Three Cities About the Size of Boston

Well said, Humphrey. I hope you'll accept an informal bestowal of the title "honorary Bostonian."

The fact remains that while we drool over those pictures of the West End, it was historically impossible (not to sound too Hegelian) that they should survive. We see the beautiful granite masonry and hearty grain storage houses; the narrow, 17th-century streets; and the chaotic, fascinating and utterly human diversity of municipal and residential buildings and (importantly) ale houses -- and we think, "Wow, what a great bar and restaurant scene that would be, something along the lines of Dublin's Temple Bar," "What a cool loft apartment I could have in that building," "The Elizabethan-style Feather Shop could be a wonderful historical monument," and so on.

Without wanting to sound historicist or contextualist, all of the ideas we have when looking at those photos, ideas about how a great city was and could still be perfect, we would never want a return to the conditions that were part and parcel with those buildings. Poverty, lack of sanitation, neighborhood barter economies -- that was all industrialization's impact on the West End. The cramped slums and hodgepodge of new floors added to homes didn't come about because they were picturesque; they came about because landlords and families tried to cram as many people into overcrowded buildings as possible.

What we see in those buildings (cafes, gastropubs, tech companies) is a world away from the purpose they served, and to bridge the gap between early 20th-century European and American cities and what we have today, much had to change. Trucks and traffic brought industrialization and prosperity to cities; roads needed to be widened for the economy as it existed then to chug along. And when people at the time looked at the tenements of the West End, they saw an economic and social hindrance and little redeeming worth.

Today we know better. We aren't affected by mental associations of older, once-industrial neighborhoods with filth and poverty -- things that killed people in great numbers in the first half of the 20th century and were one of the great banes of American and European cities. E.g., my grandfather, whose rent-dodging family moved something like 20 times in the span of 14 years, all within a half-mile radius in Somerville, lost a brother to the flu of as millions in cramped quarters spread that disease in 1918.

But for the changes -- economic, mental, public health, etc. -- that were necessary to come about to get us to today, Boston perhaps had to be rebuilt to allow businesses to have office space, to allow 2nd-generation immigrant workers to escape the North End's slums for greener pastures and still be able to drive to work in the city, and to project a then-inspiring vision of progress and belief in a new postwar world. Would world-class hospitals, universities and financial institutions have thrived as they did in a city whose resistance to change made it economically backward and penurious?

Most of our urbanist fantasies of hip cafes, bustling streets and Priuses parked on the street -- but never in a parking lot -- are very divorced from the city, wonderfully urban and exciting as it was, as it existed two or three generations back, and the changes that occurred owe much to the Modernism that I dislike.

Now, we think we're wiser. At least I think we're wiser. We can afford to hate Modernism and its bastard stepchildren, including Brutalism, and the havoc they wreaked on Boston as a place for living. We're wealthy enough to think about chic lofts and cafes and boutique hotels, and our service- and knowledge-based economy has done a 180-degree turn from that of the industrializing slums of the '20s.

What's the point? I guess I'm just trying to say that we can't kick ourselves over what could've been. When I first saw those photos of the West End, I damn near punched the wall next to me; such a wonderful, real, primitive environment and so many beautiful buildings with so much history -- gone. But the urban-planning follies that we now so regret may have been quite necessary for us to get to the point where the average Bostonian (as opposed to a small elite) can put more thought into things like comfort, city living and aesthetics, as opposed to a deadly bout of measles. I love visiting Prague, but at the end of the day I'm grateful to have been born in Massachusetts (admittedly, in the suburbs -- even my parents' generation had that unfortunate whiff of the city as a dangerous and bad place, something which now seems to be changing).

Given the way we now feel vis-a-vis the urban model still found in most of Boston (even though the West End is gone, the "nicer" neighborhoods -- Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the Financial District, the South End, the North End, the Fens, Allston and so on -- still remain), we need to take it upon ourselves to change the West End and City Hall back to that more human, livable and chic old city.

While working to prevent new atrocities (look at Druker's proposal for the Arlington Building -- they still just don't get it), the city's residents need to push for the revolutionary spirit that destroyed the West End -- only this time to restore it by knocking down and redeveloping City Hall, the Charles River Middle-Class Ghetto, and the North Station/wasted waterfront areas.

