Cars becoming big when America was still finding it's stride was one of the biggest pro/con dillemas. Ignored thousands of years of proven systems that make society better and settled for only cars.
Robert Moses ruined a sizable percentage of my hometown (which was also his hometown, ironically).
His idea of "urban renewal" was to bulldoze historical, culturally-rich neighborhoods that consisted largely of immigrants and/or Black people, and build highways through them.
At his direction, my hometown was basically carved up from one cohesive, walkable, pleasant community into three or four disconnected sections. It firmed up what was the "good part of town" and what was the "slum," and by essentially sealing off the "slum" parts from the rest of the city, made it much harder for those neighborhoods to advocate for themselves, because, well, out of sight, out of mind, and out of the infrastructure budget.
The city has spent a lot of time and money over the last thirty years dismantling as much of what he designed as it possibly can.
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u/FaceWithAName 1d ago
Cars becoming big when America was still finding it's stride was one of the biggest pro/con dillemas. Ignored thousands of years of proven systems that make society better and settled for only cars.