[glacials]

Yes. European cities were, in general, well-developed before the car was invented.

US cities are built around the car. This means more space dedicated to parking, which means less space for homes and businesses, which means things are farther apart, which means people need cars.

It’s a negative feedback loop.

[carschno]

You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. Nowadays, the latter are typically those cities popular with tourists and inhabitants due to their lively and walkable city centers, while city centers of the further category are oftentimes abandoned and avoided areas during the evenings and weekends. Impressive to see how the car-based city concept has failed for the inhabitants, and how hard it is for those cities to adapt to the post-industrial era.

Of course, failure is subjective: car-based cities have been essential for the car industry because many inhabitants are completely dependent on having a car.

[Someone]

> You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed.

I think that’s more likely “and rebuilt according to the old plan”. Very few German cities escaped with limited bombing damage.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/:

“Of the 54 largest cities (>100,000 inhabitants) in Germany, only four survived without significant damage: Lübeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt.”

[Dylan16807]

There is a tremendous gap between "limited damage" and "destroyed", and in most of that range you wouldn't have much opportunity to change the layout despite the damage being "significant".

[seadan83]

I don't think this is quite true. To nitpick. My knowledge is that European urban planning was very similar and car centric until the late 60s. At that time things diverged, US stayed the course with car centric split zoning where Europe shifted away from car centric design and heavily favored mixed zoning

Eg, in many US cities, it is illegal to have a bakery on the ground floor of an apartment building.

Though, bottom line, my point is US and EU cities were designed very similarly from 1940 until 1970

[unity1001]

> My knowledge is that European urban planning was very similar and car centric until the late 60s

There was and is scarce 'city planning' in Europe because there is scarce planning that can be done. The majority of cities have emerged in the middle ages at the latest, and there is nothing that can be done to 'plan' them. Even for the peripheries (as they are called) this is so: They formed around the villages or remote settlements in the peripheries of the cities, so there was no planning there at all.

The closes that can be said to be built 'around cars' would be the urban construction of gated communities or high rises in the peripheries. But they still were not built around cars - those communities can still perfectly live within their own locale by having access to everything. The only difference that requires a car would be those people having jobs in the city and having to drive 20-30 minutes every day to the city and back.

> Though, bottom line, my point is US and EU cities were designed very similarly from 1940 until 1970

That is patently false.

[seadan83]

I agree that most European (and many ancient) cities had no city planning and grew organically. Though, this is not what I'm talking about. Yet, there are still quibbles around this as many European cities were rebuilt many times. Sometimes this reconstruction was the result of war, sometimes it was sheer reconstruction out of Urban planning. "The city [Paris] is one of the most striking examples of rational urban planning, conducted in the middle of the nineteenth century during the “Second Empire” of Napoleon III to ease congestion in the dense network of medieval streets." [1]

Though, the reason why 1940 - 1970 is so important is because it is post-war and a lot was rebuilt in Europe while at the same time there was a lot of growth in American cities (the baby boom; federal investment in roads, etc..), and both European and American Urban growth and reconstruction were heavily influenced by "Modernism" [2][3]. "European engineers were sent in flocks to the US to learn from the environments in which these revolutionary ideas were playing out, returning with tabula rasa development plans to realise their own modernist dreams." [4]

Modernist Urban planning ideas started in the 1910's and on, but it wasn't until 1940 that there was the mass of opportunity for rebuilding and the funding to implement those ideas. "Modernist principles have shaped city-building since the beginning of the twentieth century. Numerous authors draw a connection between modernist discourse within planning practice and the rise of the Fordist paradigm (Irving 1993; Calthorpe and Fulton 2001; Sandercock 1998). In following these principles, the North American built environment has taken the form of low-density sprawl. This development pattern is characterized by a dominance of single-family housing, a reliance on automobile transportation and a strict separation of land uses." [5]

A key difference is that US civil engineers still are quite influenced by Modernism. For example, US traffic engineers continue to optimize for the throughput of vehicles on city streets rather than the throughput of people [6].

On the other hand, around the 1970s affluent European urban planners pushed back on "Le Corbesier" style planning and "Modernist planning fell into decline. "By the late 1960s and early 1970s, many planners felt that modernism's clean lines and lack of human scale sapped vitality from the community, blaming them for high crime rates and social problems.[59] ... Modernist planning fell into decline in the 1970s when the construction of cheap, uniform tower blocks ended in most countries" [7]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130722-revolution-in-pa...

[2] https://www.archdaily.com/604056/north-america-s-radiant-cit...

[3] [How a Controversial European Architect Shaped New York](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-controversial-...)

[4] [Story of cities #36: how Copenhagen rejected 1960s modernist 'utopia'](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/05/story-cities-...)

