this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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I keep seeing photos of urban renovation in countries other than my own and marveling at the fact that even the "before" photo looks better than most streets in my city.
Over 20 years ago I moved from my native Portugal to The Netherlands.
Then over time I've moved backwards in this - in the sense of moving to countries with progressivelly worse urban planning and increasing pro-vehicle mindsets - first to Britain, then back to Portugal.
It's pretty infuriating when you actually know first hand how it feels to live in a place that doesn't put cars uber alles and are now living in one where its painfully obvious in everything from urban planning to how drivers tend to break mostly the rules that are there to protect pedestrians, that you're in a society which at least in this has a mindset from 40 years ago.
You don't even need to go live somewhere else; just visit.
I'm from Canada and went back to visit Germany and Belgium a few months ago. I already went to Germany and the Netherlands a few years ago and just used the trains. I had no fixed itinerary and was deciding where to go a day in advance before buying a train ticket to go there. It was obviously fine (most of the time) but because of how trains "work" here, I was anxious about buying tickets a day in advance, thinking it was "last minute".
Then while I was in Belgium I had to plan a train ride in Canada a week later, and there was no affordable tickets left. I was sitting in Liège, and just bought a train ticket to Bruxelles that was departing in the next hour... while trying to book a train a week in advance in Canada, and failing to do so.
Every time I have to use a train in Canada, or just any kind or intercity service, even a coach, I'm painfully reminded of how bad it is here.
This is Haussmannien architecture, it looks pretty and unfiform because the prefect of Napoleon III in the 19th century got the permission to destroy most of the shitty medieval districts with poor people inside and build good looking housing with modern accomodations for rich people instead. That's largely why Paris is pretty today.
Interesting, I didn't know that.
I mean, it also has to be a little bit because they didn't let the car companies demolish the whole city and replace it with parking lots in the 1960s, right?
Well, yeah nobody would thought to destroy this kind of valuable architecture for parking. We did get some aweful towers in other districts though, like Montparnasse tower.
In the US, people definitely thought destroying valuable architecture for parking (and highways) was a great idea. It's heartbreaking what we've lost.