Dropping Bombs and Dropping Parking Lots

This post from The Overhead Wire looks at the impact of parking lot sprawl in American downtowns -- and finds a striking resemblance between those downtowns and bomb-ravaged cities from World War Two.

1 minute read

February 22, 2010, 8:00 AM PST

By Nate Berg


"It's unfortunate that we didn't see what we were doing to our wonderful cities in the name of cars first. Europe had war, yet we dismantled our cities in a similar way in the name of progress. So much parking though, what has that done to the city's value? What has it taken away in terms of tax revenue from land and greater employment agglomerations?"

The post include pictures and aerial shots of cities with high concentrations of parking lots, and compares it to bombed out Rotterdam.

Friday, February 19, 2010 in The Overhead Wire

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

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