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Read The Broken Heart of America by Walter Johnson if you would like more information on why St. Louis is the way it is.

Savannah should've been the capital

Looks very good, although there is no reason to attempt to fill transit service with a "trolley" 6:06 when existing bus service could be expanded. Unfortunately there is a bit of a stigma in the US about riding buses, but if the buses could be kept clean, punctual, and frequent, you could get more middle class people riding them and turn that around.

You're giving a variable that accounts for maybe 5% of the decline of St. Louis credit for the whole event. Bad architecture and stupid car culture didn't kill St. Louis. It contributed, but you're missing the big variable. It was loss of economic relevance. St. Louis grew and thrived when it mattered. St. Louis was the crossroads of America's two greatest arteries of wealth creation: The transcontinental railroad and the Mississippi river. When the railroad was superseded by rival lines and then by trucking on the Interstate system, St. Louis started to decline. As the years passed, being the crossroads of transcontinental shipping mattered less and less. Big factories and their products wasn't the heart of the American economy as we moved out of the middle of the 20th century. When the economy is less about making big things that need to be shipped, being at the crossroads of shipping stops being the glittering jewel of wealth creation that draws ambition and talent from across the country. More and more America's economy was dominated by creating intellectual products and precision machines. New York, LA, and the Bay Area continued to grow and be the destination for ambitious families as the importance of products they created grew. The share of the pie that was claimed by big things that needed to be carried on riverboats and train cars stagnated, and the relentless drive to reduce marginal costs made the share of the pie that could be claimed for moving those things ever smaller. The value of the things being shipped and what people were willing to pay to the shippers kept shrinking, at the same time that the network of possible shipping vectors expanded and St. Louis stopped being the hub of continental logistics.

Why on earth would anyone want to live in a city? Why would you want to be close to your neighbors, packed in like cattle? Baffling

Albany

Cool

It's not just St. Louis. Missouri was the 5th largest state for a while as people migrated west.

Holy moly, I was waiting for someone to combine right-wing talking points with architecture and city planning talk and you did it flawlessly. 100% subbed, you make great points!

This video does not tell the whole story. I grew up in Hartford from my birth in the mid-60's, and downtown was still home to numerous corporate headquarters during my childhood. Many of the old buildings did not have much design value and were not fit for purpose. The modern office buildings provided suitable facilities for the insurance and banking sectors, and a few other major corporates such as United Technologies. There are still heritage buildings around the city if you look closely, and many beautiful parks. I was never annoyed by I-91 or 84, because I grew up with them, and in fact find the highways to be a quick way to get around the area. The parking lots downtown provide space for creative development if the right investors were to come in, and downtown apartment projects fill up as soon as they are completed. One of the keys to Hartford's redevelopment is the passing of laws at the state level that will take violent people out of the community through extended sentences. This would make a huge difference for all of Connecticut's cities, but would require new leadership with pragmatism and common sense.

They need to include affordable housing.

Now European cities are starting to really mess up with their planning.

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was just there today for my birthday so seeing this was a treat. thank you for your dedication 🙏🏽

The suburban sprawl of Cincinnati spreads almost to Dayton, and it's creeping up 71 towards Columbus now. I've lived in the Cincy/Dayton area for almost 30 years, and once my youngest is self sufficient, I'm retiring to New Mexico somewhere between Albuquerque and Colorado

This is East St Louis, or at least every other photo was of East St Louis including the old Majestic Theater and the East St Louis Journal newspaper building! Dude please be so kind as to quit LYING to your viewers as they attempt to be informed but were mislead instead! 😮

I visit every once in a while and it’s so sad

I'm not from the U.S. but I'm glad this got recommended to me. Seeing all these utterly horrible sights all over the U.S. as you ruined your cities for wide roads and bad land use while you had gold on your hands as late as the 1950s is a right shame. Good to see these plans exist because if there's one country that direly needs to improve on its past mistakes, it's the U.S.! Thank you for making this video and I hope Savannah will improve once these plans are executed!

These are great plans for urbanizing Savannah but follow through to prevent further suburban development and to include the working classes and marginalized groups are necessary to keep from becoming a mini Houston or a mini Portland. Make sure these happen!

Super sick

I love Savannah, but I wonder how many of this new housing will be affordable. I'm guessing not much.

great video! and great news. and you brought up a great point, this is why there is a lot of traffic in cities because everyone is trying to get to the nice part of downtown, so why not just expand the nice parts of downtown to new areas to distribute the interest.

