Small Cities
Sarcasm aside, the point I would make about Frieberg in Saxony (pictured below) is that it’s really a kind of place we barely have any of in the United States:
Freiberg, Germany (my photo, available under cc license)
It’s a town with only 42,000 inhabitants, no particularly giant buildings, and not really all that dense in the scheme of things. But it does have a built-up core with narrow streets, four- or five floor buildings, and a general lack of giant parking structures that together make for a pleasant dense walkable community. At the same time it offers this “urban” lifestyle, however, it has a lot of small towny features including being quiet and fairly traditional. I assume a healthy proportion of the population actually lives on the outskirts rather than in this part of town, but they can still drop in for a visit and with things being both small in general and bike- and pedestrian-oriented in the center, there don’t appear to be giant traffic jams or any huge problem driving if you’re making that kind of trip.
Obviously, path dependence is playing a role here. Freiberg involved hundreds of years worth of fixed investment before anyone had a car, so naturally it results in a nice community that’s not car dependent. But I really do think it’s a nice community that has a lot to offer that would appeal to people who don’t necessarily want to live in a “big city.” The closest analogue I can think of in the U.S. is certain college towns (or maybe places rich people go on vacation like Aspen or Bar Harbor) that people generally seem to deem pleasant.
99 Responses to “Small Cities”
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September 21st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Rich people probably don’t vacation in Bar Harbor – if they summer on Mt. Desert Island, they have places in Northeast Harbor or Somesville or somewhere else a little further away from the tourist mob that dominates Bar Harbor. Just FYI.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
The closest analogue I can think of in the U.S. is certain college towns…
I think it’s a pretty good analogy. Part of the reason is that college towns often contain a large population of carless students. So in the Collegetown areas of — say — Ithaca, NY — you get dense residential construction.
Admittedly, much of that construction is sort of a “student slum.” Maintenance is not always a priority. But on the whole it helps sustain (at least in Ithaca) a walkable downtown in a rather small city.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Hoboken is very like that. It has 3 & 4 story brownstones as it’s primary housing type. The really cool thing is that many (if not most) residential blocks have first floor corner unit dedicated commercial. So little barber shops, floral shops, markets, coffee shops are sprinkled throughout the community. There is also a main commercial drag down Washington – but even that has 4 story residential above them so that the street always feels lived in, unlike the downtown of so many cities, which empty out on weekends or evenings – Phoenix comes to mind.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:38 pm
This is why New england has more of this setup than the rest of the country.
It’s something of a mystery to me why the squares in the large-at-the-time Southern cities (Charleston, Savannah) are so huge, relative to other things built at the time …
September 21st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
The city I grew up in, York PA, actually isn’t so different from this. It’s a city of 41,000 people on just over 5 square miles with mostly 3 and 4 story houses. Most of it is walkable, and there’s a decent bus system. On the other hand, there’s not good transit connecting the city to the surroundings (and the metro area is 400K) so there’s two big highways one of which has traffic problems. There’s also very little bike infrastructure. However, it’s still a “small city” in a way that people who grew up in a big city, rural area, or big city suburbs don’t really grok. It wouldn’t take that much effort to turn it into something more like Frieburg, and I expect that as the city continues to gentrify that it’ll move more in that direction.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Before I got to the part where Matt notes that certain college towns have these same qualities, I was already thinking that this didn’t sound terribly different than my home town of Ann Arbor, MI, which has a well-deserved reputation as a cool place to live. I still miss A2.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Evanston kid of looks like this. Its quite small and dense, very walkable (but also has public transportation, l-train and metra, some buses). Then again, Evanston is a college town.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
is that it’s really a kind of place we barely have any of in the United States:
This is a bit of an exaggeration. In addition to the college towns you refer to, there are smallish, dense communities in the suburbs of large east coast cities. I’m thinking of places like Arlington, Mass, or Wayne, Penn. No, I’m sure they’re not exactly like Freiburg. Among other differences they’re sub-units of large metro areas. But still, it’s not impossible to have the small city, highly livable, walkable, not overly-dependent-on-a-car lifestyle in America if you have the cash.
I do think having more of them would be nice.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Many 1800s US cities, including Chicago, used to have areas like this that were absorbed commuter suburbs. And many independent commuter suburbs did and still do to an extent (e.g. Naperville, Illinois). But the concentration of true income-producing shopping in malls, chain stores, and big-box parking lot malls has made it very difficult to keep an area like that a going ecosystem.
Cranky
September 21st, 2009 at 12:50 pm
You can also combine “small college town” and “place where rich people vacation” to get Santa Barbara, CA, which is very, very like this.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
And of course, Freiburg is also a university town.
Another advantage is that these European cities also have a natural, central gathering place: the cathedral. When I was in Freiburg, I went to two events there: a big market, and a children’s circus. That’s something that the newer, more religiously diverse U.S. cities don’t have.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Ann Arbor, MI!
September 21st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I was also immediately thinking of Ann Arbor.
For a more interesting answer–some old towns that used to be at major transportation point (canals and eventually railroads) are like this. Try Hollidaysburg, PA, for example.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Lancaster, PA
September 21st, 2009 at 1:00 pm
And of course, Freiburg is also a university town.
Once again, you are confusing Freiberg with Freiburg. Freiberg is actually an old mining town.
At any rate, this description reminds me a bit of Charlottesville, where I went to school. I’d say that most of the classic “college towns” more or less fit into this model.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Lots of other people have already beat me to the “this reminds me of American city/town X” game, but: Burlington, Vermont. Population about 39,000, it’s a college town itself, with a pedestrian-only business district, albeit only four blocks long.
And, huh. Until I looked it up on Wikipedia, I didn’t know that Burlington was also home to Alison Bechdel, for whom the Bechdel Test is named. Cool.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
At the same time it offers this “urban” lifestyle, however, it has a lot of small towny features including being quiet and fairly traditional.
