139 Comments

It was largely due to the fact that the planned freeway system in DC would have also wiped out parts of Northwest, where the white people live. There was eventually enough local outrage that the freeway plan was largely canceled and the federal money that would've gone to it was redirected to building the Metro. This wiki article on the planned Three Sisters Bridge that was at the center of the controversy sums up a lot of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

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They really don't like Malcolm Nance, do they?

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"Affordable housing" doesn't bring in investments and tax revenue, obvs.

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GM Poletown closed forever in 2018.

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Chavez Ravine wasn't cleared to build a stadium. It was cleared to build public housing, but a right-wing mayor decided that was socialism. Federal regulations would only allow the city to develop it for public use, but the city couldn't come up with a feasible plan. Ultimately, the Dodgers traded what was then Wrigley Field in South Central for the Chavez Ravine property, and that stadium was torn down to make way for a community center and a community clinic.

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It happens Up Here too. Most of Toronto's controlled-access highways were built at the edges of the main population centres, back when the city was markedly smaller, but there was an exception.Some idiot decided what the city needed was a superhighway that ran from the 401 (the busiest highway IN THE WORLD) straight into downtown, because apparently downtown traffic wasn't already bad enough. A few miles were built before public outrage had the whole thing shut down, but not before whole neighbourhoods were split in two. Even a short CN branch was split in two, eventually resulting in its total abandonment.Thing is, the highway was built, so it got used. But instead of dumping traffic into downtown, it dumps its traffic directly into the city's large and vibrant Italian neighbourhood. During rush hour (which runs from 6AM through 8PM) the area is nearly impassable. The ONLY positive thing is that the TTC runs an extension of the subway in the median of the highway. Burma Shave-style ads on the various overpasses point out to drivers that they COULD be taking one of the sleek silver trains whistling past them as they wait for a break in the traffic.Every now and again some idiot runs for mayor, promising to complete the highway. They do not win.

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It's mixed in with "classism". If you don't have a car, you don't matter.... Also explains the chronic underfunding of mass transit....

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The place looks like something out of a 70s dystopian sci-fi movie.

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TBF, this was more of a working session. We were debriefing an intern on his last day. But one of my colleagues can really rattle on sometimes, and he was in rare form today.

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That’s just the outside. The inside looks like ‘60s public housing.

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Anyone else notice that Editrix & family move to Michigan and all of a sudden nice things start happening there? Is our Editrix magic?

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Nor eye-popping real estate profits.

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Yup.That is the biggest hurdle right now.

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I saw a Facebook post this morning of a guy bitching that Amtrak took 19 hours to go from NYC to Chicago, while a similar trip took 4 hours in China. Well, when they started building their high speed tracks, they were just industrializing, and the government didn't give a shit about environmental studies or property rights.

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