving neighborhood downtown. While I-91 did little damage, the use of the waterfront property has been used mostly for conerts and a long walking trail. Hartford also is a small city land size wise and due to the many government buildings there, doesn't get much tax dollars to their coffers,
Government buildings, hospitals, universities, nonprofits, and brownfield sites. None pay taxes.
Providence has similar issues with taxes. They've managed to get the colleges to pay something in replacement, but they keep having to threaten for more, as Brown in particular keeps buying more land and buildings.
The city’s doom loop started long after I-91 and i-84 were built. The lack of a tax base, combined with crime and poor quality schools led to extreme white flight to the burbs in the 1970’s. There was somewhat of a revival in the 1980’s, but consolidation in the banking and insurance industries drastically reduced white collar employment. The few companies that were left decamped to the burbs, where it’s safer and more convenient. There’s really no reason for Hartford to exist anymore.
@@wallyballou7417 Or was it the reverse? Perhaps it was the car culture and "white flight" that lead to poorer, crime-ridden cities?
I see this debate all the time...both are true and none is wrong. I am pretty it can be described as a feedback loop where both factors contributed to each other.
Wow. This was heartbreaking. You do an amazing job presenting. Thanks for shedding a light on these places.
As a Hartford native; thanks for making this video.
Suburbia = social alienation
@FelixFederov-ud4lk The issue is the utter lack of urban planning
What do you want to do, ask a girl out on a date?
Glad to hear you call out modernism. A generation of architects worshiped Corbusier and this is the result. Never been to Hartford but it’s hard to tell apart from North Korea.
Nothing wrong with modernism. But people need to learn to keep their hands off the older buildings and protect them. Create new building styles in a different zone that doesn't impact older buildings. That way you get a good yet respectful tapestry. Problem happens when people tear down a previous style to replace it with something new. Cities should protect their cultural heritage more. So much has been lost. What a shame.
It looks nothing like North Korea 😂
@@TerpeneScorcher Have a look at a video of Pyongyang. The same wide highways and bland modernist buildings
@@sven888 It’s not just the style it’s the ideology of modernism that rejects what you admire in favour of brute functionalism. And there is everything wrong with the style. It is above all else boring- there is nothing to detain the eye, no joy, no flourish, no reference. Hence what has happened to Hartford, other US cities and ironically communist cities. I live in the UK where we had some modernism but nothing like the US and none since the 90s. Post modernism is far more diverse, much more interesting and a lot more popular. We also adapt many more older buildings thanks to much greater legal protection
@@jontalbot1 I hear you brother so I am upvoting your reply. But Ithink good 1950s modern architecture should not be put in the same basket as all the soulless creations that are called post-modern. There's many a good modern buildings that are actually good. To name a few. The Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe and The Glass House by Phillip Johnson. Look up John Lautner or Richard Neutra. My goodness. All artworks. But they are all surrounded by nature thus not drawing away from nature but by complementing it. However. I believe the best buildings for city are neoclassical, art deco and the likes. Blessings.
Great video ( as always ). Looking forward to your next series and part 2 of this one .
I went to high-school in Hartford. And you feel what the city used to be. I both love and weep for Hartford. The suburbs cut off the nose, then carved up the face of what once was the Paris of America. Hartford helped to motivate me into being an advocate for Urbanism
It's funny how 'urban renewal' was twisted into destroying urban areas in the US whereas it was used to enhance existing urban spaces in Europe. When urban renewal came to my city it meant preservation and enhancement of existing ex industrial and commercial structures and creative use of infill sites.
Maybe its a matter of money. The US was rolling in cash in the post-war era. in Europe, we didn't have the money or the housing to bulldoze entire city centres in the 50s and 60s so by the time the US had made these mistakes we changed our approach to urban planning to one of preservation, enhancement and targeted expansion/denitrification. In this way a person in their 70s or 80s can still feel at home and recognize the city they grew up in.
Another explanation is we have less place to expend in europe. Urbanism in 60' in France was about building suburbia "pavillion de lotissement". But soon the road started to be crowned, parking impossible, and city center to suffer from drain of activity. And we were not only consuming agricultural land to build it.
