Infrastructure bill to combat racism. Busted.

I watched it - SUPERB!

Maybe take a look at what Berlin did with the space where the wall once stood? That seems to be a glorious example of doing it right to me.

The one mistakes here: the desire to redevelop into single family homes. Single Family homes are not the way forward for North America.

Imagined censorship, imagined crusade that was never happening. These are your last days.

So they are going to put single-family homes next to 500k neighborhoods? How are they going to stop the price of these houses going into the millions?

Inner Loop East was filled in with relatively high density development , and Rochester has both a decent bus system and considerable bike infrastructure and focus on walkability in its urban planning. The difficult part for Inner Loop North is that it doesn't really run through downtown but rather a historically residential area. Most of the buildings in the area are single family arts and crafts style cottages built in the late 19th early 20th century on 1/10th acre (400m^2) plots. You could build higher density but it would be still be separate from the downtown core and a bit of an island. And for what its worth downtown Rochester has more than doubled its number of apartments in the past decade so it certainly isn't neglecting density.

So crazy removing highways to build single family homes. What a waste of the new land, and cost spent tearing down the highway.

Agreed. I love the change in roading infrastructure, but there needs to at least be medium density if not high density to allow people the chance to share in home ownership and make best use of resources.

I went to engineering school in Rochester and lived there for most of the early 2000s. Since the 1980s, Rochester saw enormous job losses as the major employers of Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, GM auto parts and Ford auto parts laid off much of their workforces. Kodak alone laid off over 80k employees. The city only ever had a little over 500k residents at its peak. These layoffs first hit the racially segregated jobs that were held by African-Americans and Puerto Ricans. Through to the 1970s, these folks were "Redlined" into racially segregated neighborhoods on the north and west sides of the city, closer to the heavily polluting factories. In the 1950s when they built the highways in the city, they tore out the street car system, which included a section underground in the downtown core. For a city that gets as much snow as it does, having underground mass transit was important. However the switch to car centric travel ended that. This means that if one can afford it in the slightest, they try to have a car, which leads to a lot of older, polluting, poorly maintained cars on the road. For many years, the city was similar to Detroit, with whole blocks of abandoned single family homes being torn down and replaced with grass lots. Since then, Rochester's economy has pivoted towards the education and academic research sector, mainly UofR and RIT (but there are a dozen other universities in the area as well). The two big universities stopped building on campus dorms and apartments and started encouraging their students to live off-campus, along the southern side of the city. As students have graduated, many have stayed in Rochester and opened tech startups, art studios and other small businesses. Many grants and scholarships were made available to kids from the inner city to attend the universities, who have then graduated and worked in the region. Since 2005, Rochester has built a ton of new apartments in the downtown core. As recently as the early 2000s, the downtown core would be totally empty on a typical weeknight. They tore down a vacant mall at the very center of the city and replaced it with dense apartments. Many of the surface parking lots have been redeveloped into apartment towers. Inner Loop East was basically a moat between the downtown core and the main arts/ entertainment/ restaurant areas of East Main St, East Ave and Monroe Ave. The Inner Loop North does cut off easy bike and pedestrian traffic from the historically segregated north side, but this is also done by the existing CSX/ Amtrak railroad right of way through the city, that cuts along the northern edge of the city's core from east to west. The Inner Loop North runs parallel with the tracks for much of its length. Removing the Inner Loop North will reduce the width of this divide, but not eliminate it. Mostly, it will rationalize the traffic patterns in this stretch of the city and provide some lots for politically connected developers to get hand outs from the city. The city can politically afford to take down these sections of highways because they don't serve any purpose under the current economic climate of the city, which is still shrinking and it means that they don't have to maintain all of these bridges anymore. The federally funded interstate designated highways on the southern side of the city (I-390 & I-490) that separate the young, white, middle class neighborhoods close to the universities from the downtown core aren't going anywhere anytime soon. What Rochester really needs is a new mass transit system that connects the less economically advantaged neighborhoods on the north and west side to where the jobs are on the south and east side. Busses take well over an hour, typically with a transfer downtown, what it takes 20 minutes to do in a car. There are enough abandoned railroad rights of way that could be rehabilitated that it could be separated from most road traffic as well, while still providing convenient transportation for everyone.

If that's what they want to do its their home. Not what I would do but I don't live there.