[5] http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/iphs2004/pdf/003_p.pdf (page 3)

[6] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-30/a-swiss-l...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_urban_planning#Mode... - "Reaction against modernism"

-----------------------

Beyond the above, the more extended exerts below I believe make the same point I made. I would find it interesting where these are patently false and do not support the assertion I made earlier:

> "Modernism: In the 1920s, the ideas of modernism began to surface in urban planning. The influential modernist architect Le Corbusier presented his scheme for a "Contemporary City" for three million inhabitants (Ville Contemporaine) in 1922. The centrepiece of this plan was the group of sixty-story cruciform skyscrapers, steel-framed office buildings encased in huge curtain walls of glass. [....] He segregated pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways and glorified the automobile as a means of transportation. "

> "Reaction against modernism: By the late 1960s and early 1970s, many planners felt that modernism's clean lines and lack of human scale sapped vitality from the community, blaming them for high crime rates and social problems.[59]

> Modernist planning fell into decline in the 1970s when the construction of cheap, uniform tower blocks ended in most countries, such as Britain and France. Since then many have been demolished and replaced by other housing types. Rather than attempting to eliminate all disorder, planning now concentrates on individualism and diversity in society and the economy; this is the post-modernist era.[59]"

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_urban_planning#Mode...

"Modernist principles have shaped city-building since the beginning of the twentieth century. Numerous authors draw a connection between modernist discourse within planning practice and the rise of the Fordist paradigm (Irving 1993; Calthorpe and Fulton 2001; Sandercock 1998). In following these principles, the North American built environment has taken the form of low-density sprawl. This development pattern is characterized by a dominance of single-family housing, a reliance on automobile transportation and a strict separation of land uses." (page 3)

"A significant individual embracing these values was the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Beginning his practice in the late ‘10s, he wanted to correct the ‘chaos’ of the city and create an ideal order. His impact on modernist planning thought is incalculable, and his ideas were widely applied in cities during the 1950s and ‘60s." (Page 4)

"Following a 1926 US Supreme Court decision to safeguard property values from noxious land uses and neighbours, zoning became accepted as the principal planning tool (Hall 1988). The result was the strict separation of work, home, marketplace and social life. This move to create areas dedicated to specific purposes, and to remove uses that conflict produced single-use central business districts, uniform housing tracts, and dispersed shopping centres and recreational facilities." (Page 6)

"Transportation policy during the 1950s and ‘60s focused primarily on increasing vehicle capacity on roads. Analytical tools considered highways and cars only, while ignoring community design and public transit considerations. Instead of deciding where development should go, engineers just looked at projected traffic trends and designed infrastructure in an attempt to accommodate them" (Page 7)

"Inherent in the modernist project was a belief in the ‘tabula rasa.’ As a result, enormous areas were cleared with completely new environments inserted. Again, Le Corbusier led the drive with his unrealized 1925 proposal to demolish historic Paris north of the River Seine (except selected monuments that would be moved), and to replace it with eighteen 700-foot towers (Moe and Wilkie 1997)" (page 12)

http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/iphs2004/pdf/003_p.pdf

[unity1001]

> Yet, there are still quibbles around this as many European cities were rebuilt many times.

Thats not correct. Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially. The re-architecting of Paris does not have any relevance to cars since it happened in 19th century.

> Beyond the above, the more extended exerts below I believe make the same point I made

They actually invalidate your argument - including the earlier excerpts: Modernist architects adopting car-centric ideas and high rises does not mean that they got to implement what they wanted to do in Europe. There is no such case of large-scale reconstruction of any European city around cars except the war-affected ones (and most partially), and all your excerpts just confirm that. They talk about how (the part of) a generation of European architects adopted modernist car-centric ideas - not them actually getting around to implement them. Its Le Corbusier proposing to demolish part of Paris in a furtive attempt, or him planning a high rise somewhere and whatnot.

Aside from that the excerpts explicitly demonstrate that car-centric cities were a US phenomenon. Not European.

Normally so. Because even the mere act of buying any zone in an average European city to demolish it would cost !enormous! amounts of money that nobody would be willing to spend. Leave aside the reconstruction. This is why the 19th century reconstruction of parts of Paris is the sole incident of this.

All of this, before the fact that most European cities do not have space - nobody can imagine demolishing an entire city to rebuild it with less density so that more cars could be used in sparse urbanization. Europe does not have that much space.

[seadan83]

>> Yet, there are still quibbles around this as many European cities were rebuilt many times.

> Thats not correct. Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially. The re-architecting of Paris does not have any relevance to cars since it happened in 19th century.

