The Deleted Scenes - New and Old #45
The Fascinating Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Streetcar Suburbs, Governing, Emma Newcombe, January 27, 2022
Read the whole, interesting piece. Streetcar suburbs are a sort of missing link between old urban cores and modern suburbs. They got a lot of things right, and to this day many former streetcar suburbs are well-loved places that mix gentle density with some privacy, green space, and proximity to transit, retail, and activities. These were basically the greenfield (i.e. built on previously undeveloped land) subdivisions of the day, but by continuing many of the design elements of urban neighborhoods, they balanced their urban lineage and suburban character well. The article also goes into the complex decline of the streetcar, which was not nearly as simple and one-dimensional as Roger Rabbit made so many people think. New, but Far From Perfect, New York Times, Ronda Kaysen, March 8, 2015 Do they make them like they used to? It depends. For every old building that feels like it’s falling apart, there’s one with walls that could survive a bomb blast. It really comes down to the individual building. Likewise, new doesn’t always mean better. This piece from a mid-2010s building boom in New York City is a warning about rapid, shoddy construction. Everything from the paint and finishes to the structural aspects like plumbing, wiring, and concrete can and do go wrong, sometimes within just a few years. But there’s a factor other than rapid construction here. One interesting factor here is that many of these buildings were begun before the Great Recession, after which they changed hands and were completed by a different developer. That broke the flow of the projects—and perhaps the fact that many of these buildings sat for years in an unfinished state also contributed to some of the problems. The Railroad That Wasn’t Built, Goodspeed Histories, Marfy Goodspeed, August 31, 2019 This is a long and detailed account of a proposed rail line in the vicinity of my New Jersey hometown, back in the 1800s. The details may or may not interest you, but check it out anyway. It’s a fascinating website full of pieces about New Jersey history. What I always notice about stories like this is the ease with which new rail lines could be built in those days, or even electric streetcar lines into the 20th century. Projects that take many years and billions of dollars today were often just proposed, debated, and built in short order. There are reasons for this, some good of course (like property rights and environmental concerns). But there’s something real to the feeling that it’s just very hard to get anything done today. I studied environmental policy in grad school, and one of the first issues I became interested in was the intersection of consumerism and recycling/waste management (or in plain English, people buy too much junk, where does it all go?). So this article caught my attention. Tons of basically disposable consumer devices using lithium batteries, many difficult to repair or recycle, are ending up in the regular recycling stream, thrown in with cans, bottles, and other ordinary recyclables. But these things aren’t just not recyclable—the batteries explode when put through shredders or run over by trucks, and have been responsible for a raft of fires at recycling plants. This is the kind of issue that suggests the need for some kind of regulation, since it clearly transcends individual responsibility. But what exactly the right set of regulations is, I don’t know. Related Reading: Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekend subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive of nearly 300 posts and growing. And you’ll help ensure more material like this! You’re a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. |
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The Edge of the World
Thursday, February 17, 2022
How cars expand and shrink the built environment
"Excuse Me, Where's the Car Aisle?"
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #45
NIMBYism, Cassette Tapes, Nostalgia, and the Future
Monday, February 14, 2022
An uncannily familiar debate over something totally unrelated to housing or development
Occoquan, Virginia's Embrace of Old and New
Monday, February 7, 2022
The small town balances a strong historic aesthetic with lots of new construction
SUVs and Malt Beverages
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Consumer demand and regulation create strange offspring
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