The view of famous paris area being transformed into a giant parking made everyone understood it's was not sustainable and change plan. Look picture "Quand paris n'était qu'un parking à ciel ouvert" (when paris was a open sky parking) to understand.
@@deztabilizer I had commented somewhere else on here that the challenges of having been established on easily defensible geographic and strategic locations during the middle ages usually prevented usually prevented a lot of European cities from expanding post war.
A lot of European cities are built in valleys, on hills, river crossings and sheltered bays. These provide a natural limit to urban expansion due to restrictions on providing infrastructure and construction costs.
US cities generally didn't have the same needs so could be build on open flat land enabling expansion which could only be limited by travel times.
@@Whatshisname346 That's a very interesting point.
For the exemple I know in Paris, the circular highway was build on the old fortification. It create a psychological limit for the city, everything outside was "too far away" for rich family.
So awesome man, thank you for your work capturing this and explaining it.
This is brilliant. Powerful, drawing together many elements… but also succinct. I feel a great series developing here.
Loved this series looking forward to the new one!
Who else is about to cry?
I recommend Albany... it was a top 10 city until 1850 and now utterly lifeless. They built a massive concrete office complex called the "Empire State Plaza" right in the heart of the city, destroying its soul.
Hmm. My memory is that Albany (and Troy and Schenectady--my home town) were already destroyed and Govenor Nelson Rockefeller was actually trying to spruce up and encourage some reinvestment into the state's capital city and its architecture when that plaza was built.
@@karenryder6317 The area around the Governor's Mansion was a combination of working-class neighborhoods that did not impress visitors to the capital of (what was) the US's most populous state. Also, Rocky thought that this was the only solution to keep state employees downtown, which would be a net benefit to the city. Unfortunately, no one wanted to walk a few blocks outside and patronize local businesses; they preferred to take the elevator down to their cars and get on the highways out of Albany.after work. I don't know whether it was worth destroying 98 acres of the city just to make Albany look a little "bigger and better"; that question is for minds greater than mine.
Beautiful capital building upstaged by commie brutalist architecture
. . . Albany- that Plaza . . . looks Hitlerian, or Stalinist, in Character . . . it tells the Common Cirizen- "Bow Down, to your Overlords- you, are worth, exactly . . . Nothing" . . .
. . . one, literally has to Descend into Darkness . . . to Ascend, to the offices of NYS Lawmakers . . .
. . . and one wonders, why The Power Elite there . . . has so little regard, for The Ordinary Person, Family, or Community . . .
Makes you wonder if there was an old society that was essentially conquered in a way
The back to back pics of old Hartford & new Hartford legit hurt me a little, really really sad to see what we did to our cities
These videos are outstanding! Just found out about them today. We can’t stop watching them. Please keep it going.
Astonished the extent how Hartford erased/changed its old urban planning and old architecture than what has San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake did.
hope to see this series start up
again soon. would love an upload about Kansas City. The aerial photo of the 'Kansas City Blitz' is the most powerful photo that exhibits the destruction of freeway building
I subbed, excellent content!
You'll be getting a spike in channel growth with quality and substance like this.
Your video just appeared in my recommended feed. I have not seen any other videos of yours. Subscribed. Looking forward to watching more of your series and looking forward to more of your content. Milwaukee is another great city to cover.
Thanks for the wonderful historical documentary
Another wonderful video in this series. I am from Suburban Detroit, and did truly love where I grew up. I did always thing that Detroit itself was a sort of hollowed out shell of itself when I used to go. Growing up I did not consider this all that much but simply accepted it. Having lived in Boston for 4 years in college and now New York City for the last 3, I can't see myself moving back to a city like this. I do have some hope for the future though as I think a lot of younger people are understanding that our cities were once great and beautiful and that they can be again. We have lost so much and it is easy to be a bit angry frankly, but we need to channel this anger into creating more radical vision for the future of our cities. Saving our cities would do so much to revive this country.