Reimposing the old street grids and rebuilding the West End, not rueing what's gone, should be our goal. While the old West End structures that still stand should obviously remain, there's no need to fake it: Don't re-create what's gone, but give developers and private homeowners small plots of land similar in size to the lots that existed pre-Logue. Let them design their own buildings. Some might build throwbacks to the old West End, others Central European-style apartments or mansions, others glass-and-steel structures and maybe some would even try to mimic the Brutalism that we might even (doubtfully) be sad to see go. Make them prove they have the means to put up a building, and give the lots away for a nominal fee.

Rather than take the only approach cities seem to do these days and give all the land to one fat cat (the main Seaport developments, Hudson Yards), that sort of Oklahoma land rush-style auction would benefit all better. There could be clauses preventing people from buying their neighbors' plots pre-development, and regulations for height and density. Even better would be to re-make this car-reliant area into an environmentally friendly zone, with the neighborhood's energy needs met by geothermal heating or windpower, electric streetcars, and recycled water.

Is it likely? In today's Boston, no; but then again, this is the city that catalyzed the American Revolution. If we could kick King George III and the British Empire out, then why not Menino and his cronies? That was a middle-class revolution meant to allow people to live better and without the heavy hand of government interfering in their lives; so will this be.

Can this sort of development feasibly be done? They've done it over much larger territories all across Berlin, and while nothing will ever equal that poor city's lost history (just as we can't get the West End back), it's a thriving, dynamic place these days. The result of taking a similar route in Boston would be a definite economic boost to the city -- and create an urban environment on the Charles that is infinitely better than what we've got.
 
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Boston's future should look more like its past

Whilst I completely sympathise with your urban principles the comparison you are making is a bit unfair. Boston was a heavily industrialised city, and these types of urban areas were subject to urban renewal during the post war years due to the high number of dilapidated buildings and the free rein given to modernists. In my country (the U.K) the centres of the major industrial cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow suffered greatly from the widespread demolition of historic buildings, proliferation of parking lots and all the worst excesses of the 60s and 70s. It is to these sorts of places that Boston should be compared and it actually comes out pretty favourably despite the loss of the West End, Government center and the central artery.
Most of us here are fans of Boston, humphrey. We all know many places out there have a worse record --including all but about five U.S. cities. A good way to improve, however, is to learn from what is better in some way. Therefore ...

The examples you have chosen are Prague and Brussels ... Whilst the centre [of Prague] look idylic, the people living there are mainly rich outsiders
Not mainly perhaps, but in large numbers. You could say the same about New York, where 1/5 of new condominiums are bought by rich foreign investors, or London. In fact, as the number of super-rich folks grows, it's become generally true that nice places globally have become ghettoes of the rich.

the Czechs who live there mainly live in the kind of conditions you would associate with communist Russia rather than some urban utopia.
That's a residual effect of half a century of bad politics, not urban form.

Brussels is a great looking city, again a medieval centre that was preserved by economic stagnation and a general unwillingness to industrialise. It is now the centre for the gravy train that is the European parliament and full of bureaucrats. Again it is a nice place but it hasn't really shared the same experience as Boston.
It's the urban form we can emulate; history is in the past.

The other point to make is that outside the historic core, the inner city and suburbs of most European cities tend to very bland and grim and not something to emulate.
Only in the last century have suburbs become desirable places to live, and mostly to the Anglo-American model: detached houses surrounded by lawns. Many progressive thinkers here and elsewhere feel this is an obsolete, irresponsible and unsatisfying pattern: environmentally and socially.

I live in London and have been to a number of U.S cities and most major European cities and I have to say Boston is my favourite amongst them for a number of reasons, the most important being that it is a historic city but also a functioning city which has moved with the times
Most of us feel this way, but many of us are saddened that the last three decades have seen declining standards.

Don?t give up on the instinct to perfect and improve but at the same time don?t be too hard on yourselves.
Motherly advice and good unless it leads to complacency.

Thanks, its is awful to see threads like this and the destruction that was caused.

http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10814
I may have indulged in a little myth-making myself in that one.

The example of Munich is interesting because there is a misconception that the concrete jungles you see in UK cities were raised on flattened bombsites where the structures were beyond repair. Munich however, recieved comparable damage but was able to restore much of it to how it looked before.
You're getting the point.

I wish I could say this was typical of what happened during the rebuilding of German cities.
All too rare. But when you're trying to learn how to do something, you look for guidance from those who have demonstrated that they know how.