You stated that there was not a lot of urban planning in most European cities as they grew organically. My point is that many (over their _entire_) history were rebuilt many times, and in some of those instances with explicit urban planning. The example of Paris is to simply demonstrate this, not only was the city rebuilt several times, but once for the sheer sake of urban planning. This contradicts your statement: "There was and is scarce 'city planning' in Europe because there is scarce planning that can be done", Paris is _one_ (extremely prominent) counter-example.

>> Beyond the above, the more extended exerts below I believe make the same point I made

> They actually invalidate your argument - including the earlier excerpts: Modernist architects adopting car-centric ideas and high rises does not mean that they got to implement what they wanted to do in Europe.

I don't think that is correct, and hence it does not at all invalidate the argument. I'm not sure if you read all of the important quotes and the references. With the benefit of the doubt, I think proof by contradiction can demonstrate this. If modernist urban planners had no sway, and were not at all influential, then these quotes would make no sense (these are referring to Europe & North America):

- "Modernist principles have shaped city-building since the beginning of the twentieth century."

- "Modernist planning fell into decline in the 1970s when the construction of cheap, uniform tower blocks ended in most countries, such as Britain and France. Since then many have been demolished and replaced by other housing types. "

To further explore this point, (and this article I really encourage you to read in its entirety): https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/05/story-cities-...

> “There were these big freeway people, and then there were the counter streams that happened between 1960 and 1970 ... One group was pushing cars out of the city, while others were trying to push them in.”

If Copenhagen was _not_ built as a modernist, car centric city (during the 1950's-1960's), then why would there be a group pushing back against car centricism in the 1960's at all? What would they have been pushing back against? Were they pushing back against how cities were built an ocean away in North America? No.. they were pushing back against how Copenhagen was rebuilt with car-centric, modernist urban planning. I mean, the title of the article is: "how Copenhagen rejected 1960s modernist 'utopia'"

> Aside from that the excerpts explicitly demonstrate that car-centric cities were a US phenomenon. Not European.

Not quite, the excerpts show that there was a lot of influence back and forth. European city planners went to the US and were influenced, and vice versa. Corbusier even designed several blocks of NYC, and the influence was reciprocal, see quote:

- "European engineers were sent in flocks to the US to learn from the environments in which these revolutionary ideas were playing out, returning with tabula rasa development plans to realise their own modernist dreams."

> Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially.

Considering the war effected huge regions of Europe.. that would have been: nearly all of Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, a third of France, and countless more as large areas were flattened several times over. Practically every German city alone was carpet and fire bombed many times. Hence, these are very, very large reconstructions, all at a time when Modernist urban planning was the dominant style of urban planning.

> Because even the mere act of buying any zone in an average European city to demolish it would cost !enormous! amounts of money that nobody would be willing to spend.

I agree... to some extent. That is why the post-WWII reconstruction is so significant. Further, there _was_ also significant outward expansion during this time as well. Here is a quick example that Paris saw large expansions: "These large housing projects, known as the "Grand Ensembles," were constructed by the French government from the 1950s through the 1980s to help ease the housing problems that were prevalent throughout the country. Many of these high-rise buildings and communities still exist today" [1]

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/high-rises-of-the-parisian-s....

In sum: - It's a straw argument to suggest what I'm saying is that every city was rebuilt in a modernist way.

- Though, WWII presented an opportunity for incredibly large reconstruction

- Post-WWII, there was also a lot of new construction for outward expansion

- During this time, the late 1940s to late 1960s, the dominant urban planning style of both NA and Europe was modernist car-centric (and so these constructions were similar from that perspective).

To refute, please give citations of what the dominant Urban planning style was for post-war Europe. I would love specific citations around this, as I have given you to support my claims (and even most of what I have wrote are direct quotes and references)

[seadan83]

@unity, my original statement was this: "My knowledge is that European urban planning was very similar and car centric until the late 60s."

I think the citations quoted above from multiple sources generously support this. Again, that is not at all saying that all of Europe was rebuilt in the 1950s-1960s willingly and entirely to be car centric. But, the _planning_ of new construction/reconstruction were similar during that period in both the USA & Europe (and Europe by-and-large stopped their new constructions in that style around the early 1970s while the USA by and large did not). There is even a mention in one of the quotes of a lot of that construction having been torn down.

I'd say Warsaw, Prague and Paris are all great examples. Warsaw was completely rebuilt and downtown is car centric (looks very much like an American city). Prague was somewhat unscathed and has a very historic layout, Paris is a mix of reconstruction and historic urban planning. The point remains that there was a pretty specific car-centric urban planning style that dominated in Europe in the late 1940's-1960s.

All that is to say - European urban planning was also, at one time somewhat recently, largely car centric. It is really notable that stopped being the case and is an example for US cities - that they can also transform away from being fully car-centric.

[germinalphrase]

Wouldn’t that be a positive feedback loop that we feel negative about?