Savannah west of MLK blvd is where the blacks were segregated to. Not surprised at all they got the short end of the stick, and it’s outrageous how slow the city has decided to reverse the past wrongs. However, now I worry that the black historic population will be gentrified as they redevelop the area for more affluent white residents and transplants. When we implement urbanist ideas, we also need to implement them with the consideration of racial and social equity and anti racist ideals

Stick to the plan and savannah will prosper, short term cash grabs never lead to long term sucess.

It’s insane how much space we devote to parking It’s actually disgusting

You guys clearly have never lived in St. Louis if the city “lost half its population” and is “destroyed”. While looking 1 inch deep at the stats makes this true, a little deeper diving into the stats makes the picture more clear. St. Louis along with Baltimore are the only two major USA cities that have a legal separation of the downtown areas and suburbs. The stl metro population has actually grown since 1904 as people moved out of the tiny downtown “st Louis city” into the St. Louis county. If you take the worst area or a city’s metro and only report that stats on that area it gives the whole metro area a bad rap. Also Those old pictures have filth everywhere and people are packed in like sardine fish.

Savannah is miserable.

I think urbanists who don't talk about the history of the working class and marginalized groups within urban settings while discussing changes to be made to improve the city are really missing a huge part of the analysis needed to create equitable spaces.

A government decision can only go so far, you need developers to come build it. Great opportunity for someone who gets the vision.

0:50 Based, based, based.

Video starts at 3:00

Just another reason to visit this city. Never been here but it already looked like one of the nicest cities, and if they can stop and revert modern urban building practices and get back to old practices this city could become one of the most beautiful cities not just in the U.S., but in the whole world.

I was born in Savannah and my dad went to scad, it’s a beautiful city!

The biggest problem with all of this is crime. Nobody wants to live, at least with a family, in downtown Savannah because of crime. Nobody wants to take public transport if they can avoid it because of crime. There have been a number of times I've wondered around downtown Savannah going out of my mind with a full bladder because there are no public bathrooms. Why? Crime. That mass transit line you've identified? Who would want to ride it? Too much crime. Fix your people, fix their culture and this alone would go a long way in fixing your cities.

And this should be one of the best cities in the US? Damn… 😅

Coming from Houston, seeing this style and level of planning is a breath of fresh air. Makes me want to move to Savannah!

I love how you are uplifting urbanism and providing information on how the city of Savannah is taking a new step toward fixing many sprawling suburbs. However, my biggest problem with this video is that it neglects many of the black and low-income population in the city who will be pushed aside to fuel this new development. The development you talk about on the east side is actually a former free slave community built off the segregation of the town and is a middle-class area. Unless the new developments take into account that mixing together income brackets is incredibly important to max out the impact it will have on Savannah, it will only further grow gentrification and segregation within the city. The same is true for the east side development. Segregation is a significant reason why Savannah could not destroy many of the beautiful buildings you see now, and it still heavily is so. So, it's essential to recognize that Savannah and other cities like Charleston have the potential to pave the way for new urbanism but also reimagine how a city takes into account current residents by mixing together people of various backgrounds. but still GREAT VIDEO and so happy you made on the city I live in

Great video man. Love hearing some positive US urban planning content. Also great that the plans acknowledge that beauty matters

Wow, as a European I feel corrected. America can have beautiful cities after all, even if still badly planned. Shame it is more of an exception these days. NYC lost all of its ArtDeco/Classical glamourous look, while SF is just...a shithole with junkies. I really hope that, in my lifetime, both the US and Canada would go back to having that "gem of the West" aura about them once again.

I like cities that mix styles together. To where you can walk around and see each layer built on top of itself. Sounds like Savannah is going to have to go on my list of places I want to visit. Cool video.

it’s cool to think all these urbanist CZcamsrs have actually been making a difference by changing public opinion, thus motivating local governments to put in the effort. Probably also helps so many boomers are leaving the mortal world at once lol

Awesome initiatives!

i can goon to this

Just for posterity , it is pronounced (pru it I go ) housing complex . Do not knock the Tums building.

Just visted the city, some of that was done, including the re-use of the industrial buildings.

Killer content man, loving it. Subbed!

Beautiful thumbnail, do you do the watercolor?

Alexander, thank you once again for a superb video. Let's hope that Savannah's plans come to fruition. If only all American cities and towns could boast such beauty!

Did.. "the greatest generation" destroyed America ??? It,s them ?

Gorgeous town Destroyed for ugly pickup and SUV, ugey Japanese cars 😱😱😱😩😩😩😨😨😨