Make Detroit Great Again!
I too am from suburban Detroit. The reason it is like this is because it is America’s most segregated city. My neighbors tell me awful stories of prejudice.
@@sieteochoThat would require an end to segregation in the metro area; less people moving northward to as far north as sanilac county now
I was liking the video no doubt but when you mentioned "America's rising cities", it made me instantly subscribe. I find cities that are finding ways to return highly interesting. The historic downtown area in my town has flourished and had a revival that hasn't been seen since long before I was born. It's a town in FL, so I think this revitalization is driven by the insane numbers of people moving here but among the newcomers (and natives alike such as myself) there seems to be the highest interest in this historic downtown. New stores and restaurants are popping up, events happening, and I'm always seeing people walking around enjoying the scenery. Compared to less than a decade ago, it's night and day. People definitely want cities and towns with soul.
Loved this series! Would love to see more at some point in the future.
When americans visit normal european cities they are astounded but hundred years ago many american cities looked quite similar.
What’s looking ’old’ in most european cities was build in the late 1800’s as there was a big urbanisation boom then and demand for a higher standed was enforced. Architecture going back to the middle ages or old only makes out a fraction in most european cities.
Also many european cities have suffered from WW1 & 2 but still american cities manage to outperform them in devastation.
That is very true most of Central Paris,which Americans particularly venerate was re-built by Hausman in the late 19th century while medieval Paris was bulldozed for boulevards, and the Luffawaffe partied there while they went and bombed UK cities to dust.
Our cities are inhuman now.
This is so heartbreaking. My mom grew up outside of Hartford and in the 40s and 50s when she was a girl, I am sure that "going into Hartford" was an interesting adventure, still. And for her parents, it was what they knew. Thanks for sharing this.
Fifty years ago a nice American boy visited me while touring Europe. Really he was kind and generous. His hometown was Hartford.
America's Rising Cities? I love it!
Well done. It's not just the US. Here in Victoria BC, Blanshard "Street" is a monstrous, six-lane limited access semi-freeway.
In fairness to Victoria, though, there still are a lot of historical buildings in the downtown core and lots of 1920s ish private houses from Vic West to Oak Bay and even a few in Saanich. But, yes, Blanshard is an ugly stroad. I volunteered at Point Ellis House for a bit and before, didn’t even know it was there! There I learned that industrial bit between the Bay St bridge and Douglas apparently was a whole neighbourhood of nice houses (maybe some more modest too?) but I think they started selling up even from the 20s onward to factories, etc? The one that really gets me here about car centric attitudes was the dismantling of the streetcar lines (six I think) that reached Saanich, Oak Bay and even as far as the naval base! Gone by the late 40s when cars/gas were affordable?
So Canada's not perfect!
Underrated channel, and an underrated series
Very interesting ! Following and adding to the list !
I grew up next to the horror show that is Hartford in the 60s and 70s. The razing of nearly every building in the city was all about racial animus... er ... I mean "urban renewal."
Great video. You mentioned Warsaw rebuilt of historical buildings after II WW. But the picture you are showing at 7:46 is a city center which was never rebuilt and is currently occupied by modern, high rise architecture (as shown). Yet, it is quite livable. Most of Warsaw is covered by huge apartment buildings according to ideas of Corbusier but these are also livable areas, very low crime, lots of public spaces, greenery, local businesses, etc. It is not only old architecture that makes cities nice place to live.
@@Dragon122hh True. In case of Warsaw it was not the matter of choice but a necessity. Milions did not have a roof over their head and huge apartment buildings straight from the building factory was the fastest way of ammending catastrophic situation. These buildings were meant to be used for 50 years and then replace but something better. Today these modern buildings are staying.
I’ve been to Hartford a couple of times for arena shows and I was curious about why it looks like it does today. This video helped me understand how and why. I enjoy this series and would love to see more!
I visited for work 10 years ago (from the UK). I didn't bother going out during the weekdays as no one was on the streets and it didn't look like anything was open. I spent my weekends in NY or Boston. So I find it interesting that it has a history. Thanks for sharing.