Not to change the subject, but welcome, Humphrey...

I hope you'll accept an informal bestowal of the title "honorary Bostonian."
Yeah, a belated "hello."

The fact remains that while we drool over those pictures of the West End, it was historically impossible (not to sound too Hegelian) that they should survive. We see the beautiful granite masonry and hearty grain storage houses; the narrow, 17th-century streets; and the chaotic, fascinating and utterly human diversity of municipal and residential buildings and (importantly) ale houses -- and we think, "Wow, what a great bar and restaurant scene that would be, something along the lines of Dublin's Temple Bar," "What a cool loft apartment I could have in that building," "The Elizabethan-style Feather Shop could be a wonderful historical monument," and so on.
As we've lost these places we've grown sensitized to their potential.

Without wanting to sound historicist or contextualist, all of the ideas we have when looking at those photos, ideas about how a great city was and could still be perfect, we would never want a return to the conditions that were part and parcel with those buildings.
Part and parcel? Only in the past, not today. In 2008, Florence isn't squalid. Neither is the North End.

What we see in those buildings (cafes, gastropubs, tech companies) is a world away from the purpose they served
... which is why we're free to build this way now. The squalor will not follow as it did in times past.

when people at the time looked at the tenements of the West End, they saw an economic and social hindrance and little redeeming worth.

Today we know better. We aren't affected by mental associations of older, once-industrial neighborhoods with filth and poverty ... Most of our urbanist fantasies of hip cafes, bustling streets ... are very divorced from the city, wonderfully urban and exciting as it was, as it existed two or three generations back, and the changes that occurred owe much to the Modernism that I dislike.
That's right. That was then, and this is now.

Given the way we now feel vis-a-vis the urban model still found in most of Boston (even though the West End is gone, the "nicer" neighborhoods -- Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the Financial District, the South End, the North End, the Fens, Allston and so on -- still remain), we need to take it upon ourselves to change the West End and City Hall back to that more human, livable and chic old city.
Now you're talking.

Reimposing the old street grids and rebuilding the West End, not rueing what's gone, should be our goal ... give developers and private homeowners small plots of land similar in size to the lots that existed pre-Logue. Let them design their own buildings. Some might build throwbacks to the old West End, others Central European-style apartments or mansions, others glass-and-steel structures and maybe some would even try to mimic the Brutalism that we might even (doubtfully) be sad to see go.
That's right, you wouldn't have to worry about the style --just so they got the FUNDAMENTALS right.

Rather than take the only approach cities seem to do these days and give all the land to one fat cat ... There could be clauses preventing people from buying their neighbors' plots pre-development ... Is it likely? In today's Boston, no
And that tells you what needs changing. After all ...

this is the city that catalyzed the American Revolution...

Can this sort of development feasibly be done? They've done it .over much larger territories all across Berlin, and while nothing will ever equal that poor city's lost history (just as we can't get the West End back), it's a thriving, dynamic place these days. The result of taking a similar route in Boston would be a definite economic boost to the city -- and create an urban environment on the Charles that is infinitely better than what we've got.
You're talkin'.
 
Arguably the type of reactionism embodied in Seaside is the "spirit of the age".
Not arguably, but certainly. What historical determinists fail to realize is that anything that's built is by definition a reflection of the spirit of the age; it's quite impossible to build anything that isn't. Some of it is good and some of it is bad, but all of it is manifestly and inevitably the product of its times.

So what we need to research is not what is "of the age" but what is good.
 
The name of this thread is "three cities about the size of Boston" and includes in that the city of Brussels.

However, according to Wikipedia:

Depending on the context, the word Brussels may mean the largest municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region officially called the City of Brussels (ca. 140,000 inhabitants), the Brussels-Capital Region (1,067,162 inhabitants as of 1 February 2008) or, the metropolitan area of Brussels (from 2,100,000 [5] to more or less 2,700,000 inhabitants[6].

Did you mean size, in square miles, or size, in inhabitants?

We just got back from a day trip to Brussels. I was very disappointed. Yes, we spent the day in the urban core, so didn't get a good idea of what it's like to be a resident, but it seemed run-down, overall. And, apparently, there's no word for "zoning" in either French or Flemish.
 