It’s all rosy abou “reconnecting neighbourhoods” but in reality it’s more elite single family homes haha

I found that really weird as well. "We want affordable housing, but let's limit the available units by building single family homes"

Why do you cáre? You’re European. Go pay your ridiculous taxes

@@664theneighbor5 Why shouldn't we care? Don't be so salty.

This is why rent rates are so low in NYC.

There needs to be a variety of housing, If they make cities too dense, they will be accused of "creating ghettos" Most cities have already built a range of housing, and many are building high-rise residential buildings. I dont trust what the establishment has planned. They say they care about communities and affordable housing but rental prices are skyrocketing in most western cities. Just renting a property as a single, low wage worker is becoming out of reach. Apartment buildings are being bought out by investment firms and rents are increasing. I dont trust them.

This isn't accurate. Building more single family houses creates more supply and lowers prices. Many cities do apartments and condos and prices are very high, so denser buildings aren't going to work.

@@pracidiname2615 this is wrong and your example is wrong. We do build condos and apartment, but it’s limited. The issue isn’t single family zoning; rather, I should have said it’s Euclidian Zoning (single family only for most of the city) that is the issue. People will still build plenty of single family homes, but now we have the chance to build more duplexes, condos, mixed use, and other missing middle housing options. That is what will lower the price down.

@@pracidiname2615 The prices for single family homes are higher in cities compared to apartments and condos. Apartments and condos increase supply by more than single family homes given that they simply house more people using the same land. The reason that cities are generally more expensive to live in overall is because of how desirable living in the city is in the first place; people want the convenience of living in the city and since this is really rare in the US there isn't a lot of overall supply and the demand outpaces it (meaning people go homeless even with a job). The only way to fix this is to build enough housing so that everyone can afford it.

Can confirm, I got lost on it, and my GPS was no help...

Baloony

@@spencer8035 yes hi hello it is me ballooney

​@@spencer8035 inflaty

Hey ballone. Good ta see ya

In Rochester, those neighborhoods that were cut through had mixed development with corner stores, three story buildings, etc. Every four blocks or so is a walkable mixed commercial area from the early 20th century, the old way cities did things.

Yeah force people into the misery of high density apartments nothing like screaming kids from above, a barking dog from below and an arguing couple from the side!

@@Ushio01 You talk as if there’s nothing in between those 2 extremes

@@kingchicken8232 it is a possibility unfortunately

@@Ushio01 No, give them townhouses, condos, multi-plexus, etc. with corner stores and cafés. It’s not all single family or apartments, there’s a thing called middle density.

But that project also cost $22 billion in 2020 dollars and had loans to pay for thirty years after the project was complete. The end result is nice but I can't help but think there may have been ways to allocate that much money for more impact.

@@TheVonMatrices what impact? Urban redesign is one of the most influential non-controversial things to invest in.

@@krunkle5136 It also pays for itself with increased property values and private investment.

They plan on doing that in the Bronx also here in NYC

Boston underground looks scary, old, and ugly just like NY. What shameful? Do they know how to manage the public facilities?

I've heard Rochester called a doughnut city because of this.

I have been alive to see it all happen. It really is a tragedy.

Not what it used to be.

Especially since the "affordable" housing on the old inner loop isn't actually affordable. Most of it appears to be sitting empty.

we will literally hit rock bottom within the next 10 years, i could see us becoming another gary indiana, just another ghost town in between a bustling brand new rebuilt buffalo with the bills new stadium and syracuse being good again all whilst we just fall into limbo with non stop crime and everyone trying to get out.

As a tourist I imagine these highways might be a joy to drive on, however, if you live here you begin to notice that they are far from a pleasant experience most of the time.

@@jacksonknoll5350it’s not a joy, you get stuck on them all the time

I've had a look in Google Street View and it seems like they've replaced the already completed parts with apartments.

You're right. Building Single Family Homes, and nothing else, in the MIDDLE of the downtown area is especially foolish!

I can agree with this. Affordable mid-rise low density housing is the way to go... no high density condos which will only make property values and house prices skyrocket.

Seems like they want more Free HUD Housing to be Built.

now most of new development in US city downtowns are apartments and offices. Those homes were built a long time ago when planning was just for small population.

This would mean that America would turn into Europe. That's no good!

@@diegoperez2090 which is basically the US in the 1920s. Haha.

Lively communities with medium density residential buildings and shops and restaurants? Sounds like communism to me.