Why do almost no American conservatives support this type of urban development? They’re nominally all for traditional values and ways of life, and then they hitch their cart to zombified freeway-and-strip-malls urban planning. Seems strange that insofar as there’s interest in this sort of small-city urbanism in the US, it’s all on the left.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:10 pm
It’s something of a mystery to me why the squares in the large-at-the-time Southern cities (Charleston, Savannah) are so huge, relative to other things built at the time
As James MacPherson and others have pointed out, the South had a much, much higher percentage of men involved up to the Civil War in militia and volunteer military companies.
Charleston had like 1 for every 200 men of military age – which essentially means every man of military age was in a volunteer company.
Those open spaces were the places where these military groups drilled and practiced.
Moreover, I’m pretty sure at least some of those spaces were also used as a market for the South’s peculiar regional product.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Anywhere in America that has lovely buildings and is walkable turns into a tourist trap. That’s right, people will travel thousands of miles to hang out in a place that’s not overrun by cars and parking lots. That’s how messed up we are.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
It’s something of a mystery to me why the squares in the large-at-the-time Southern cities (Charleston, Savannah) are so huge, relative to other things built at the time
Maybe it had to do with the heat? Perhaps the large squares had the same purpose as the high ceilings and verandas – they were ways to beat the heat before air conditioning.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I don’t know from Freiberg, but one big difference is that European cities of this size generally have very distinct city limits, so that even though you have an urban feel, there is also immediate access to the countryside for recreation. Whereas US cities and college towns of a comparable size have bypasses and apartment complexes and motels and fast food restaurants extending beyond the city for miles. Thus there is a greater demand for green space within the city limits, limiting density.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Dave – you might be confusing Freiberg in Saxony, where MY is, with Freiburg in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a much larger town with a major university (we also have two Frankfurts, and so forth – all very confusing). Freiberg has only a small technical college, and it has a pretty typical layout for a German town of its size, though more attractive than average.
Another interesting comparison might be to my own city, which has almost 100 times the population of Freiburg but a very similar density in its most populous neighborhoods: 4-6 story apartment buildings with street-level storefronts on main thoroughfares, narrow but navigable streets with offset bike lanes, a huge abundance of trees and parkland, etc. As a result, many dense urban neighborhoods retain the pleasant feel and aesthetic beauty of a small town but support all the amenities and the well-linked mass transit of skyscraper-heavy Manhattan.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I despair me of Somerville, MA. At a recent community meeting about a new development right on the community path (major bike throughway) and about seven minutes walk from the subway, the developer was proud they were going to include MORE parking than is required.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
It isn’t just path dependency. One of the main reasons you don’t see much development like this in the US is (fear of) crime. To live in close quarters as in the picture above, you need a fairly high level of trust and mutual respect among neighbors. As MY mentioned, college towns and rich resorts are often still like this: two examples of places where people generally trust their neighbors are “just like them”.
Whether it’s crime or fear of crime that drives this, and to what degree race is at play in the perception of danger is obviously a point of disagreement between left and right. But pretending that crime issues aren’t a significant force in sprawl is just bizarre.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
A lot of the places being bandied about are pretty distinct from the model Matt is talking about. Take Lancaster, PA. It’s nothing like your prototypical European city. Having a small old-time downtown area isn’t sufficient.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Great question in 17 Chachy. I think the reason is that this urban lifestyle brings people in contact with much greater diversity. Lots of conservatives hate that. They prefer to live in gated communities of people just like them and send their kids to private schools. Best to avoid the unwashed masses.
Then there is the whole stupid notion that somehow cars equate to freedom. I never understood what was so liberating about being required to buy a car + insurance so that I could sit in traffic, but that is part of our culture.
Also the phenomenon on the right where the actual merits of the issue are inconsequential. If it pisses off liberals, then it must be a good thing. See global warming.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Heh, I also immediately thought of A2, where I’m currently typing this comment. It’s a great place!
But I also spend a lot of time in Dayton, Ohio, (pop. 150K) which has been afflicted by sprawl but still has a legacy core downtown that’s rather nice. Nobody thinks of Dayton as a livability magnet, but the center city neighborhoods are architecturally and culturally pretty good, and a lot of people get around by bicycle. If they knocked down the limited access highway bisecting the city, it would boom. (At least, the hipster parts would.) I’ve seen similar situations in other small Midwestern cities. Most retain large walkable bits that are separated from each other by a highway or rail line, ruining the network effects.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
The funny thing is that my hometown– in Mississippi, of all places– has roughly the same population and several square blocks of downtown that rather resemble your photo, but of course no one lives there. Haven’t been there in several years, but most of the buildings were empty or used for warehousing during my youth. And of course land is cheap, so there was no incentive to continue developing & reviving the downtown area, although the old opera house has been renovated & is something of a showplace.
Also, if you cross over the old railroad tracks, it’s like a time warp from 1900-1930 downtown to 50s-70s retail suburbanization, which has also fallen into disrepair after being abandoned for 1990s clustered retail development on the other side of the interstate.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I wonder how much of the European architecture that Matthew admires was driven by aristocratic government — NOT by rational decision-making by the Marxist plebes.
In the middle ages, cities began to arise again because lords gave merchants small plots of land and a charter of privileges in exchange for a payoff. It was also cheaper to build a fortified wall around a small dense area when things turned to crap. As the population grew, it had to build upward and become more dense because of stone and legal walls.
Survivalists have noticed that in 5000 years of history, the fortified town/city state is what survives in bad times. And in some US states, an incorporated town can have its own government, courts and police force independent of the surrounding county government. Such small units are not necessarily bastions of liberty — a medieval resident of Florence, Italy would have grinned at seeing how local elites in some US towns rule with an iron fist. But they are secure and united. Which might become a much appreciated value in the near future.