This was the paradox of 20th century urban "planning". Build freeways to speed residents between the city center and the neighborhoods (suburbs) where they live, but in the process tear down everything in the city center that people want to visit in the first place...For every instance of "American ingenuity", such as the invention of mass production and the automobile, we have at least two instances of equally prolific "American stupidity" such as hollowing out cities, and creating a system that destroys local production and requires everything be moved a thousand miles before it's delivered...Alex, why not do a short series on the cities that did it right, and the travails they encountered while trying to ward off this modernization disease?...Enjoy the series...
Next video will be on “Americas Rising Cities” that are doing things right!
@@alexanderrotmensz I'm glad you're doing the 'rising cities' series. It's too easy for videos like this and particularly the comment sections to end up as a swamp of privileged nostalgia and declinism. Finding examples of ways out of this mess is much more important IMO.
Again, you're blaming highways. So why haven't other cities with highways cutting through them collapsed the same way we've seen in Hartford, New Haven, Rochester, Syracuse and other nightmares?
@@iamcase1245 The salient point was that freeways destroyed a lot of the organic and historic architecture that was present in these cities that would have been a draw for visitors, had they been left to restoration. That's not to say that there weren't other economic forces at work, but the sclerotic effect of these freeways bifurcating the core leaves them few options for rebirth. Freeways create a lot of "dead tissue" except for places that were designed around them. Even there, it's pretty dicey long-term...I have a suspicion he will address this in the coming series...
@@bartphlegar8212 Between the 1950s and 1990s Highways were a necessity and one way or another someone was going to pay for it. If you didnt build in the inner city which is where in the 1950s and 1960s was where the industrial centers were, then you were going to have to build in the suburbs where it would create noise pollution, vagrancy from travelers and all types of other insanity. Also where would fright trucks go? The suburbs? To then have to be unpacked and driven back down to the city anyway in smaller trucks? Also at this time lots of long-distance rail freight would unload in cities, what good would it do to unpack these trains 30 miles out in the suburbs?
Today with remote work, more work being inter-driven and other factors highways will get less use but to say Hartford collapsed due to highways and parking lots is a massive reach and it leaves out 99% of the story.
As someone who has been to Europe a lot the past couple of years, I realize how beautiful and important old architecture is. I mean not even the architecture but the atmosphere of a city.
For example, got to a city like Prague or even a big city like Paris or Rome and there is character.
I go to tik tok Hollywood LA and it’s so full of arrogance and lack of chracter that people associate America with.
Cities like NY do good in keeping up a culture even if it’s a bit more modern, but I just feel Americas culture of modernity and disrespect of the past has negative effects to our culture.
I feel like having more old architecture can help more Americans have more respect to the country even with its negative marks in history.
In Europe I just feel more patriotism, even amongst immigrants and there is a sense of community. I think American cities are still nice, but I feel having history is something very major city should have.
Well said. As an American, I love Europe. I wish I could move there. It's so beautiful. Our cities make me want to cry.
Wonderfully informative, great work.
Thank you for this; I grew up 10 miles away across the river. It's heartbreaking seeing the broken, divided city I've known my whole life as it once was: vibrant and alive.
Hi Alex, I've watched your Fallen Cities series. I think your visuals and editing do a great job showing how we emptied out our cities. I felt the series suffered from your decision not to discuss the local contexts and discussions that led to the current state of these cities. Just quoting from local sources or giving a little analysis would make these videos feel less like slideshows that wax nostalgic, while also bringing your own voice to the topic.
It was most noticeable in this video (prob bc I'm more familiar with Hartford than I am with the other cities you covered). For example, the demolition of Hartford's old riverfront in 1908 was driven by the City Beautiful movement. When urban planning priorities changed with the Wagner-Steagall Act, Housing Act of 1949, and the Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 1952 and 1956, Hartford still had that open space that regularly flooded, ripe for the paving.