100%. Density, Greenspace, Car-Free areas, Priority for Bike and Walking infrastructure.

Lol this guy doesn't realize that the article scarcity in housing supply is on purpose. Zoning codes are voted on by homeowners and homeowners have 0 interest to increase supply to meet demand. Artificial scarcity only makes a homeowner wealthier.

Agreed

Zoning laws make it difficult to build anything other than single family homes

Based Albany

Thank you Kim Jong Un very cool

Its the classic liberal philosophy. They want affordable housing but no gentrification or redevelopment. Its why Democrat cities are rundown. They claim to be for the poor but actively screw them and price them and their children out of their cities

It's what the local community seems to want, and they would know what they need more than us

@@KrisRyanStallardif they are asking for single family homes only then, they are also the problem. They have been fed the belief that only their own single family home with a lawn all their life while at the same time fed propaganda against anything else, so they don’t want it near them.

Cite an example of new yorkers "buying out your community". For all we know you just went on a rant about nothing...

@@KrisRyanStallardno, its what they claim people want. The fact is cities dont plan for affordable housing because it brings in crime, drugs, prostitution you name anything bad & those are their reasons. However if you dont provide affordable housing it makes people homeless which brings in even bigger problems. We knew all this 40 years ago but still nobody built affordable housing & these cities only have themselves to blame & they refuse to accept accountability for creating their homeless. It will simply grow.

LMAO CONDOS IN ROCHESTER. Did you hear the guy say some homes are sold for 65,000. People can't afford that expensive white people bullshit.

@@121Greenthumb apartments will always be cheaper than building single family homes because the land cost is divided between 50+ people. A single family home is like ordering a meal for 50 and paying it all yourself better to split the bill that way everyone gets a better deal.

@@someguy255 Condos and apartments are not the same thing BUDDY...... maybe read both comments in entirety

@@121Greenthumb we call them luxury flats where I’m from. I didn’t think condos were always luxury because lots of the condos in New York aren’t luxurious just expensive because they’re in New York.

@@121Greenthumb I mean a dense development that still allows for home ownership. A condo is not by definition an expensive type of housing. Single family homes are much more exclusive and can potentially be a huge financial burden. I get that they have to work within the system of a house being an important asset to build wealth and POC Americans (especially black Americans) missed out on that but having it be exclusive to the lucky few without adding a general benefit to the community seems like a missed opportunity as the area needs more resources like an actual grocery store. Still I also get not wanting to repeat the east side development since that was done just to increase land value within the area and attract white people whether that hurts or helps current residents or not. The reality is Rochester does need investment and wealth brought into the downtown core but the city should be protecting the current residents while doing so, so they can be the ones who benefit. I just don't think single family homes does either.

Same with San Francisco when the 480 was torn down after the Loma Prieto Earthquake in 1989. Today, you'd never know there was a freeway in front of the SF Ferry Building.

@@donnerwetter1905 Let's go back to horses! That would be even better.

@@saranciuc7717 yeah i forgot that bikes shit all over the road my bad

@@donnerwetter1905 Only making space for cars and building cities around the use of them was a bad idea. I'm not sure completely removing them is a great idea either though. It's maybe something worth striving for, but not by forcing it. I'd take the approach of making public transport so fast and good that people want to use it instead of a car. While I barely use a car during the week, I do have to travel to other places about 100km away so see family and friends. Doing so by public transport takes at least twice as long, if not more. I also have to deal with trains and busses that don't come on time and they might be packed. If instead we can have high speed rail connecting all cities above let's say 100k, it would be faster to use that instead. That way you naturally end up with less cars on the road. You can make roads with fewer lanes, replace traffic lights by roundabouts and make more space for people instead of cars. For the few trips that are better to do by car, you can leave a small amount of infrastructure in place, which you'll anyway need since you'll have to account for the increase in delivery vehicles on the road.

​@@dominikjakaj1999 That way you connect better with nature.

Idk about that. I think it makes ton of sense in situations like this where the highway is underutilized and the community needs fresh redevelopment. Rochester’s growth predated interstate. Fastern growing regions that have exploded since the advent of highways in the sun belt could t afford to removed them.

#daylighting 👏

@@Raven_The_Huntress that's exactly what India needs to protect and keep its rivers unpolluted.

