The death of the cities across America
30 years ago I was guest lecturing to civil engineering and planning students at several Universities and many city council/planning meetings about this pending disaster. Urban design was doomed to failure as the planners put the industrial areas on one side of the city center and the residential on the other side which created a gridlock traffic problem. This gave those that could to move to the suburbs eliminating the need to cross the city.
This the suburb was born and a great migration occurred. This accelerated in the 70s and 80s when the EPA and regulations forced factories to close and move to Asian. So, now we have the middle class gone and the jobs gone only doom is left. One thought back then was to have two sets of cities land sites - when one becomes functionally obsolete you build an new modern functioning city of the other site so infrastructure can be utilized but the city can function as need today.
The dual site concept is much less costly than trying to keep older designs in compliance with new codes and needs for power and utilities. Old building are energy wasters and very costly to try and improve them.