Secondly, you focused on urban renewal in Hartford's downtown - especially what used to be "The Bottom" - but you didn't mention that the residents most impacted by urban renewal were Black and immigrant families. If you had taken the time to discuss that history, it would be immediately clear that urban planning had an immense impact on poverty and social policy in Hartford, and that these are not distinct issues.
When you say that a city's problems stem from modernism (albeit in other words), I'm worried that it reveals a simplistic understanding of how cities function on your part. I would rather believe you're just trying to find your voice and are already aware of these issues in your work.
Well said. Design and associated socio-political philosophies are important, but they can't by themselves ruin a city. Look at Tokyo and Osaka- they are very modern cities that feature lots of architecture that people would find ugly, but they are vibrant.
The thing about Connecticut, it is a great state... its just that Urban and Suburban life in the state are vastly different. Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, and Waterbury all are very down on their luck kinds of places. Connecticut is a beautiful state and I hope it can get better for all residents
for one most of Connecticuts urban places serve no function any more. Just like a coal town, remove the cotton mills and the winchester factory in new haven and the cities dry up. And two is a parasitic underclass that hurts all those cities from being redeveloped and they organize to keep decay entrenched.
@@mickeygraeme2201the parasitic underclass migrating from the south in the 50s and 60s is the harder part of the problem. Bring businesses back is do-able. Exorcising the demons…no one knows how to do that anymore.
@@mickeygraeme2201my comment in agreement has been censored.
For real. CT has forests, beaches, and rivers. There are world class museums and universities (both public and private). There is a lot of diversity of genuine coexistence. After all, MLK was inspired by his time in CT. A lot of haters in this comment section really have no idea what they’re talking about.
The cities here are rough because they have been the victims of corporate and political greed along with fear and shame from without.
This video is amazing. Great job!
Hartford went from its own hub of industry and business to what we’re known as now “the drive through state”
We've got a lot of neighborhoods like that in Chicago.
Neighborhoods sacrificed for the benefit of auto manufacturers and oil producers.
New Haven, CT has similar problems that were made worse by the construction of I-95 and I-91. As an example, the Wooster Square neighborhood of New Haven is lovely. However, due to its' proximity to the highways, the neighborhood suffers from a constant, underlying noise pollution. Probably the only reason that New Haven hasn't deteriorated as much as Hartford is Yale University. Yale is not blameless in its' relations with the city. The University doesn't contribute enough in taxes. New Haven real estate in New Haven is grossly overpriced because of Yale. But, the existence of Yale and its' medical facilities keeps New Haven from being another Hartford.
Sadly, while Whalley Avenue remained vibrant, Whitney Avenue was left to rot. It's been a long time since I was there, but that's certainly what it felt like a few years ago. My former company had its home office downtown (no longer, I think they're up in Meriden somewhere now), and I was in town at least once a month. The community actually stopped the CT-34 freeway from destroying the west end of New Haven. I'm figuring the wealthy areas around Edgewood Park rose up, but in the course of starting to build it, they gutted an entire section of downtown for the "Oak Street Connector".
@@glennhavinoviski8128 are you getting the streets mixed up? Whitney is in much better shape than Whalley these days.
Then that would def be a change. In the 80s-90s, Whitney (going north from Church St) went downhill quickly. You could walk out Whalley Ave for a while and there were restaurants, apartments, shops etc. Could be a lot different now as you mentioned.
How much is tuition at Yale? Do you want to raise taxes and make it even more unaffordable, and put students more deeply in debt just to go there? What about the patients that go to that medical center, isn't their hospital bill expensive enough? Do you want to raise taxes on them?
Excellent series ❤️ with love from Florida
Truly an outstanding essay. Your copy for this video should be published nationally and widely read. Thank you.
I dont think any communist country tore down their entire historic downtown. Moscow, havana, st petersburg, prague (most well preserved and beautiful european city), They only built socialist style suburbs.
Many chose not to rebuild in the old style. And when they did build it was in the common style that we now know.
Many places in East and West Europe even where they didn't stick to the original architecture, they tried to keep the original city layout (you can see this in Berlin) and I am glad that was the case as it kept things at human scale and walkable. Even the council estates in Britain (which seem similar to Soviet suburbs to me in places) tried to keep shops and services local to where people lived. Thankfully the destruction in American cities for the car seemed to stay there.
