America's Oldest Neighborhood is Problematic

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American engineers try not to put a highway through neighborhoods challenge.

"Any serious world-class city does not allocate its waterfront land for ugly highway infrastructure." Someone, please tell Chicago.

When you’re so pro “historical preservation” that you’d rather let a beautiful 150 year old structure get torn down and replaced with an apartment building. We’ve come full circle

As an archaeologist, this frustrates me to no end. The principle of Adaptive Reuse is widely accepted in academic and professional spheres, the proposed church plan being a prime example. Unfortunately nimbys love to weaponise the idea of historic preservation as freezing a building in time in order to just do the whole nimbg thing. I spoke with a man this summer when I was working on an environmental campaign (unrelated to archaeology) who told me he was fully against solar panels, hest pumps and weatherisation because he lived in a historic building. All of those things are fully accepted adaptations for making a historic building suitable for modern use, as are things like ramps and elevators for ADA compliance, or indeed completely repurposing the building, which is seen as a gold standard. Anyway I have a suspicion the man I was talking to did have central heating, electricity and air conditioning in his building, and was just using preservation as a convenient excuse for nimbyism

"don't let perfection be the enemy of good" is a statement that is unfortunately not said enough times

It's crazy how that highway completely ruins the waterfront. Idk in what world someone would vote for that to be implemented. People are crazy

Hope that someday streets like these will be so common again that they don't have to be designated as "tourist attractions"

The thing with the church is downright infuriating. I love the architecture of old churches and would personally love to live in one if I could. Knowing that a historic, beautiful, and well-built church was just falling apart then destroyed, for not being used as originally intended, is just frustrating. This should not be what we do with our history. These buildings have stood for countless years, and it takes alot to build things of the same longevity. Why is it that our American way of doing things is nothing but destruction first then stubborn preservation second? We do all in on one or the other. We can't have people living in an old church that would be renovated, but we also can't have it stay either. Same idea as why we can't go to places in anything but a car. We destroyed all the other infrastructure in most smaller towns, now are having to replace said infrastructure for so many times more expensive and more difficult to plan.

Nimbyism is killing so many areas. We suffer from them everywhere.

The church story is absolutely shocking, ridiculous, and not uncommon. Here in Carson City we lost our beloved sandstone engine house as recently as 1991. One of the culprits, though not the only one, was competing Preservation interests fighting each other for it. Now nobody has it, and thirty years later, it’s still a vacant lot in the middle of prime (and historic) downtown real estate.

It's amazing to me that in 2023 the name of Robert Moses still comes up when you talk about bad planning but to hear it mentioned in Philadelphia when he did all his damage in NYC is proof to me just how bad he was to NYC.

Yes, as a Philadelphian, it can become very very frustrating with "perfectionists" and historic neglect-until-unsalvageable groups. Thanks for calling them out.

I used to think that people who drive down St-Paul in Old Montreal are wretched psychopaths but nothing could prepare me for this

4:55 They unironically ended up with a more authentic style British garden by the looks of it. Fresh with dead grass and trash everywhere. Very authentic

The zoom out to the urban freeway is horrifying and yet not surprising at all. I’m more surprised when we see things done right.

I can't believe they demolished that church to do exactly what they were so apposed to. they could've had new apartments and the same facade, but they just couldn't bare the idea of change. it's shameful.

I'm really glad Interstate 95 was routed around Baltimore despite Maryland's enthusiasm for highway building, it's crazy to have a road that big going through a historic part of a city like that

I hate the trope of “rental housing ruining the fabric of communities”. In some of the nicest neighbourhoods in Toronto, where most single detached or semi houses have turned into duplex or triplexes, you might actually find multiplexes spread throughout ur the neighbourhood. And they’re often times some of the nicest buildings in the area. It is unbelievable that there’s such a stark contrast in what we’re allowing to be restricted in various neighbourhoods across the same city here. Great video as always, btw. Keep up the good work! You’re making super accessible work that I can share with people that are not urbanists, which is important! Thanks

Transit fan here. When I go to Philadelphia, I like to take whatever transit is available to where I want to go (unless it’s a bus) I walked along narrow streets, saw beautiful neighborhoods, not everywhere was touristy, and I saw South Street