@@pietrojenkins6901 Trust me it’s better to have the water ways above ground, and have blissful walks along side it than have it covered in concrete. Even if the water is pollute it’s still worth keeping above ground so that people may enjoy it.

Now that comment and observation, I can agree with.

@@Raven_The_Huntress That happened to London too. I saw a documentary a few years ago about a secret underground river nobody knew about until architect's were building a new skyscraper or something. Its mental.

They just put the highway in the ground, that is only 3 lanes each way, but den again every city’s situation differs

…At a cost of $20-billion. Something that local citizens never would have approved had they not been lied to & told the cost was much less. That is the trickery advocates for major projects use just to get these projects started. They assume the public will pay the billions more rather than throw away what has been done.

Was gonna say the same plus tunnels are less prone constant weather effects plus the salt thrown at winter

.. Which is why I can’t understand why the fully-underground completion of the 710 freeway is so summarily rejected

This was done with about half of Duluths highway that runs along the shore and it's made wonderful parkland.

The Big Dig is so underappreciated... but that won't solve the traffic until the commuter rail is renovated. So it was also a but half measure.

The big dig was a extremely reckless usage of funds. At the end of the day, it still served to inject cars right into the downtown, clogging the streets and choking the air

​@@gfasterOS As Thomas said, the cost overruns and the poor quality of work do not suggest that the center of Boston is not significantly more pleasant and healthy now than it was before.

SeaTac did the same thing Before 2019 Alaska Way and Interstate 5 and part of Interstate 90 where above ground viaducts. After the Seattle Earthquake the mayor ordered them torn down. Interstate 90 and Interstate 5 were done first then Alaska Way was torn down now SeaTac has a new waterfront and they have better access to the ferry docks, Fisherman's Warf, and the Pikes Place Fish Market.

public transit doesnt work

@@gregoryeverson741 ask California how practical and affordable public transportation is especially commuter trains. Why would it be different anywhere else?

@@gregoryeverson741 Japan: Am I a joke to you?

​@@gregoryeverson741 Europe and East Asia: am I a joke to you?

Why is this not recommended as a comment all the others are dooming it is becoming single family

...where the "Park Freeway was. There is currently a movement to tear down east I-794 that cuts through the south end of downtown to the lakefront. and repurpose the land for mixed commercial, high multi storey residential. and community development. Sadly the rest of 794 will remain, which cuts through Bayview and my old neighbourhood of St Francis, resulting the removal of several classic wooden bridges over of the rail line the highway parallels and creating more of a noise nuisance than the freight occasional trains that pass through. The really silly part is it peters out east of Mitchell Airport at S Pennsylvania and E Edgerton turning the former from a side/backstreet into a 4 lane "!stroad". Progress I guess.

Thanks so much! It's really important to us that we explain the impact construction really has on all of our lives and the communities we live in. If people get that, then they'll take the industry more seriously. It's our goal to change how the world sees this sector! More on that here - www.theb1m.com/about

The videos have become less logistical and more political.

@@zarathustra7974 Exactly.

No car means Time table dependency.

@@DrJams we cant have a city fully without cars. We need to be half way 50/50 or even 70/30.

@@DrJams Well-planned public transport runs so often that there's no time table dependency there either!

@@DrJams things in a walkable distance = time table dependency? not having to use your car for every. single. thing in life is time table dependency?

@@AnymMusic also needing a place to park that car

Nice

That Chinese are elite there and own all things yea we know NEXT!

@@dcorica79 nIcE

What the Bruce highway then what

Perth is going crazy with road upgrades. Probably to keep the economy going?

The US seems to love their buses, but doesn’t want to invest into Bus Rapid Transit or make Park and Rides a wash for bikes. Both of these would improve the system.

Birmingham is a lost cause

@@Kylirr true

B'ham UK is a disaster in deveopment, a souless city centre and 60s concrete nightmare. Horrible place. It started a few years before they concreted over the New Street Railway station, which itself looked like crap before recent redevelopment. It's hard to find an Englishman in B'ham, and that is the problem.

@@29brendus to be fair most cities in the uk are 60s and 70s concrete monstrosities and could do with being rebuilt with actual looks and not just the cheap option Source: i'm british

You didn't mention they built a tunnel to replace that road. Some of these projects have nothing to replace them with.

Exactly the tunnel that replaced the above ground expressway was built at an extraordinary price which any city would have difficulty funding. In Seattle its now a toll highway. You cant just tear down a highway and expect the cars to simply ho away.

