A very different world?

Admiral Brown

Nowadays, it's quite how surprisingly similar how similar modern cities are. Not only are cities and buildings similar, but so are the slums that surround them (in the first world).

How much of this is a product of fashion (imitation of international cnstruction style) and how much is a result of the materials and building techniques existant in this stage of technological development??? Would all societies who have reached our level of technology build more or less in the same way??? Or would cities in a world in which the industrial revolution had first taken place in China or in Persia be radically different from our own??? If so, how?
 

Ofaloaf

Skyscrapers:
  1. Utilize steel frames to bear the weight, enabling greater heights
  2. Due to their greater wall area, intricate decorations are mighty expensive to install on them
  3. Are most popular in areas with high land values, where expanding out is prohibitively expensive.
Thus, they can only appear if cheap steel and steel framing techniques are developed and urbanization is rampant. However, if these things are introduced, most skyscrapers will most likely be relatively bland in appearance simply because of the costs involved otherwise.



Slums:
  1. Are generally constructed from the cheapest materials available.
  2. Are generally constructed in the shortest time possible.
  3. Are generally constructed in the easiest way possible.
Little effort is made to make slums appear culturally unique, since tenants generally seem not to give a fig about anything except getting a roof over their heads and working up from there. Slums may seem less similar to ones we are familiar only in the way that the Kowloon Walled City may appear exotic to us; weaker building codes, regulation, and enforcement allow slums to begin taking on unsanitary or structurally unsound (but cheap!) shapes.
 
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MNP

Admiral Brown said:
Nowadays, it's quite how surprisingly similar how similar modern cities are. Not only are cities and buildings similar, but so are the slums that surround them (in the first world)?
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Remember, in America we commonly have donuts which the opposite of Europe. Inner cities can often be the slums areas while areas around the periphery are of a higher socio-economic class. Then there is the whole phenomena of suburbs. It doesn't fit for all cities, but generally American cities are surrounded by higher-class areas that are a product of a various trends such as white-flight, and the American tendency to idealize the "English country House". In the US though the main difference is an "eastern" city v. a "western" city. Western cities sprawl more and have more of a grid like plan (generalization) while eastern cities have more eccentric streets and are built smaller and tighter. I've heard it said that St. Paul MN is the westernmost eastern city and Minneapolis MN is the easternmost western city.

In Texas at least, I have seen with my own eyes that the poor houses look more like something you'd find in S.A. than anything in the US.
 

Paul Spring

MNPundit said:
Remember, in America we commonly have donuts which the opposite of Europe. Inner cities can often be the slums areas while areas around the periphery are of a higher socio-economic class. Then there is the whole phenomena of suburbs. It doesn't fit for all cities, but generally American cities are surrounded by higher-class areas that are a product of a various trends such as white-flight, and the American tendency to idealize the "English country House". In the US though the main difference is an "eastern" city v. a "western" city. Western cities sprawl more and have more of a grid like plan (generalization) while eastern cities have more eccentric streets and are built smaller and tighter. I've heard it said that St. Paul MN is the westernmost eastern city and Minneapolis MN is the easternmost western city.

In Texas at least, I have seen with my own eyes that the poor houses look more like something you'd find in S.A. than anything in the US.
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That's true - I think that in Europe most cities didn't follow the American trend of the mid to late 20th century of having much of the upper and middle class population move out to the suburbs, leaving the inner parts of the city relatively poor except for strictly business districts.

I think the biggest divide for US cities is those that developed largely before the automobile became ubiquitous (New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, etc.) vs. those where most of the growth came after the automobile became the primary mode of transportation (Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, etc.).
 

zoomar

There are a lot of questions here. Look at history, western colonialism and transportation modes. The fact that all modern cities have modern glass and steel skyscrapers at their center (and to that extent look fairly similar from a distance) is a product of western technology and the global perception that "modern" architectural fashions symboloze power and progress. Besides, when enegry is available and relatively cheap, packing several thousand people into tall business buildings is more efficient than spreading them out into several square miles worth of smaller buildings.

But when you delve deeper, as the previous posters noted, this apparant similarity masks major differences in how cities are organized, with the socio-economic "donut" differences between American and European cities only one of the most obvious differences.
 