Urban Architecture is not something conjured up out of thin air by Platonic elites. It reflects an accommodation to many social, political, and economic forces — it exists within the framework of the society that builds it. You can’t change US urban architecture without changing the US political, economic and social systems.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
The upper Midwest is littered with tiny towns designed around (now-defunct) railroads, that have highly dense urban cores. The problem is that most of these are suffering from post-WWII decline and abandonment. Today the retail flight to malls and the heavy investment in interstates has turned these towns into highway pit stops.
But the cores are still there! Nothing prevents us from planning to incentivize development there. But instead we’ve been pushing resources to the newer, auto-dependent resources of the Sunbelt.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:38 pm
New York City, trust and mutual respect capital of the world.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Also, this doesn’t JUST include college towns. There are LOTS of 19th-century era cities, of widely varying levels of income and culture, that fit the bill. I mean think Alton, IL or Eagle River, WI — not exactly big vacation spots or college towns, but they still have dense development and a well-defined downtwon.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
@29, but people also had to live within walking distance of the stuff they needed to buy on a regular basis. Many American towns and cities north of the Mason-Dixon line were built under that same circumstance and with that same density, yet they became victims of sprawl in ways that many European cities did not. As it becomes more expensive to operate automobiles, Americans will start to find density more appealing.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “or maybe places rich people go on vacation like Aspen or Bar Harbor) that people generally seem to deem pleasant. ”
————
Er.. Matthew might trying talking with the actual, full time residents of Aspen re its cultural riches — its grand museums, well-stocked liberies, etc.
Although I think Aspen did build an “Opera” House in the nineteenth century for the soft-porn performances of that era.
Not anything one would likely see performed at La Scala.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I wonder how much of the European architecture that Matthew admires was driven by aristocratic government — NOT by rational decision-making by the Marxist plebes.
I don’t know as much about Medieval towns, but in early modern Europe? A hell of a lot.
Of course, Don, the big difference is that magnates – whether titled aristocrats or merchant lords or princes of the church – back then intimately understood that they need to build shit for their cities, like hospitals and orphanages, and donate a hell of a lot of money for social welfare, so that those proles wouldn’t try to murder them all.
Since that happened every so often in back then.
But today, the elite can hire private armies and not give a shit about starving kids in the street.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
When thinking about the catastrophic effects of post-war suburbanization (not just suburbanization, but suburbanization of a certain kind as Joe from Lowell rightly points out), which was emphasized at the expense of everything else, we tend to focus on large cities. NY, for instance, went through some very hard times, but survived. So too, Chicago, though not, I gather, Detroit (where I’ve never been). But the little cities, many of which were really lovely, had it much harder. Think of the Hartford where Mark Twain made his home. This is one of the themes of James Howard Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere. I think his main example is Saratoga NY. I’d add Bath ME, which benefits from both factors MY mentions, tourists (not especially rich ones) and college students, and Portland ME.
The story of the post war years is a dreadfully sad one, as the world’s richest nation, at the height of its power, turned its back on its inheritance–gifts from previous generations in the form of cities, parks, buildings–to create one of the most hideous, blighted built environments and bleakest ways of life ever (excepting those explained by poverty and want).
Sad but moving testimony in CAMILO JOSE VERGARA, – American Ruins…
September 21st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Google “American Cities by Population Size” and we learn that there are 698 cities with 50,000+ and 2207 cities with populations of 10,000 to 50,000.
Small towns (2500 and under residents) number 12,855.
Given these facts I highly doubt that America is as deprived of Freiberg-like cities as Matt believes.
The problem is less in our cities than the fact that Progs like to speak as if they know the small and medium sized cities of America when in fact they chiefly know of and experience only the major metropolitan areas and college towns.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Yawn… Yeah, European small cities are nice. What else is new?
September 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Portland, ME and Brattleboro, VT are two such places with life in the downtowns. Providence too? I haven’t spent enough time there to say with any certainty.
There are lots of places that used to have what you are looking for, but are now hollowed out. Springfield and Worcester Mass pop to mind.
Then there are places like Paterson NJ and Elizabeth NJ. Both have a lot of activity, but are mostly hispanic. I find Elizabeth sorta fascinating. It is kinda like a lower east side for the 21st century.
It is the economics, not just the land use laws. You need a certain critical mass of economic activity to attract
September 21st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
… more economic activity.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:02 pm
This is what Freiberg looks like from the air: http://tinyurl.com/lekqb3 I don’t think there’s any comparison to American cities of that size.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
one of the most hideous, blighted built environments and bleakest ways of life ever
I live in the city and on a good day I can make it to work in 13 minutes. I work with people who, due to their desire for large homes on large lots, commute 2 hours each way to work. It would be easy to think these people are suffering from some sort of false consciousness as who could actually prefer to live like that? But, I think we need to be open to the possibility that a large percentage of people do prefer to live that way.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
New York City, trust and mutual respect capital of the world.
Well, actually, yeah. I’ve never lived in a friendlier place than New York.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
New York City, trust and mutual respect capital of the world. – daveNYC
Well, why anyway is there this stereotype of NYers as being rude?
Having grown up in the suburbs (in So.Cal.) and now living in Queens, I’ve thought about this a bit. And what occurred to me is that you simply don’t have to interact with people in the ‘burbs if you don’t want to, but you have to interact with people in the city (even in a place like Queens).
In the ‘burbs I can go to work, drive home, park in my driveway or garage, go into my house and not see anybody other than my wife and kid for the rest of teh evening. In the city, I get/to from work on a bus/subway packed full of people. Even if I drive (which I generally do), I have to find parking when I get back home — which oftentimes means having to ask people dicking around in their cars if they are coming or going … or verifying that I am not, in fact, parked in someone’s official driveway.