Well, that is somehow logical, because you have to by the valuable land in cities and tear down houses, build bridges and tunnels and so on which makes it more expensive than building on the green field.

Boondoggle ,how did your local politicians do . Chicago thew Minneapolis st Paul...I got a lush transportation system ,

@@McMicGera Indeed the price/mile for building inside cities is naturally higher, but the pitch for the FHA-Act of '56 was _Inter-State_ connections with an emphasis on national defense destinations. Transportation infrastructure (e.g. rail and paved streets) inside cities already satisfied urban national defense and connectivity worries, it was the rural unstandardized gravel and dirt roads that were the primary problem. The reason a majority of funding was spent inside cities was the lobbying done by the National Highways User Conference (a consortium of auto, oil, rubber industries led by General Motors). This lobbying was so successful that the GM corporation got prominent government positions in the Eisenhower administration and received significant influence over the Interstate project. The goal of NHUC and GM was making the downtowns of cities easily accessible by their cars, as well as the continued (industry led) normalization of roads and streets being places only for cars, the association of cars with patriotism, and eventually widespread auto-dependency.

@@tomgucwa7319 First off, boondoggle is a hilarious word, I love it. Second, I live in Milwaukee, which due to the highways: has suffered dramatic decline in population, city-based manufacturing jobs, and municipal revenue; we got i-794 (despite local opposition and i43/i94 being about a mile away) which cuts the downtown area in half thanks to whiney suburbanites (some whom don't even live inside city limits); we lost our electric rail connection to Chicago and our streetcar/tram/trolley network which we now have to rebuild; oh, and like pretty much every other US city, we've got widespread auto-dependency. At least city officials want to do the right thing now, but a lot was lost and the city doesn't have much funds to try and fix it (due to suburbanization, city limits being fixed, state laws restricting the city, etc.)

Actually I skimmed through a journal that said cities wanted interstates. The association of municipal something felt that not including cities would leave them behind and had a lot of political clout to withhold support if they didn't get their way.

I know what you mean. And i have to cross a fricken road to check my mailbox its annoying

Still would be lots of destruction. Build a bunch of rail lines, then shut down, then shut down or make toll roads out of existing highways.

@@QuarioQuario54321 I forgot you don't have those, better trains are a given, but don't be ridiculous, outside the cities highways are necessary for survival, if you want cars to be less predominant do it European way - make 60% of gas prices a bunch of taxes. American Cities are built backwards, instead of industry being on the outskirts, along ring road it goes through the middle of city along the highway and in the old town "sO eVeRyoNe hAs tHe sAmE dIsTanCe tO iT" that's another thing you would have to social engineere. I'm Poland, we were late to the party so our highway system is newest in Europe, most technologically advanced and unfortunately most expensive, and in opposition to for example Belgium it's not made retarded due to ideology - anti car extremism is not the an answer to too much cars

@@10hawell well it was actually lobbying and administration, department and Bureaus of highways as city planners don't build or commission highways, and as those highway departments only tool is roads, as the old adadge goes : when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I encourage to do more research on the introduction of highways and their real purpose. Their dysfunction is not at all due to bad city planning. Highways need to go and trains need to be in our future. For both the environment and consumer.

I believe that's the plan. Rural highways don't harm much.

It's the American culture pack, they are well known for the endless rows of suburbs

Stop and think about it. And keep it mind that it's ROCHESTER, not HONG KONG.

I disagree, Interstate should end at the city or go around it. Alternatively, the city should have overpasses allowing the highway to go underneath the city. See Isabelle Ave, Livermore CA it’s part of Highway 84 and lets bikes share the road and ride in a bike gutter while the speed limit is 55 mph

@@KRYMauL That's what he said. End the freeway and convert it into main boulevard at the city outskirts. Overpasses still have the issue of loss of land from building a trench. It would be better to tunnel instead, but it's verry expensive and you still want to refrain from building exits/entrances within the city itself.

@@taoliu3949 I've driven the freeway tunnels in Sydney. They seem to do a good job at providing high speed automobile access into and out of the city, and providing local city street access too while keeping neighborhoods/districts intact.

@@FreewayBrent The reason you don't want to have exits/entrances within the city is because it dumps all the traffic into the city in a single location. That is what causes congestion. It's better to keep the exit/entrances on the outskirts so that the traffic can be dispersed and absorbed by the street grid.