^ Brussels gets a lot of grief for being the "Office Building of Europe," but I took a bike tour the last time I was there and the guide took us to lots of interesting spots. Did you see the building that looks like an atom? I thought it was kinda funny.
 
Never been to Brussels, but have you seen Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp? All lovely urban places.
 
Did you see the building that looks like an atom? I thought it was kinda funny.

It's the Atomium and was built during the 1958 World's Fair. The Seattle Space Needle is another relic (now an icon) of a World's Fair. I imagine the Eiffel Tower is the most famous structure built for a World's Fair.
 
I had always thought the Eiffel Tower was built for the 1912 (or so) Olympic Games?
 
I had never even heard of the Atomium prior to our visit. It's really cool!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium

The 50th anniversary of the 1958 World's Fair, "Expo 1958", is next week, actually.

Hmmmmmmmm, to think I was 7 years old at the time. Party lines, Sputnik, Rex Trailer, the Micky Mouse Club (I had such a crush on Annette! LOL, go figure), hula hoops. A different time but like now, life's good!
 
The Atomium was a margin-fun-fact in a chemistry textbook I once had.
 
A couple of pics ... will try to resize these

Four from the Grand Place, Brussels, Belgium

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A couple of random buildings

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And, the Atomium (yes, it reminds me a lot like of that thing in the movie "Contact")

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kennedy,
the eiffel tower was built for the 1889 world's fair. it's the only survivor of many cast-iron buildings built for that fair.
 
^ Wrought iron, not cast iron.

Only the non structural furbelows hanging from the arches are cast.
 
In the Wall Street Journal today: "With Gas Over $4, Cities Explore Whether It's Smart to be Dense"
The article discusses Mike McKeever's "Blueprint for Growth" in Sacramento California. If I have time tonight, I'll try to post the whole article.
 
Here it is. Stuff like this is exciting to me. Granted, I like living in a city and don't have to buy gas. However, I wonder if all these, "LIFE RAPIDLY CHANGES DUE TO GAS PRICES" stories are a little too much, the reason being, changing where you live is a lot tougher than changing how/what/when you drive. Of course, in the long run people will have to change where they live, but in the short term people can just not drive as much or, if they have the cash, buy a hybrid. What I would love to see is some scholarly work done on what the timeline between the short term and the long term really are. The article mentions the "rapid change towards suburbs" post-wwII. Well, it was rapid if by rapid you mean a couple of decades. How long will limited driving and hybrid cars be able to counter-act the gas priceses before we reach the tipping point of moving out of the suburbs? That's the point I'd really be interesting in hearing about.
 
?changing where you live is a lot tougher than changing how/what/when you drive.
You don?t have to move to the city. If the zoning?s changed, the city can move to you.

It?s the zoning that preserves Suburbia.

Of course all those Suburbanites would be opposed; folks oppose almost all change.

With infomercials you could turn them around. And if President Obama threw his weight behind it...

Of course, in the long run people will have to change where they live?
...or at least how they live where they already are. They have to learn to welcome greater density and its benefits.

It?s inevitable; people in Suburbia might as well start thinking well of it.

What I would love to see is some scholarly work done on what the timeline between the short term and the long term really are. The article mentions the "rapid change towards suburbs" post-wwII. Well, it was rapid if by rapid you mean a couple of decades. How long will limited driving and hybrid cars be able to counter-act the gas prices before we reach the tipping point of moving out of the suburbs? That's the point I'd really be interesting in hearing about.
It?s a question of activism, not standing around waiting for history to change. This board already has a fairly good grasp of the issues. We need to organize for effective action to influence future events. There was some influence exerted by ArchBoston on the Shreve, Crump and Low question.

We need to become activists. With all the writing we do on this board, you?d think our efforts could spill over into the public realm.

briv?
 
Hmm. Depends on whom you are asking, ablarc. I believe I told the IRS it was for business, ha ha. Ha?

We were on a 10-day vacation in London (recession, what recession?) and decided to Chunnel it to Brussels for the day. A worthwhile adventure everyone should enjoy. Tickets weren't cheap, I don't think; may have been close to $100 roundtrip for each person, but took just 2-3 hours each way, in a really nice train.

We did a tour of the nearby architecture then went on a bus-ride throughout parts of Brussel. Also, highly worth it, if you have limited time.

We then walked further away from the square and ate dinner nearby, in "Restaurant Row", then back on the train.

Lots of fun!
 

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