In short, in the ‘burbs I could be surrounded by a bunch of rude assholes and not even know it until election time when all those rude assholes give a landslide victory to a county supervisor who always has a convenient case of laryngitis. OTOH, in the city, I get to know on a daily basis each and every rude asshole in my general area.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Given these facts I highly doubt that America is as deprived of Freiberg-like cities as Matt believes.
First of all, just looking at population count is misleading. A lot of those small cities and large downs are actually suburbs of larger cities. Second, it’s more than just population or even just population density, which you would know if you had even read the post; there’s more to walkability than just that.
The problem is less in our cities than the fact that Progs like to speak as if they know the small and medium sized cities of America when in fact they chiefly know of and experience only the major metropolitan areas and college towns.
Well, as it happens, Vermont is small enough that I can say with some confidence that there are only one or two towns/cities with this kind of environment. (Maybe three, but counting the third is really very iffy.) Burlington definitely counts, St. Albans might but I’m not familiar with it enough to say for sure, and Rutland is the borderline case: there is a walkable downtown neighborhood, but the vast majority of business takes place on strip development that’s very inconvenient for walking or biking. That’s a tiny fraction of the state’s residents. And this is, of course, in a state full of “Progs,” so one would think we would have more such towns than elsewhere. Unfortunately, though, no.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
New York City, trust and mutual respect capital of the world.
It’s actually a really friendly place, but I’m contractually obligated to say
Yea? I got your fucking repect right here
September 21st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Huh, I should have commented quicker; it seems PSP would add another Vermont town to my list. I guess I spoke too sweepingly. (I could be juvenile and say that Brattleboro is too close to New Hampshire to count as Vermont, though.)
Still, though, I think my point stands that ChooChoo!, to the extent that he has any point at all amidst all that DFH-bashing, is simply wrong.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I could not agree with you more. I went to high school in a German town about three times the size of Freiburg, and when I moved back to the DC area (in 1974) for the first few hours of making my way through suburban Arlington I had the sensation that the cars were aliens that had invaded and taken over the entire country, and the people in the cars had been hypnotized into believing they were in charge while it was really the cars that were running everything. I immediately resolved never to buy a car, and lasted until I was about 25. Around then I realized that I absolutely had to have a car to date effectively: The cars were going to prevent me from breeding unless I cooperated. So I finally gave in. Goddam cars.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:30 pm
And re: New York politeness, it’s funny. On another blog I read regularly, some UK residents complain about how rude Londoners are. When I was an exchange student (in yet another one of these small, walkable cities we’re talking about) in France, my host family apologized for the rudeness of Parisians. But I didn’t notice any problem during my stays in Paris, nor during visits to New York as a tourist. So either people in metropoli are rude and I’m oblivious to it (which is, of course, possible), or everyone resents the residents of the nearest major city, whatever that happens to be. Growing up in Vermont, for what it’s worth, we called people from Boston “massholes.”
September 21st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I think these towns do exist in decent numbers accross this country. The problem is that these places have either been stagnant or declining over the last 50 years. I’m thinking of places like Scranton, PA or Hagerstown, MD. These places are for the most part outside of people’s consciousness when they think of the types of places where Americans live, despite certain politicians blowing “small-town Americana” up our a$$. So yeah, these places exist, but they’re largely decrepit and forgotten.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
German town centres/city centres seem to be almost uniformly beautiful, cobblestoned and car-free. Really amazing places to raise a family in.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
New York City, trust and mutual respect capital of the world.
But, everyone’s your friend in New York City! [/TMBG]
September 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Jmo #42 Agreed–but want to reject implicit either/or-ism. Do the lots have to be so large. Might some people like something a bit smaller? Do suburban areas have to be zoned in such a way as to forbid corner shops? What about sidewalks, couldn’t those be part of suburbs.? Do all streets have to be wide enough for speeding motor vehicles, making them unsafe for children? Again I meant to be echoing much better informed comments of Joe from Lowell in previous threads or Atrios at his site. There is a much wider range of choices than the mad rush to suburbanize after the war left us with, including much more attractive forms of suburban life. Could something have been done to give American cities like Freiberg a helping hand? The post boom in suburbs reflected real preferences of course, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Powerful forces, including government, local and national, some of them with the best of intentions, lined up behind it and, in part, determined the form it took. Other preferences, including yours it seems, were slighted, and other choices constrained.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
To live in close quarters as in the picture above, you need a fairly high level of trust and mutual respect among neighbors. As MY mentioned, college towns and rich resorts are often still like this: places where people generally trust their neighbors are “just like them”.
Except that in Brooklyn, NY, you have the trust and mutual respect; notably absent is the psychological need for homogeneity.
You’re arguing from the same old right-wing determinism about social insurance or better-planned communities or any desirable mode of living, that of course it works in Europe, they’re all white, you know. It’s them minorities forcing us to live this way.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
NYC (and other cities) have the reputation for rudeness that was generated by generations of rubes from flyover country who had come for short vacations, and were comparing the politeness of NYC residents with Disneyland employees.
In other words, citizens of NYC, Paris, London, etc… aren’t sufficiently deferential enough to the vacationer. Meanwhile, the sense of community is actually stronger in most cities I’ve lived in than in most small towns.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
When I was an exchange student (in yet another one of these small, walkable cities we’re talking about) in France, my host family apologized for the rudeness of Parisians. But I didn’t notice any problem during my stays in Paris, nor during visits to New York as a tourist. So either people in metropoli are rude and I’m oblivious to it (which is, of course, possible), or everyone resents the residents of the nearest major city, whatever that happens to be.