I have heard that Eisenhower thought of interstates going around cities so military convoys wouldn't be in traffic jams

Live in Tangerang, Indonesia and I can confirm this statement. A lot of SouthEast Asian country are very motorcycle dependant.

But high density and public transportation (thus not being overly dependent on motorcycle infrastructure) are not mutually exclusive. Your countries might not be the greatest fans of Japan (and for some pretty good reasons, I have to admit), but in this regard they could really take a page out of the Japanese book. They know how to do public transportation and disincentivize driving.

@@malvinolimit can attest. Here in the Philippines, they're planning to build more elevated highways around the country, especially in and around Manila. Although I am glad we're also rebuilding our entire railway system from scratch. Plus we got new trains from Indonesia and Japan.

At least you guys have tolls. Here in America toll roads are rare, which basically means we not only have made things car reliant, we are completely subsidizing cars.

@Jimmy Exactly, you need to pay to use the road. Just as one pays to use mass transit. Those roads dont pay for themselves. Cities go bankrupt over them. Unless you prefer gas taxes(which may or may not actually go towards maintenance of the roads), pick one.

If we’re talking about how expensive highways are, you don’t want to know about subways. Population density in nearly all cities in America makes subways unlikely

Rochester had a subway......we removed it too 🤦‍♂️

Rochester already tried that once

Rochester had a subway system from 1927 to 1956. Not enough people rode it to support it financially through fares and that was before the two- and three- and four-car household. If they build a new one, not enough people will ride it to support it financially through fares.

@@TheJttv Looking like Rochester want to kill the city centre, is it building new orbiting centres hubs for the populous to move to?

I saw a video on 5 on 1 building which actually is the cheapest way to build houses in the US. Singaporean HDB style is also a good idea, not fully car dependant but you get nice greenery and community spaces.

@@fridgemagnet9831 Yup, bingo. Although I am not the biggest fan of the "Towers in the Park" method of urban development, Singapore style density is still pretty good. Although I'm more of a fan of the Tokyo model of urban density and zoning.

It will be hard to keep the SJW's (social justice warriors) in check. They need to be heard but decisions made from an ideological standpoint are rarely the best choices.

Yep, they are all gonna get up by zillow and other rich folks, price hiked up and these POC residents they were supposed to protect are going to get pushed out of the center

@@chapter4travels But when their ideology is as twisted as theirs, they don't need to be heard. Unfortunately they will be.

Someday they will tear down the BQE, and a million residents will be able to breathe a sigh of relief.

They started fixing the Utica region as well

What doesn't make sense is devaluing people's houses by trying to merge neighborhoods. People who cared for years, invested time and money into keeping the neighborhood nice and clean.

Kodak/Eastman's collapse wasn't even mentioned!

Seems like a good plan to revitalise the city!

@@TermlessHGW is living by poor/black people really worse than a highway. I mean not even racist like living next to highways right.

@@TermlessHGW quite a long explanation of stating that they're just plain racist. Hahaha.

Do you realize that this video is one sided and doesn't have opposing views? Higher density would create more demand, thus pushing rents up for local residents. They are hurting the community they want to help, by making it unaffordable. When people (or developers) realise they can build 50 units instead of 10 on the same lot, that lot's price will go wayyy up.

@@FirstLast-qy7hf Without zoning, it would be possible to build very tall skyscrapers to fill in the demand.

@@stanzhang3187 isn't that what Manhattan did ! look where we are right now.

@@FirstLast-qy7hf as opposed to lower density and unaffordable 👍🏽

@@FirstLast-qy7hf Manhattan is on an island and has nowhere to go but up. The type of mid density urban mixed use development needed in most American cities would not look remotely the same as Manhattan. Thankfully in my city, (Oklahoma City) the open lots in and near downtown are being redeveloped into such mixed use mid density neighborhoods. There is a huge demand for walkable mixed use cities in the US and it's now starting to become reality in places such as Austin, Phoenix, Atlanta, and many cites across the country.

I know, right? Does that mean we are looking at the wrong sources?

F the United States

@@oriplaydirty I agree, the US claims to be the best at everything but in reality it’s a dump

@@growdaddy4281 better then India or China

@@ll4680 imagine comparing the richest country to the most populated countries on earth instead of comparing to those sharing a similar GDP per capita like those in EU that's how badly you want to feel superior abt urself.

