Suggested ALT text: image shows two photos, top is a black and white image, lively street scene in a city with street car and historical facades. One building is highlighted. Bottom is a current day open freeway scene among grass. The highlighted building is the sole survivor. Dramatic difference.
Kansas City I think, this city had every right to compete with the likes of Chicago, Detroit, St Louis, Cleveland for the best midwestern city in its prime but found its downtown to be an island in a sea of highways
Sadly nearly every US city has some version of this. Good news is a lot of effort is going into undoing some of these terrible decisions. In our case, removing the freeway that caused a lot of the carnage in those two photos is one of many things we are actively working on https://www.northloopneighbors.com/
The building in the photo? Generally speaking we can see if there are any outstanding code violations and offer technical support through the planning dept or KCEDC for potential renovation but beyond that it’s tough to say without knowing details.
To be fair, the railways helped with their own destruction quite a bit; their focus on operating ratio drove them to leave business opportunities on the table and actively disinvest in passenger rail. The original sin of US rail policy was not nationalizing it from the start.
also has a lot to do with military mobilization, or military convoys. The interstate highways exist primarily for transporting military hardware across the country.
The Urban highways don't; the original plans for the interstate highway system - that had the "national defense" justification -had the highways ending outside cities. Which makes sense if your goal is to transport stuff across the country quickly.
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The building in the photo? Generally speaking we can see if there are any outstanding code violations and offer technical support through the planning dept or KCEDC for potential renovation but beyond that it’s tough to say without knowing details.