jjakucyk

Most suburban sidewalks seem to be little more than paths for dog walking or kids to ride scooters. If you're lucky a kid may have a friend a few doors down. Getting to your neighbor's across the back fence, to another subdivision, school, or convenience store on the other hand is going to be nearly impossible. That's especially true with newer pseudo-gated subdivisions that only have one exit to the old farm road that never got upgraded and is still lined with ditches and scrub.

Even if they are right next to existing development, those neighbors are so likely to go full-on NIMBY that they won't allow even a pedestrian connection, let alone a street. One of those seamy pedestrians might wander into the respectable old neighborhood and bite the head off someone's lawn gnome. Just a mile or so away at the TriHealth Pavilion at I-71 and Pfeiffer they have a solid fence along the entire west edge of the property against the residential subdivision behind. Although there's pathways through to the industrial park to the north and a paved running trail around the building, it is physically impossible for a pedestrian to get between TriHealth and the subdivision. I can understand not wanting through road traffic, but through joggers? Even in the city there's people who want to close hillside steps, block sidewalks, and cut off streets. You just don't see this kind of blatant hostility towards walking in other countries. In places like Australia or much of Europe where their suburban street grids are similarly dendritic to ours, their pedestrian and cycling paths reestablish the connectivity. They're not afraid to have a sidewalk or a bike path connecting through without being part of a street. The number of pedestrians in these renderings is beyond comical too.

The only explanation I can find is that they want to make it wide enough to install benches so people can sit and watch the nonexistent traffic below. That seems like a colossal waste of money that could be better spent where needed on things like the crossings at Madison/Edwards or any number of other things. It's already a wide bridge (cited as 29') which is more than enough for them to do what they want without rebuilding it. Why it was made big enough for double tracks with abutments large enough for a three-track overpass I have no idea. Jake, was this ever a possible alternate route for the subway? It was only built in 1929. The Marburg overpass was pretty well kaput, or at least its deck was, and it's been scheduled for replacement for a while now.

Lowell is interesting as a transition between the 1930s and 1940s art deco 4-plexes and the larger plain-Jane boxes of the 1960s and 1970s (like nearby Clifton Colony). There's a lot of 1950s detailing on those Lowell buildings which is pretty rare around here, but it's everywhere around the fringes of the Chicago city limits and first ring suburbs like Skokie, Niles, and Lincolnwood. There you see mostly single story houses fit on narrow city lots, a sort of midcentury bungalow/ranch hybrid.

A lot of Cincinnati's apartment complexes were built in that same 1960s-1970s time frame too. They were a good thing in that they increased density either by building on formerly unsuitable lots, or replaced scattered rundown older houses with pretty affordable units. Unfortunately the construction quality is not good, and the architecture is terrible. Their parking lots are also quite hideous. I think zoning regulations were tightened significantly in this period specifically to stop the construction of such buildings. You don't really see any from the 1980s, and anything more recently has generally been a PUD.

Wait what? Magnets don't wear out, and do traction motors even have any permanent magnets at all? Electromagnets don't wear out either. The most common problem is that the brushes wear out, and those are pretty simple to replace so long as there's not too much damage to the commutator. Excessive current draw due to control failure/overdriving, overheating, or excessive dirt and moisture can damage the windings. The RC car anecdote is probably from better insulation between the windings and overall better winding done by hand versus a cheap mass-production facility for toy-level components. The only other problem I can think of is bearing failure, which can then lead to rotor damage and possible shorting out of the windings because of it. That's the more likely source of motors "slowing down" over time than anything else.

Getting a bit off-topic, but the fact that the air (and to a lesser extent water) has been so well cleaned up, it actually breeds contempt for the regulations, or at least complacency, because people who didn't live through the bad old days don't know what it would be like without them.

It looks like a bad rendering from The Sims of a cheap assisted living cottage. You know it's all vinyl too. This passes for upscale? I bet they don't even build a stair or sidewalk to the old part of town, the only way to get anywhere will be to drive by Kroger.

This is what I was talking about. These are excerpts from "Civic Science in Home and Community," published in 1923. It's all about air and light and fresh food and wholesome activities that can only be found in ersatz farmhouses in a romanticized small town setting.

