[vzidex]

> Hamburg build from 2008 on a new district, the HafenCity, a soulless place of concrete, expensive apartments, and chain stores.

I find your description here fascinating, because it's exactly how I've described the CityPlace district [1] here in Toronto that was built over the last 20 years, with most development in the last 10. Makes me wonder how common this style of modern, sterile, "ideal" development is in big cities around the world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CityPlace,_Toronto

(I also think it's interesting how both HafenCity and CityPlace work the word "city" into their title, with a similar naming scheme)

[jacobajit]

Hudson Yards in NYC is probably the most notorious example of this trend. Seems to be emblematic of a shift toward real estate as a luxury commodity investment, combined with massive developers having free rein to set up inorganic star mega-blocks. All this in close cooperation with cities that have an incentive to improve what were once brownfield sites and are now the most valuable undeveloped sites into tax behemoths.

See also: Seaport in Boston, Navy Yard in DC, Mission Bay in San Francisco

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Hmm. Has even more parallels. What was Railway Lands in Toronto was the 'Freihafen' / 'Free Port Zone' in that part of Hamburg, also with extensive railways/switching yards.

Ours should have been almost fully developed by now, at least that is how I remember the countless presentations since about the year 2000. Alas, the economy had a little hiccup, so it is only half complete at most, rather one third.

[thomasedwards]

Really feel like they could have tried about 5% harder with the name. At least the brand doesn’t have to be soulless even if the place is.

[iamatworknow]

Interestingly, Long Island City in New York has become the same sort of concrete soulless high rise area, with an equally uninteresting name.

https://ny.curbed.com/2016/8/31/12732412/long-island-city-de...

[cryptoquick]

Yeah, it sure shounds like a CityPlace