China has entered the chat xD but for real, the majority of towns that where dmaaged during ww2 were rebuild with modernist ideas. Maybe not the capital citiys, but smaller cities often faced hatsh urban re-development. Take Dresden for example, or Brandenburg (both in former east germany). Bejing is also replacing historic city parts till this day. Also towns that were not heavilly damaged by war did replace theyre city core with ugly blocks of houses, i bet you will find a lot of examples when you start to dig
they did in Poland, burned most villages/towns that were still in good shape only to build ugly shoeboxes without any urbanism. Same in Warsaw (you can see the city at the end of the video with many people on the streets and the building i refer to in the background) there were still many prewar buildings after war in the centre but commies decided they want to built tall fucking skyscraper in a completly destroyed city(around 90% vanished) and you can see the "classic" style skyscraper in this video.
Bucharest is the exception that proves the rule. Their crazy dictator tore down most of the old city. It remains among the ugliest and most unpleasant of European capitals.
Next Albany please!
The capital of a great state and downtown Albany is a disaster. Very sad.
It’s insane how much space we devote to parking
It’s actually disgusting
this is a really fantastic analysis and illumination of the destruction wrought from modernism, thank you!
Damm. That's bad. No wonder including and generations after Millennials are leaving the car-dependent suburbs in droves.
Actually it’s the opposite millennials are moving into suburbs
I saw an article today in dallas about traffic. And profiled this big fat dude in his car, complaining that traffic delays him to getting to his heart therapy. Maybe people wouldn't have these health issues if they weren't 100% dependent on cars.
Ironic how on the same day I drove past Hartford whilst coming back home from a Mother's Day dinner you finally posted your video on the city.
Your voice is super soothing. Hartford was lovely in its prime
Only now I understand the meaning of "asphalt jungle".
Looks more like a desert to me...
I moved to Hartford 5 years ago. I actually had a direct ancestor who was one of the eight original founders. I spent most of that time as a taxi driver learning the area.
Hartford changed literally overnight in the mid-60s with civil rights and the end of redline districting. All the whites, including a large Jewish community all moved to West Hartford. The Jewish cemeteries are now routinely vandalized. There are some beautiful town houses and synagogues from the North End you left out.
The exception was Franklin Ave. and the SouthEnd which remained ethnically Italian until the late 1980s when it was flooded with Puerto Ricans who went on section 8 and social services.
There’s a small section of downtown that’s full of yuppies (mostly whites and Eastern/Western Asians) but fentanyl ravages the large homeless community which harasses the locals.
Shootings occur here almost weekly. Hardworking black and brown folks feel like hostages in their own neighborhoods and Albany Ave. reeks of pot all day and becomes a third world around 4-6pm when ppl get drunk.
The South End is a little nicer but full of Latin gangs, especially Park Street.
The North End looks like a third world country and Garden Street looks like a zombie movie at 3AM.
God it sounds apocalyptic, to say that they do not sound like easy things to fix would seem a massive understatement.
West End, however, is kinda nice. Asylum Hill got hit with too many insurance company campuses and cheap apartment buildings but still has some Victorian houses left over from Hartford's heyday.
Thank you for giving us a racist breakdown of a city you’ve barely lived in.
Thanks for chronicling the devestation.
Excellent, this is great info.
I lived in Hartford in the 1980’s and enjoyed being there. Like anywhere else, crime and urban culture pushed everyone to the suburbs.
Please if you can, please continue...this is really needed for people who don't understand what made America beautiful and scenic and how we deliberately killed off our own cities in the post WWII era.
As someone from Connecticut, its really sad what we have become. Fairfield county (my county) is being token over by NYC. And everywhere is becoming suburb. It was all destroyed for literal parking lots and roads.😥
Well done! Thank you. It's a shame what has happened to Hartford. I have never seen pictures of the old city like those and have lived in this state my entire life.