The narrative of the video is quite toxic, and it had been going on since at least the 1920s. Not only does it vilify the poor, but the whole focus is on the symptoms of poverty and not the cause, as if somehow the buildings are the problem as JYP mentioned. While concentration of poverty is a bad thing, so many people to this day still think that just demolishing the ratty houses and apartments will fix everything, but that's not the problem, being poor is. Also, by the time of the video, decades of institutional neglect and wealth transfer from the core to the periphery had taken its toll. It's still taking its toll today, but the low-hanging fruit of ramshackle houses have long since perished. What's left are either vacant lots, which look less offensive but are pernicious in their extent, or the slow relentless decline of even stable neighborhoods.

I can't find the explanation, but I believe the Dayton situation is because of a combination of a special exemption for the Dayton airport (it was land owned by Dayton but not annexed because its discontiguous, similar to Cincinnati and the Blue Ash airport) along with something in Montgomery County's ordinances about incorporating or dissolving townships. The Trotwood/Clayton/Riverside/Huber Heights situation is because they basically "merged" their underlying townships out of existence. So it's not unlike if all the little bits and pieces of Columbia Township became part of Madeira, I guess.

It's not like the base of Terrace Plaza doesn't have floors in it though, and cutting through reinforced concrete floors to create an atrium/shaft is no simple feat in a high rise.

Looking at street view, it really is a tough one. I agree with the board that demolition shouldn't even be considered without an approved replacement plan. As it is though, how much does this building really contribute? It's a wood box with a little cornice. At some point you do have to say enough is enough. Just because something is old doesn't mean it has great value. Yes it has more value than an empty lot, or a garage, but it's also leaning/bulging and rotted, with little to no historic fabric left other than framing. Is that worth blocking redevelopment that would actually be more in keeping with the surrounding buildings that are larger and more substantially built?

I assume these are just augmenting the streetcar signals already in place (seen in the twitter photo)?

Also keep in mind that in much of the sunbelt the growth industry is growth itself. With so much of our economy tied to construction and home ownership, you get a self-reinforcing growth pattern in places like that. The state DOT is more than willing to reinforce that with new highways and widened arterial streets. A relative lack of legacy regulations, institutions, and entrenched politics helps move things along. Of course the problem is it's a total ponzi scheme. So it's not as much about being in the south (or the west) but about being younger. It's why Columbus, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis are more like southern sprawlburgs in a lot of ways, while Memphis, Winston-Salem, and Birmingham have more in common with northern rust belt cities.

It was also one of those "shovel-ready" projects that the feds were all too happy to throw money at.

There's been a bunch of infill and tear-downs on Lavinia and the end of Paul Street. I think streets like O'Bryon, Cinnamon, and Cohoon are a bit harder because the lots are smaller and may require buying two houses in order to put one back. Doesn't mean it won't happen though, much of the stuff on Lavinia is duplexes.

Well it is. It was certainly getting on in years too. I'm not surprised they had some trouble demoing it with no load on it.

Terrain-wise yes, but the houses in Nashville that are being replaced look more like what you find in Fairfax, Madison Place, or Bridgetown...late 1940s early 1950s capes and proto-ranches.

That's some pretty serious terrain.

True. A coworker of mine got a ticket in Mariemont that was issued just after midnight the day the registration expired. That means the cop found the car beforehand and then stalked it. Talk about misplaced priorities. On the other hand, while new residents are supposed to register their vehicle and get a new license within 30 days, if your out-of-state documentation is still current, there's not really any need to rush.

Interesting, though they don't seem to care about anywhere outside the basin. There's always cars parked during rush hour restrictions on Woodburn near DeSales Corner, and on McMillan or Taft.

Well when it was freshly painted it was very much purple. http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc21280.php

Most of the rust seems to be from the walkways they installed for the bridge climb whatever thing. I know they've also been having problems with love locks too. Either way, it's disappointing how quickly the paint faded.

I tell ya what, that hillside on Riverside Drive ain't messin' around. It's still moving even as they're trying to fix it. I'm sure the rainy weather hasn't helped.