Hmm, I think it’s a little more complicated. At least in New York, life just happens at a faster pace than any where else. I lived in Chicago during college, and it seemed like I was making my way through jello sometimes.
That faster pace, I would say, manifests itself in a kind of brusqueness that can be offputting to others.
One thing I found in college was that all of my friends were not from New York found me incredibly blunt, while my fellow New Yorkers didn’t consider me especially unusual. Moreover, I don’t, unless very angry, speak in a New York accent, primarily because I went to private school. But my manner instantly marked me as a New Yorker in Hyde Park.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:42 pm
NYC (and other cities) have the reputation for rudeness that was generated by generations of rubes from flyover country who had come for short vacations, and were comparing the politeness of NYC residents with Disneyland employees.
In other words, citizens of NYC, Paris, London, etc… aren’t sufficiently deferential enough to the vacationer. Meanwhile, the sense of community is actually stronger in most cities I’ve lived in than in most small towns.
Plus there’s that aspect as well.
I find when a tourist is polite, they always get directions. Hell, as a resident I’ve never had any problem getting directions or help.
But when you expect some guy on the street to act like an amusement park employee, we’re going to tell you to go fuck yourself.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Yeah I get tourists all the time asking me for directions to this and that. I try to help them out if I can. My city isn’t known for rudeness though. More for strippers.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Agreed–but want to reject implicit either/or-ism.
I totally agree. It’s like Matt and his objection to parking. Where I live all the new building have discretely hidden underground parking for residents. It doesn’t change the look of the neighborhood but it does allow a bit of flexibility for the residents. For example, it’s comforting to know that while I can take transit to work, if I get laid off, I don’t have to restrict my job search to companies accessible by via the T.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:50 pm
One thing to take into account is that some people are buying houses in areas (gated communities) that are specifically set up to not be part of the larger community.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
NYC (and other cities) have the reputation for rudeness that was generated by generations of rubes from flyover country who had come for short vacations, and were comparing the politeness of NYC residents with Disneyland employees.
Absolutely. And, as a friend of mine once put it, if these small towns are so goddam friendly, why do all their misfit kids flee to New York at the first opportunity?
September 21st, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I don’t think New Yorkers are rude, and I bet most people a tourist would meet in New York and not originally from New York. New Yorkers are annoying because they think they live in the center of the universe and life elsewhere is such a step down in terms of….everything. Probably because many of the people who live there now came to the city in order to live in the center of universe. I wonder what the ratio of native born New Yorkers to non-natives is like in Manhattan and some of the hipper parts of Brooklyn/Queens.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I wonder what the ratio of native born New Yorkers to non-natives is like in Manhattan and some of the hipper parts of Brooklyn/Queens.
But the thing is, it doesn’t matter. In some small towns you can live there for twenty years and still be considered an insider. In New York you’re a New Yorker after about the first week. Which is the more welcoming?
September 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
It’s something of a mystery to me why the squares in the large-at-the-time Southern cities (Charleston, Savannah) are so huge, relative to other things built at the time …
As others have said, military exercises. Though the architectural model owes something to the kind of building that was going on in London at the time, now known as the Great Estates (Cadogan, Grosvenor, etc.) and which you can also see to some extent in Edinburgh’s New Town.
Anyway, there are a number of smallish towns in my part of NC (more like 10,000 pop than 40,000) that retain their central core, in a Mayberry kind of fashion, but also have something of a theme park feel to them, because the shops are aimed at tourists and summer residents.
I went to high school in a German town
I’m sure you’re far from alone. My uncle worked for the USAF in Neu-Ulm for thirty years until the base closed down: he’s still there now, though all his kids married airmen and moved to the US.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Um, the population density of Germany is more than seven times that of the USA, so yeah, where people are they will be more concentrated.
We don’t have to live in such dense environments because we have enough land to spread out. Europe has plenty of people who choose to live where they can have a big house and a yard. It’s just that not nearly as many can afford it. The land is much more scarce and the demand for it is higher.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Come to Lowell! Come to Lowell!
Matt, you need to come to Lowell! That picture could be Merrimack Street. I’m about a mile from there, on a street of single-family homes on 5000 square foot lots.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Really? The fact that building that way is forbidden by law – the fact that you cannot get a permit to build like that – has nothing to do with it? They just passed all of those zoning laws to forbid people from doing things they would have had absolutely no interest in doing anyway?
You know, our population density was EVEN LOWER when cities like Lowell, Cambridge, Georgetown, and Annapolis were built.
The population density of New Jersey, or eastern Massachusetts, isn’t so different from that of Germany, yet our towns grew in a sprawling manner anyway – because population density has nothing to do with it.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
You know who saw this coming? The John Birch Society.
For real. Back in the early 1960s, they wrote all of these tracts about the highways and the automobile changing the character of America’s communities.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I wonder what the ratio of native born New Yorkers to non-natives is like in Manhattan and some of the hipper parts of Brooklyn/Queens.
In every major city that number is higher than in any small town. I have no idea how New York or its neighborhoods compare to other major cities, but I’d guess that number is even higher still, because New York is, well, very major.
New Yorkers are annoying because they think they live in the center of the universe and life elsewhere is such a step down in terms of…everything.
Yes, and they’re right.
(Kidding/trolling a bit, but seriously, this is a dumb thing to blame New Yorkers for even if they’re newcomers. It’s strawmannish, and to the extent that it’s true it brings a highly unfavorable slant to something that could easily be viewed more neutrally or good, and it reeks of conservative provincialism.)
September 21st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Thanks for my double-take of the day, joe!
September 21st, 2009 at 3:39 pm
The Spinners have a really nice park. And the brewery area is neat. But the part around the RMV? Yecch.
No offense.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
LaLacheur Park was designed by the same people who did Camden Yards.