That unfortunately sounds like Houston TX.

What do you think would help bring the city/town back to life?

@@vintagejaki751 I actually would say Rochester is quite active for a city of its size, it just doesn’t really take place downtown, the inner loop basically turned downtown into an island where people only go for work during the week

The video said the community wanted single family housing as opposed to the larger apartment complexes…. From what you added I think they possibly want something aesthetically pleasing, more than anything. There are videos explaining why new buildings are forced to look like that (a la regulations) but I suspect your city would see the value the combo of mixed use buildings if it wasn’t such an eye sore.

And given it was still the era of Jim Crow, it was also 'oh so convenient' that most of those 'blight areas' were communities and neighbourhoods where the majority of residents were 'minorities'- in other words, they were black neighbourhoods.

Yep. Some people complain about everything. It’s part of their agenda and helps them line their pockets.

If they own the house I don't really see a reason for those communities to be affected much. The rents will go up but that's just how development and economics go together.

Hello fellow REAL HUMAN. It's nice to see so many comments reinforcing just how credible this channel is. I believe every comment, let's delete all the negative ones! Only room for agreeing here! :)

Some PPL bike during winter

It does seem like it might be a little bit too wide to attract the pedestrian counts that city officials are hoping for. Only time will tell though. Still, the waterfront already looks a heck of a lot better without the Alaskan Way Viaduct, although I do miss driving it for the awesome views it afforded.

Massive roadway is still there, keeping people from accessing the waterfront at a prime location

Pedestrian access to be accosted by junkies and step over feces. Sign me up.

Yes and no. He couldn't get approval from congress as a public works project, so he sold it as investing in nation security. That evidently worked lol

I disagree, at least with this particular video. I see America investing in waste as long as THIS Biden administration is involved. This money wasted, will bring in many more homeless and probably the final curtain of America. Idiots are running the zoo and failure will soon follow. Many American cities don’t have mass transit train hubs. This is another case where government planning and spending are wasted time and money.

I disagree, most traffic to a city center comes from outside. Commuter don't want the high cost of living downtown and many travel 1 hour or more per day to reduce the housing cost at the risk of that dead time riding into the city. There, QUANTITY is the key at moving traffic at a pace that public transit can't come close. Let's also keep in mind another part of the highway system was to evacuate the public in times of war, natural disasters ect. Miami uses this effectively when hurricanes come in. I think many of the "loops" can be eliminated but let's make sure their real use is still as important as intended.

YES NJB IS AMAZING!

Haha had to scroll too far down to find this comment. This should be the top comment in my opinion!

one of the best channels on YT

ye NJB is a good youtuber

15b to 1 billion was stated. To tell the truth Rochester is unique in that its core industry and employers are defunct. This is a community that has seen huge change in the past couple of decades, and these changes to it's infrastructure are incredibly promising.

@@jimurrata6785 yes, I intended to state $15 billion but keying error.

You’re welcome, bean ass.

The video came out 4 mins ago and is 10:47 mins long and you've already watched the entire video to know its a nice video? Lmao my gosh!!

@@youngmicrowave127 He commented whilst watching the video

@@youngmicrowave127 Normally I would now changing it to First, but I already get a heart.

Removing the inner loop did not bring Rochester back to life, it did nothing except inconvenience drivers and put more heavy trucks on surface streets.

What do you think about the Skyway?

@@Oskar0424 It’s gotta come down. It blocks full development of the Inner Harbor, it’s expensive to maintain, it’s true purpose was never realized, and it’s unsafe to drive on. Removing it would, IMO, accelerate Buffalo’s revival.

Seeing The 980 in Oakland CA at 0:33 brought me back to when I used to live right next to it. It was so obvious that there was a racial/class divide between West Oakland and the Uptown/Downtown area, you could literally feel the vibe changing when you moved from one side to the other. Very intentional and a rather useless highway.

Should learn more from Asia where there are modern new cities (US cities don’t have much history), unlike European cities.

or maybe having both? The US is huge enough to have bikes and SUVs, they do not need to choose one option.

