No Middle-Class Suburbia in the USA

Modernism itself is deeply tied to the concept of suburbia. Suburbs were to represent machine like efficiency by concentrating spacious affordable hosing outside of the commercial and industrial districts of the city.One of the things that gutted America's cities from the 50's-70's was making them easily accessible to the suburban commuter by bisecting them with highways. This made cities less accessible towards those who lived there (how can you cross a 6 lane highway without a car?) versus outsiders, while allowing for suburbanites to work in the city without paying taxes towards its upkeep.

This is not that hard to fix, either. Just have the entire city including all of the suburbs count as a city and pay taxes into that city.
 
This is not that hard to fix, either. Just have the entire city including all of the suburbs count as a city and pay taxes into that city.


One of the things I was thinking. Perhaps have state govts mandate that city councils must encompass all the commuter suburbs that make up what people un-officially consider part of the 'city'.
 
Multiple POD's

It would take multiple POD's from OTL to stop suburbanization. Yes, it could have been stopped after 1945. After a depression and war that diverted resources, housing was in short supply and it would have been possible to market multi-family homes as a different version of the American Dream; it just did not happen. The interstate highways did not cause urban flight since they were not established until the late fifties and did not become part of most people's lives until the sixties.

The key to keeping the cities strong is to keep railroads and steel strong. Since Americans endured rent controls and commodity rationing during WWII, they would have accepted central planning; it just did not happen.

My POD's:

1. Build the interstate highways so the main routes go around the large cities, not through their centers, much the way I-80 goes around the center of Des Moines, Iowa.

2. Insert this technological POD: The Kroll process for extracting titanium metal, developed in 1946, does not happen until the late sixties. The result would be no jet engines and no jet planes, permitting a railroad-based postwar construction boom. Fast trains and a new railroad infrastructure would be too well established to be shut out by jets that first appear in the seventies. (This scenario has political/military ramifications that might constitute a thread of its own.)

3. Divert the jet plane resources to putting air conditioning into multi-family housing. In OTL, a/c was too expensive for single family homes until the sixties. After all, the Empire State Building was air conditioned around 1950.
 
A greater support for street cars/subways/light rail is probably a good candidate, depending on local cost efficiencies. Perhaps an earlier National Infrastructure Bank? Also, corporate sponsorship: I believe GE has a fairly strong locomotive manufacturing business. There's still a huge problem of getting local governments to forward thinking enough.

However, it's hard to completely do away with the interstate highway system. OTL is was primarily justified as a military expenditure, just as the Autobahn was in Germany. Indeed, for this reason I think 3/5 miles of IH can be used as makeshift airstrips (the list of which is one of the US top military secrets). Also, without it you'd lose the cost efficiencies of shipping and the economic effects that follow.

When you combine both, you're looking at a fairly big public expenditure. Perhaps the Democrats keep the White House in 1952, strengthening the hand of a Truman like continuation of the New Deal.
WOW, you Even Managed to Garble The Urban Legend ...

The Idea that The US Interstate System was at All Designed to be Used as Emergency Airfields is Utter Hogwash ...

But you Don't Hafta Take My Word for it; Take theirs!

:mad:
 
One of the things I was thinking. Perhaps have state govts mandate that city councils must encompass all the commuter suburbs that make up what people un-officially consider part of the 'city'.

A significant number of American cities exist near state borders. Their suburbs extend into multiple states. New York springs immediately to mind, but also Philadelphia, Chicago and DC (itself a puzzling jurisdiction to deal with.) And think about all the rivers that conveniently form state borders that also host major cities. Taking money from another state like this would be problematic, to say the least.
 
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