Commercial-strip development from the 60s and 70s is ugly everywhere.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:54 pm
You know, if you compare the per capita GDP of the US and the UK, they’re pretty similar.
However, if you compare the per capita CO2 usage (from Matt’s link yesterday), you see that the US spends more than twice as much energy per person.
I’d bet sprawl has a lot to do with it. I’d also bet that large numbers of people living in the Sun Belt, where there’s no water, large distances to cover, and big air-conditioning needs doesn’t help.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Re Joe at 67: “The population density of New Jersey, or eastern Massachusetts, isn’t so different from that of Germany, yet our towns grew in a sprawling manner anyway – because population density has nothing to do with it.”
——-
Yeah — and I’m getting the sense that our plutocrats are about ready to do their version of the Highland Clearances.
Nothing improves the scenary like ethnic cleansing performed on the riff-raff poor. Just takes a little more extension of the government’s eminent domain powers being bent to benefit private parties.
Matthew’s earlier mention of Bar Harbor was hilarious. When the Rockefellers wanted an huge estate in Maine, they didn’t want to pay taxes on it every year or have it subject to nibbling by the locals. So they set up their private compound — and then had all of their huge tract of land in the surrounding area made into Arcadia National Park.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Um, the population density of Germany is more than seven times that of the USA, so yeah, where people are they will be more concentrated.
The usual way of calculating national population densities is largely meaningless. What matters for these purposes is weighted population densities.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Don Williams,
You’re about fifty years too late with that criticism. The era of Urban Renewal peaked in the late 60s/early 70s, and vanished thereafter. The good news – if we can call it that – is that it was recognized as a massive failure even in terms of the racist, classist, anti-urban motivations of the people who implemented it.
Take a look at HUD’s Hope VI program. Good stuff.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I doubt that even matters very much, DTM. Look at the towns that were built in the middle of nowhere out west. Storefronts on the sidewalks, apartments above, dense-and-varied – even if there only about 2000 people in a ten-mile radius.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:38 pm
In every major city that number is higher than in any small town. I have no idea how New York or its neighborhoods compare to other major cities, but I’d guess that number is even higher still, because New York is, well, very major.
Yes, but I’m comparing between cities. And some cities are more transient than others. I think there’s something to be said for homegrown culture, and creating your own identity instead of going somewhere else and mooching of an already established identity by passing yourself off as a “local”.
Yes, and they’re right.
(Kidding/trolling a bit, but seriously, this is a dumb thing to blame New Yorkers for even if they’re newcomers. It’s strawmannish, and to the extent that it’s true it brings a highly unfavorable slant to something that could easily be viewed more neutrally or good, and it reeks of conservative provincialism.)
You don’t think that acting like your city is the only place where interesting things happen is a bit provincial? Don’t get me wrong, NYC is a happening place, but so are many other places out there. I’ve talked to many New Yorkers who moved to Philly and they were shocked at how little their lifestyle has changed, depite the much lower cost of living. It’s like they thought the rest of the country was a Wal Mart parking lot.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I doubt that even matters very much, DTM. Look at the towns that were built in the middle of nowhere out west. Storefronts on the sidewalks, apartments above, dense-and-varied – even if there only about 2000 people in a ten-mile radius.
Well, weighted densities should capture a lot of that. That said, you should probably look only at urbanized populations if possible.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
One thing to take into account is that some people are buying houses in areas (gated communities) that are specifically set up to not be part of the larger community.
Do they do that in Germany, too? And if not, what does it say about the US?
September 21st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Do they do that in Germany, too?
Not really. I suppose you could find some here or there, but it’s not a big thing.
And if not, what does it say about the US?
That Americans aren’t as neighborly as Germans?
September 21st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I’ve seen some college towns like this: Ithaca, Ann Arbor, Madison, Berkeley, Champaign somewhat (though its mass transit is really terrific). Others like South Bend aren’t. Uppsala Sweden is like this, too. So is Lund.
In the US, there’s a clear line of demarcation in terms of higher density rather than sprawl–WWII. Even the old small towns in Nebraska I know look somewhat like Matt’s city. And they’re a million miles from a university.
_______
We from Chicago think that East Coast cities are full of jerks. But New Yorkers are a breed apart. Some of that feeling may be the older-sibling jealousy that we have toward New York.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Also, small college-cities rule.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Re: Frieberg in Saxony (pictured below) is that it’s really a kind of place we barely have any of in the United States:
You’re kidding right? There are more than a few cities in the US with similar population, and old-fashioned “walkable” downtowns. One issue in the US is that such cities tend to suburbanize, complete with sprawl, if they are at all close to a large central city; and if not they tend to languish, fade and fail unless they have something like a university to keep them viable. For an example of the latter in the US see Asheville, North Carolina.
Re: . One of the main reasons you don’t see much development like this in the US is (fear of) crime.
I can see this being a factor in a big city (I live in Baltimore after all). But in a small city? Why is fear of crime such a factor then, assuming the place is reasonably middle class?
Re: Survivalists have noticed that in 5000 years of history, the fortified town/city state is what survives in bad times.
Huh? Why are they all fleeing to the far hills then?
Re: the big difference is that magnates – whether titled aristocrats or merchant lords or princes of the church – back then intimately understood that they need to build shit for their cities, like hospitals and orphanages, and donate a hell of a lot of money for social welfare
Not to mention they didn’t have much choice in the matter. The Church, which was the main social welfare provider, not only owned huge estates itself, but had the power of taxation over the population, either directly through legally required tithing, or indirectly through claiming a share of the civil government’s revenues. Charity was not “voluntary” in the Middle Ages.
Re: But today, the elite can hire private armies and not give a shit about starving kids in the street.