Michael Busch

A related question: how would the layout of cities have changed if the automobile never becomes as common (that is, used for long-distance travel and for freight, law enforcement, and emergencies; but restricted for day-to-day use)? Obviously that means more public transit, bicycling, and walking; and less migration to the suburbs. It also means fewer traffic jams.

I say this because I'm trying to avoid having a car in Los Angeles for as long as possible. This change may have the biggest effect on the western United States, but it will be important elsewhere as well.
 
juanml82

juanml82

Admiral Brown said:
Nowadays, it's quite how surprisingly similar how similar modern cities are. Not only are cities and buildings similar, but so are the slums that surround them (in the first world).

How much of this is a product of fashion (imitation of international cnstruction style) and how much is a result of the materials and building techniques existant in this stage of technological development??? Would all societies who have reached our level of technology build more or less in the same way??? Or would cities in a world in which the industrial revolution had first taken place in China or in Persia be radically different from our own??? If so, how?
Click to expand...
Well, for buildings themselves, first you have material and budgetary limitations. You need to make them cost effective, while at the same time making them desirable, ie beautiful and functional. Beauty change from culture to culture. Functionality is affected by it. Efficiency is affected by technology, not culture, and that also change over time.
But then you have urbanism, which involves both social and economical dynamics as well as governmental decisions and maybe something akin to the theory of the broken windows.

I'd say in a different, non western dominated world, you'll have similarly built buildings in roughly the same areas and technological knowledge when they were built, but differently styled. However, for a city wide consideration, we also need to think in stuff like wars, the economic reality of the area over time, state of the transportation technology and population density when a place was urbanized (you have walked by Buenos Aires's downtown), large scale projects, business concentration and anything causing demographic changes = is people moving to the suburbs to get a larger home at the expense of more time commuting every day because traffic is manageable? Are they moving to cheaper areas, which ever they are, because of economic downturn? Who's building? The state? Large private investors? The would be owners? How long a building typically lasts before being replaced by a new one? How affordable, or not, is real state? And credit? Where are most jobs located?
In other words, you need to define a lot of details from those different societies. Cities could be a lot different. Just think Buenos Aires without the yellow fever in the 19th century (and the rich moving north), no europhile generation of the '80s or no Carlos Thays. Or, for the sake of it, without immigration in the late 19th century due some random POD. Or the Argentinean coastal cities without mortages available for the middle class in the second half of the 20th centuries. But even within the same culture, the cities would evolve different. In a whole different society? With a different economical situation? At war? Buildings would be similar. The cities layout, transit, even economy can be entirely different.
 

DuQuense

I was in San Antonio [Tx] doing insurance work. [Hurricane adjusting].
In the Hispanic section I saw poor [painted Plywood -Tin Roof] homes and 4 lots away a McMansion with the adobe stucco and red tile roofs.
This intrigued me so I asked about it.

Back when Red Lining was in force, Hispanics could not buy Land outside.
So when someone got rich, He would buy a double lot and build a Big House somewhere within blocks of his old house.

So you have to consider social and legal restrictions.


There is also the fact that for years now, Architects have all been reading the Same international Magazines, and reading the same textbooks.
 

Tom Veil

Michael Busch said:
A related question: how would the layout of cities have changed if the automobile never becomes as common (that is, used for long-distance travel and for freight, law enforcement, and emergencies; but restricted for day-to-day use)? Obviously that means more public transit, bicycling, and walking; and less migration to the suburbs. It also means fewer traffic jams.

I say this because I'm trying to avoid having a car in Los Angeles for as long as possible. This change may have the biggest effect on the western United States, but it will be important elsewhere as well.
Click to expand...

If the only change you make is to eliminate the automobile's popularity, then most cities would end up looking like the inner districts of Philadelphia and Boston. LA, though? Since LA has completely different weather, it could be really fascinating to see what emerges. My guess is that shopping areas like Century City Mall, homes like in Westwood, and public parks like San Diego's Balboa would be considered best practices. Some people would still end up living 90 miles away from work, but that would only be viable if you're living right on top of the train station. Poor people would probably end up crammed in skyscrapers so that they can afford housing in areas close to jobs.
 
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