Comments for The Urbanophile

Comment on Diversity in Providence by Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sun, 26 May 2013 03:00:24 +0000

Racaille: yeah, you’re almost certainly right. I just checked this on a nationwide basis, and non-Hispanic white births are down almost 20% since 1990. So it’s unlikely any state except Utah has had an increase in the white public school population.

Comment on Replay: Fast and Cheap Ways to Improve Public Transit in Indianapolis Right Now by Gary Welsh

Gary Welsh — Sat, 25 May 2013 22:58:26 +0000

You have some really good and sound ideas. The chief complaint of some of us who oppose the metropolitan transit district with new taxing authority is the failure to address inefficiencies and shortcomings of the existing transit system. There has been little or no interest by the Ballard administration or other city leaders to take even small steps to make the current bus system better. That makes it difficult for the skeptics to believe a bigger and greater financed metropolitan system will do any better, particularly one that will be run by an unelected, unaccountable multi-county authority.

Comment on Pittsburgh: Shadows of the City by Matt Hall

Matt Hall — Sat, 25 May 2013 14:42:23 +0000

Sure they have selling points. I’ll never forget the friends of a friend I met in NYC. They “acknowledged” that Ohio might be 30 or 40 percent cheaper to live in, but that is was culturally dead. When I informed them it was 60 to 70 percent cheaper for a physically comparable life, but that pay was only 20 to 30 percent less for given jobs,they were speechless.

Comment on Diversity in Providence by Racaille

Racaille — Sat, 25 May 2013 12:15:42 +0000

“Minority population growth actually bailed out the entire region. During that 11 year period metro Providence actually lost over 81,000 non-hispanic white residents. Without minority population growth, the region would have actually shrunk in population.”

I can tell you with almost certainty that every public school system in California and Texas would have lost population if it were not for Hispanics.

Comment on Pittsburgh: Shadows of the City by John Morris

John Morris — Sat, 25 May 2013 04:10:41 +0000

The Pittsburgh video doesn’t just not play up model types, it goes out of it’s way to avoid them. Pittsburgh today, is largely a college town loaded with young pretty hipsters wearing Letang, Malkin & Crosby jerseys

The Pirate fan demographic tilts a bit old and nostalgic and the video reflects that in a sort of sweet way.

The high contrast filter turns pretty Pittsburgh into gritty Pittsburgh

Comment on Pittsburgh: Shadows of the City by John Morris

John Morris — Sat, 25 May 2013 03:47:28 +0000

It’s not really meant as a sales or travel video for Pittsburgh. The “grit” & hardcore Yinzer aspects of the city are played up. Ending with the theme song, from Pittsburgh’s last World Series team in 1979 played to that nostalgia.

Comment on Diversity in Providence by Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 25 May 2013 02:39:13 +0000

Even in Providence itself, the diversity is undercut by immense levels of segregation. In New York you see black and Hispanic people around on the street on the Upper West Side and in Boston you see blacks and Hispanics on the street in Cambridge, but in Providence I would see almost none on the East Side.

And on the metro area level, it’s probably even worse. The average Rhode Islander doesn’t live in Providence, but in a town that’s almost entirely white.

Off-topic, it’s interesting that the whitest metro areas turn out to be Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. I wouldn’t associate either of them with lack of diversity – on the contrary, I’d have expected them to have a large enough black population as they were important industrial powerhouses when the Great Migration was happening, same as Detroit. I would probably have guessed Providence is one of the whitest, since New England outside Boston is very white, but I would have also guessed the same of Minneapolis, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Portland. Maybe Kansas City and Grand Rapids.

Comment on Chicago: The Daley Deals by Robert Munson by David Holmes

David Holmes — Sat, 25 May 2013 02:16:08 +0000

I am intrigued by your discussion of the bungalow belt. I have wondered to what extent the blight in many neighborhoods in cities such Detroit, Cleveland (or Chicago) correlates with housing booms of the past (accompanied by low quality construction, and poorly planned neighborhoods with few amenities). The question is whether the decline of these neighborhoods was somewhat destined regardless of the subsequent rust belt factors that hastened or worsened their decline. This would be an interesting study using GIS and census data from the period 1900 through 1950s, mapping out the areas of massive construction of relatively low quality neighborhoods. My expectation is that a similar inescapable fate may await many neighborhoods in the boom cities of the past several decades.

I’m not certain whether the Daley bungalow really fits with this type of low quality neighborhood. Looks from the photo like it was a small house, but one built with some craftsmanship.

Comment on Pittsburgh: Shadows of the City by Matt Wootton

Matt Wootton — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:17:23 +0000

That was great! I was about to make a joke about their team, but they’re playing .600 baseball right now.

Comment on Pittsburgh: Shadows of the City by MichaelSchwartz

MichaelSchwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:58:03 +0000

You’re right about the St. Louis video–could be anywhere USA, nothing unique. However, the Pittsburgh video, while more interesting and Pittsburgh centric, does nothing for an ex New Yorker or for that matter an out of towner in my opinion. In fact, if this is what Pittsburgh is so be it, but it is a New Yorkers worst nightmare. And this is not an attack on Pittsburgh, as many other cities stuck in the middle of the country face the same situation. The bottom line is that these cities really have no strong selling point compared to LA or NY.