So could the Medici and Fueggers, and there was a lot more grim wretchedness out in their streets than in ours. However as I note immediately above they couldn’t isolate themselves from the demands of the Church. And some did not want to, actually believing that acts of charity would benefit them in the world to come.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Cyrus, if you’re still reading — wouldn’t you say Montpelier counts too? I’ve spent a fair amount of time walking around its downtown. Even Richmond might have a little of this at the center, when the bridge is operating, though its center is very small indeed. I haven’t spent that much time in these places though. I think one of the limiting factors is that there aren’t many towns with much population at all, Burlington being by far the largest.
Anyway, as soon as I read the post I thought “Burlington.”
Portsmouth NH and Northampton MA also seem like they might be good fits.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Err, Jon, I’m aware of that. I should have been more explicit; the aristos and merchant princes provided a lot of welfare because the Church turned a blind eye to their venality and love of Mammon in return for “donations”.
But then, look at some of the guildhalls and public squares of Italy, France, the Low Countries, Germany, the charities and hospitals provided by them, and I’d say that even the more middling levels of society – since they might have been rich in some cases, but they were not on the same level as the Medici – had a great deal more interest in providing for the public weal than they do today.
Again, this was probably because they saw this as something of a transaction; in fact, the decline of Good Works in Protestant Germany after the Reformation led to a ton of these activities being taken over by the state.
However,
So could the Medici and Fueggers, and there was a lot more grim wretchedness out in their streets than in ours. However as I note immediately above they couldn’t isolate themselves from the demands of the Church. And some did not want to, actually believing that acts of charity would benefit them in the world to come.
I don’t think you fully understand how the Medici exercised power. My professor at Chicago – Hanna Gray, who’s pretty amazing – described them as kind of like very wealth ward bosses in the Chicago style. They started as basically the guy you went to in your district – they purposely moved into a newer, poorer district in the 14th Century, I believe, in order to cultivate patronage with people who hadn’t been attached to the current power bases – when you had a problem or you needed some money or your kid was sick. They had bully boys, as does the Daley family, but they could never have achieved what they did in the context of Florentine politics pre-1494 without being very popular among a lot of the lower classes.
They didn’t do it because they were afraid for their souls, they did it because it was one of the accepted ways of controlling the city. The other being that of the coup by mercenary/military leaders. But that, frankly, wasn’t their style.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:23 pm
True up to a point. Another factor is the insistence on a well-built, brick house with a cellar, which makes the whole enterprise even more expensive. There might also be a lack of frontier spirit at work, in that over here the point is simply to have one’s own place, without all the self-sufficiency & staking new claims mentality Americans tend to tack on.
IMO the major factor is time and history: Many European towns are dense for historical reasons and so, unlike in the US, that has always been the default, “normal” way. By the time Germans got rich enough to expand we already heard tales about how sprawl killed American city centres and local magistrates took steps to stop that from happening here. Again, it helps that for historical reasons lots of towns do have attractive downtown areas with historical buildings (churches) and so it was easy to form a consensus that these were worth preserving.
And that in turn means, somewhat contrary to your point, that downtown living is so popular it’s way more expensive than a house in the suburbs. If you’re willing to commute one hour or more, land is cheap pretty much everywhere.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Re JonF at 84:
In response to my comment that: ” Survivalists have noticed that in 5000 years of history, the fortified town/city state is what survives in bad times.”
Jon asked “Huh? Why are they all fleeing to the far hills then? ”
————–
In their words, they are fleeing “large masses of systems dependent people”. Or the mutant zombie hordes, depending on who you ask.
In the late 1970s, with the massive Carter inflation, a guy named Mel Tappan built on the ideas of the old nuclear-war fallout shelter crowd (from the Cuban Missile Crisis,etc.) and built the Meme for the modern day survivalist movement. He did much to kick off the demand for assault rifles, for example. Some of his criticisms of US monetary policy had been made by Harry Browne earlier.
Mel’s concepts have been widely accepted by US survivalists –although they are being challenged by some foreign thinkers who have lived during an economic collapse (e.g, in Argentina, Russia,etc.)
Many current US survivalist authorities, however, are essentially Mel’s acolytes.
One thing both Mel and his critics agree on — only a fool takes refuge in an isolated cabin in the woods. Such a place can not be defended, is wide open to surprise attacks by bandits, and provides what police call a “Secondary crime scene” — a place for rape, torture (to coerce info re buried treasure) and murder.
Among Mel’s books was “Tappan on Survival” — available online for free at http://www.geocities.com/mark_l_anderson/faqs/tapp.txt Worth reading just to realize that things seemed to be turning to shit even back in 1979 and people were forecasting imminent doom and gloom. Yet we are here 30 years later.
An excerpt:
“Although the problems I observed with existing group retreats invalidated them from practical consideration so far as I was concerned, I remained convinced that only a community of reasonable size with a balance of vital skills would be both workable for the long term and proof against attack by the determined bands of well-organized looters that would doubtless emerge from the crisis period.
The empirical answer to this dilemma, which the theoreticians seem to have missed, is obvious: an already existing, functioning community in which the balance of skills, social interplay and other essential factors have been established pragmatically. A small town.
Not just any small town will do however. It should meet the stringent requirements for any good retreat and offer certain advantages of flexibility as well.”
September 21st, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I should note that although we are still here 30 years later, we are about $12 Trillion deeper in government debt. Mel himself noted that one should never underestimate the power of the federal government to intervene –and that the government is the one malign force against which it is impossible to prepare. Nuclear war, famine, pandemics, asteroid strikes and economic collapses: yes.
The government: No.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Re: But then, look at some of the guildhalls and public squares of Italy, France, the Low Countries, Germany, the charities and hospitals provided by them, and I’d say that even the more middling levels of society – since they might have been rich in some cases, but they were not on the same level as the Medici – had a great deal more interest in providing for the public weal than they do today.
