Comments on: Midwest Miscellany

By: AmericanDirt

AmericanDirt — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:41:34 +0000

Aaron, I think you’re right about the reason for Toronto usurping Montreal. Something about Montreal just feels insular, and it could be reflective of the entire province (of which I know little).

I also think you might have answered your own question to why Atlanta seems so confident (perhaps more than it should be) when you wrote the great essay “White City”–it has achieved a great deal while having a significant minority population, using it as a strategic advantage that seems far more genuine and sustainable, I feel, than the African American prosperity hub outside of Washington DC. Plus, “the city too busy to hate” has to be one of the greatest mottos.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:36:05 +0000

Everything that you quoted from Richard Layman is so true. We have these grand ideas but minimal investments and then people scratch their heads and say, “Why isn’t this working? I guess we won’t support that any more.”

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:44:00 +0000

No, you’re right, Atlanta isn’t there yet. It’s more like a major secondary power. The 1900 great power equivalent of Atlanta was definitely not Britain or Germany; the question is whether it’s the US, Japan, or the Ottoman Empire.

Nowadays the main problem in Atlanta is the same as in Portland – more people moving in than there are jobs for them.

By: The Urbanophile

The Urbanophile — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:44:28 +0000

Alon, I guess I’m reacting to the fact that Glaeser is talking about Atlanta, not New York. Yes, there is some stability at the top of the pecking order. Cities like London and Paris are capitals of major powers, once major empires, in nations with unbalanced urban development. Their fate is liked to that of their nation-state, and those fortunes seem to turn more slowly.

But there are examples of top national cities getting usurped. Rio took at big hit when the capital moved to Brasilia. Montreal was usurped by Toronto. I haven’t researched that case in detail, but some have linked to Quebec nationalism, not any loss of brainpower.

Atlanta is a great city I admire in any way. But I would say it is vulnerable in a way a city like New York is not. I’m guessing in 1950 Detroit’s auto franchise seemed impregnable too. It isn’t hard to imagine scenarios in which Atlanta stagnates. I think there are already questions about how much bigger they can get regionally. It would be interesting to see what happens to a Sun Belt city when it’s growth curve reaches maturity.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:52:36 +0000

Reading your comment to Jim’s post about the Southern Rust Belt, I started thinking, what does happen to the number ones of yesterday? The answer seems to be that they’re still close to the top. London and Paris are still some of the world’s most important global cities, even though they’ve been upended by New York. On the level of whole nations, the great powers of the 19th century all remained powerful in the 20th, and many are still important today. I believe that this observation is what fuels Glaeser’s point about the top being stable.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:00:52 +0000

The mobile garden is a lucid example of badly overthinking an issue. Why haul the garden around? Just put some darn planters in the station.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:41:01 +0000

The congestion ranking ranks total congestion. That’s about as useful as ranking cities by their total number of homicides, and concluding that the largest cities have the most crime.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:51:49 +0000

When I first heard about it I thought it was a joke.

By: the urban politician

the urban politician — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:19:54 +0000

That CTA garden train thing is so ridiculous that I feel like crying