@@dxelson yep, you're right. The comparison is better

@Ryan Howe yeah you're right. But lots of US cities suffer major traffic issues, even though a metro system could get rid of the car use in cities. New york has metro and public transit, it can get better of course, but it's a good city already

Bikes are for wankers

Same in salt lake with the 80 and 15

That's not quite true. Something that will be a guarantee is that the value of the currently cheap housing will rise. This will occur because these houses will now be more easily able to access the services and benefit from the proximity to the centre of town, whereas before they were cut off by a highway - sure you could always drive, but now they will be opening up walking and cycling, and likely more pleasant driving as well. Now as for whether the expensive housing will retain its current value, that's harder to guarantee, but the real question is why would it lose value? I don't know about Rochester specifically, I'm not even American, but if it's a poor neighbourhood then that doesn't inherently reduce nearby housing values. If it's a high crime area, then yeah becoming closer in proximity might have an effect, but it's hard to say without knowing more specifics of the area. So overall, it's highly likely (in my opinion, without specific research at least) that the value of the cheap housing will rise significantly, and the overall quality of the neighbourhood will improve, and this may be accompanied by a minor drop in the expensive housing value, but it also will likely rebound eventually anyway in our world of forever rising house prices. The next problem these guys might face is the poorer community members getting priced out of their own neighbourhood - but that's a different problem.

Shawn Dunwoody is pretty well known in the community and has a lot more to say than what could fit in this video. He is in it for the right reasons.

That's another problem in the USA: You change your houses like others their underwear. In Europe a house is meant as a family home for generations (even the new built ones), not an investment that is bought and sold like stock. It is anyway surprising that houses are so expensive at all in the USA, where land is abundant and also ruthlessly designated as building land and the houses themselves are made of plywood and papier mache ...

@@hape3862 for houses location matters, especially in how the US designed their cities. all the land in the world is expensive to deliver services on so density matters

@@itsjonny1744 Tell that the officials in your sprawling cities with their zoning laws … 😜

They were successful in tearing down highways. They've also made traffic 10x worse in the process. A terrible commute does increase housing prices locally, so I guess that's a win for people who own their houses.

San Francisco hasn't been successful at anything. Compare 1970s San Francisco to today and it's a different world. A much poorer and nasty one.

It is also first in the country by ammoint of human feces and needles in the public places. Great achievement

@@djinn666 Traffic got worse in San Francisco because the population exploded, reaching levels not seen since the 1940s, and with people who were using San Francisco as a bedroom community for jobs down on the peninsula. The tear down of the hideous elevated freeways - many of which collapsed in the ‘89 earthquake - had nothing to do with that. Indeed, removing them has revitalized every neighborhood they were removed from and opened up tons of land for housing and business where land is in short supply.

@@sunspot42 Traffic did get worse where the Central Freeway was removed because they removed one lane on Octavia Blvd. The neighborhood in the immediate area improved, but the neighborhoods that the freeway fed into were adversely affected.

This is absolutely one ofc the things I appreciate about Amsterdam

It works in Europe, but America is a completely different story, a great percent of the population lives in the suburbs and won't go to work riding a bike, they still are going to use cars and there will be large traffic jams.

@@tinchoo182 It works in US cities, not outside the cities, Chicago, NY, DC, Boston, Seattle all did it and it works there, everyone else needs to catch up

The Netherlands is a very small country with the majority of the people living in one city. I would like to bike around cities in the US but this place is way too big and the cities and suburbs are vastly spread to successfully do this in parts of the country. Over 70% of Canadians live in within Ontario/Quebec so maybe it could work in Canada but the US is just massive.

@@darreldennis7115 Thank you, one of the things people tend to fail to see the differences between Europe and North America is primarily Geography, US itself is already a behemoth overlayed on top of Europe if you remove Russia, going from LA-NY is similar to London to Tel Aviv in Israel, plus European countries are far more dense and relatively much closer making it easier for them to connect the to the next city with things like High speed rails and other transit methods, the same thing can't be said about North America in general. It's too large/too sprawled out and lower in population and demand. No sane person will want to come from Toronto to go to Vancouver by "train" or Seattle to Miami, it's simply too long, places like the NorthEast and West Coast in LA can actually see more transit connections however Suburbs can however see the removal of high ways and 3-4 lane roads for 1-2 lane roads with sidewalks and bike paths, but even that will hardly work out because of just how big and spread out their places really are

@@Phisherman86 I'm not talking about people of color. I'm not even from the USA.

@@Phisherman86 they didn't say anything about black people! Only you did, which says alot about you!

Thank you so much!! 🙌