We have the modern equivalent of guild halls and even public squares; the wealthy have no problem spending on cultural causes (museums, operas, etc.) and universities too attract their money.
Re: They didn’t do it because they were afraid for their souls, they did it because it was one of the accepted ways of controlling the city.
Um, what did the Medici do in terms of actually providing for the poor and destitute? I can accept that they patronized artists, paid to decorate chapels and churches, and even funded some public works for Florence– all of which was of benefit to the Medici and the upper classes as well; replacing a dilapidated bridge that your own family also uses is not selflesness. But that’s not the same as uplifting the lower orders whose main support was from the Church. Yes, the rich donated to the Church, and not quite voluntarily as I noted,
Re: In their words, they are fleeing “large masses of systems dependent people”.
The silly things ought note that human beings have always been dependent on other human beings, all the way back to caveman days. The rare hermit or guru who is nourished by birds and beasts is a legendary (perhaps mythical) exception.
Re: Nuclear war, famine, pandemics, asteroid strikes and economic collapses: yes.
Anyone who thinks he can successfully prepare for either nuclear war (on a grand scale) or a large asteroid strike is smoking some good stuff. If that every comes about the fool survivalists will find the Grim Reaper taking them by the hand and leading them in the same mass Totentanz as the rest of nature and humanity.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 am
Reminds me of Newark. Nice and walkable – some problems but is improving. And wonderful diversity – it’s not as lillywhite as towns in Europe.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:59 am
Savannah was laid out in the 18th century. I doubt the squares were laid out for military purposes. They may have eventually been used that way but the purpose was surely aesthetic.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] Anywhere in America Is Like Freiberg, Germany (Yglesias) More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol [...]
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Savannah was laid out in the 18th century. I doubt the squares were laid out for military purposes.
I know diddly about Savannah, but I think it’s odd that the fact that a sea port city was laid out in the 1700s would be cited as evidence military considerations weren’t paramount.
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Madison, Wisconsin (which is, incidentally, Freiburg’s sister city) is like Freiburg in some ways. The downtown area is relatively dense for a city its size and State St. (which is more or less a Fussgangerzone) is built-up with 3-4 story buildings. At the center of the downtown, there’s a big square, with the Capitol in the middle, and a very big farmers’ market on Saturdays. There’s more parking than Freiburg, probably, and some fairly wide streets, but it’s possible to live a fairly car-free life, if you choose.
Once you’re a few miles from the Capitol, Madison starts to look like a standard Midwestern town, with freeways and shopping centers and big box stores, but the old core of the city is surprisingly civilized.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Having lived a little in Germany, I can tell you I don’t think most people live in the outskirts of Frieburg in the way that Americans live in the outskirts of our cities. There is very little sprawl around German cities. The urban neighborhoods may get a little less dense towards the edge, but it will still be very compact and urban. Many of the cities also have identifiable edges, where 3-story buildings will just stop and fields and farms will begin. I once lived a block from just such an edge of town, and could be on the main street in 10 minutes walking one direction, or in the middle of farmland 10 minutes walking the other direction. And further in the outskirts would just be other, smaller pockets of compact urban areas in the form of towns, villages and hamlets — as opposed to the ubiquitous endless strip malls and subdivisions in the US.
So while some smaller American cities may *look* a little like this (I’d suggest Annapolis), I think you’re right that just nothing like this really exists in the US. Sad.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
“The funny thing is that my hometown– in Mississippi, of all places– has roughly the same population and several square blocks of downtown that rather resemble your photo, but of course no one lives there. Haven’t been there in several years, but most of the buildings were empty or used for warehousing during my youth.”
The same is true for my hometown in Louisiana. It has a lovely walkable downtown, all right. It’s just that nobody goes there, and the buildings sit empty, and they have to run all these special programs just to get people to go hear a band there one or two nights a year. This lovely walkable (vacant) downtown core is surrounded by a few absolutely gorgeous residential areas. Except somehow in the fallout from the civil rights era and onset of suburban sprawl, someone decided this was The Black Area, so now the residential areas are pretty much vacant and/or derelict too, because only the poorest poor people want to live there. For no real reason except that it’s Teh Black Area, Ohnoez.
My stepmother inherited her grandfather’s house in this part of town, fixed it up, and now lives in it (in fact it’s so cute and awesome that my dad sold his house in the sprawl to move there when they got married). People think she is insane.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:24 pm
“I wonder what the ratio of native born New Yorkers to non-natives is like in Manhattan and some of the hipper parts of Brooklyn/Queens.”
If my social circle (very much ‘hipper parts of Brooklyn/Queens’) is at all typical, I’d guess that the bottom line is that, yeah, people really do grow up in New York and stay in New York. A lot of my friends are from Long Island and New Jersey, though, which are sort of grey areas in terms of “not really from here”. Then again, my Nasau County bred boyfriend was born just blocks from his current gentrified apartment in Williamsburg. Another friend of mine had her mother cry in shame to see her daughter move back to the same part of the Lower East side her own parents had been proud to move out of in the 50’s.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Christopher said: “This is what Freiberg looks like from the air: http://tinyurl.com/lekqb3 I don’t think there’s any comparison to American cities of that size.”
Well, while there is a bit more sprawl in some of the following places, there’s not much more:
Farmington NM
Danville, VA
York, PA
Alexandria, LA
Porterville, CA
Warren, OH
Binghamton, NY
Harrisonburg, VA
Northampton Township, PA
Cheyenne, WY
etc. Note, I’m not saying that any of these places have the same amenities as Freiberg. I don’t know much about these places (except for Binghamton, which is a struggling rust-best city). However, viewed from the air, these seem almost as dense as Freiberg. I’m sure there are other comparable places around the country.