this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Fuck Cars

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[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 110 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Let me guess what kind of people predominantly lived in the neighborhoods that were bulldozed.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you have a before version?

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago

No, that's from 2000 I think.

Atlanta is still apparently the USA's second most segregated city, so I can't imagine it was a multicultural wonderland in the 1950s.

The article those pictures appear to be from says it was mostly black neighbourhoods demolished.

https://daringivens.medium.com/atlantas-interstates-destruction-of-city-fabric-in-the-1950s-mobility-woes-today-4882b4ec6830

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Sadly, I don't think there's enough uncertainty to consider it a guess.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 77 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure the designers of this monstrosity thought, "There are only black people living there, so it's a win-win" -.-

[–] playereightyone@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

You can thank Robert Moses for that.

The expressway must expand in order to acommodate the increasing needs of the expressway

[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Am I the only one who finds the 1950s version also not nice from an urban planning perspective? I mean, it is a car-centered design anyway.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Still, do you see how many trees there are? That place must've still looked nice and was certainly transformable into a really nice place without unreasonable effort.

Now, it's basically a wasteland.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

No, the 1950s version (actually more like 1900s; those houses were already decades old at the time they were photographed) was good. It was a traditional street grid with small blocks, and there were streetcars going all over the place. Sure it was mostly single-family (probably with more than a few duplexes sprinkled in), but it had great bones for densifying later when demand justified it.

I live only a few miles from the area pictured, in a neighborhood with the same development pattern. Even though it's been damaged by the removal of the old streetcars and having zoning superimposed upon it after the fact (which causes problems by mandating things like too-large setbacks and minimum parking requirements, as well as outlawing corner stores within residential areas), it's still mostly fine.

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[–] Smk@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

JUST ONE MORE LAME,I SWEAR TO GOD, JUST ONE MORE LANE AND WE'RE DONE. ONE MOAR LANE. MOAAAAR

[–] uis@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

A little lane of asphalt please,

More pollution if I freeze,

Running over children these,

A fresh bouquet of cancers.

(Parody of Glass of Water)

[–] EthicalAI@beehaw.org 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Trains Are Too Expensive And Would Take Years To Build“ - guy who remembers the interstate being built.

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

"only roads pay for themselves"

[–] SecretPancake@feddit.de 27 points 1 year ago

Looks like what happens with headphone cables in the pocket.

[–] clearedtoland@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice little neighborhood you got there. Would be a shame if someone needed a new highway, wouldn’t it?

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You can take this picture in just about any city in the US too. NYT did a pretty good piece about it, gifted so y'all can read it: Can Removing Highways Fix America’s Cities? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/27/climate/us-cities-highway-removal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.60w.uuX5.Oo4CsHZXGv8Q&smid=nytcore-android-share

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[–] arc@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cities should be built around people, not motor vehicles.

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[–] notannpc@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

It’s a good thing removing all those homes definitely didn’t cause or contribute to any way more serious problems in society. Right?

/s

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How do roads even end up like this? The cloverleaf is as extreme as I'm willing to drive through. If anything like this came up in Google maps for my drive I would just nope on home.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Engineer answer: being a stack interchange, it's actually easier to navigate than a cloverleaf because there's only one exit in each direction instead of separate "A" and "B" exits with an entrance ramp and weaving in between. The complexity in this case simply comes from the fact that it's superimposed on top of what used to be a street grid, so they added a bunch of exits to local streets.

Big-picture answer: the desire to put freeways there in the first place is the product of mental illness.

[–] glibg10b@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] bitsplease@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah they only seem complicated from the air, on the ground you just read the signs and it's always clear, or if you're using your phone - just go in the lane it tells you

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[–] Hedup@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Any block is a swastika block if you ignore the right set of roads.

But that's not the block's fault ;)

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[–] Pixelphoria@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“What do you mean, why's it got to be built?” he said. “It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses.” Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast.

[–] geogle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

FYI, unless I'm mistaken, that is spaghetti junction and it's not actually in Atlanta, but just northeast of it in Doraville

Edit: I was severely mistaken...

[–] arditty@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sadly, that’s the intersection of I-75/85 and I-20, right in the middle of downtown ATL. Here’s a more recent picture showing some more context.

Also, here’s an article talking about the history of I-20 being built through Atlanta: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/program/divided-by-design/atlanta-ga/

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Also, here’s an article talking about the history of I-20 being built through Atlanta: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/program/divided-by-design/atlanta-ga/

There are still some chucklefucks who want to build I-485 (tunneling under the rich white neighborhoods north of I-20 and bulldozing straight through the poorer and blacker ones south of it, of course).

[–] doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago

As another said, that's not spaghetti junction (Tom Moreland interchange), but frankly people get pretty fast and loose with how much of the surrounding area they'll call 'Atlanta' anyway. The actual city of Atlanta proper is much smaller than most people would think by just looking at a satellite photo, and the distinction between the many cities usually doesn't matter much unless you live there.

[–] adrian783@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

when people say Atlanta to people that don't live in the surrounding area they really mean the greater metro Atlanta area.

[–] rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People from Atlanta really love to gatekeep the city, though. You live ITP? You live in Atlanta. OTP? You live in some redneck shithole whose name isn't worth remembering.

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