cowboy beepboop posted:

https://twitter.com/mnolangray/status/1496251336064749573

quote:

Though suburbanization in the United States during the 1950s is a well known story, scholars still consider postwar prosperity and basic desire on the part of the American people to move further away from problems of the inner city as its primary causes. While it is true that various factors contributed to phenomenal growth of the suburbs between 1945 and 1960, historians have thus far paid little attention to policymakers' fears of atomic attack as a significant factor in population dispersal. This article examines how sociologists, scientists, and other experts considered the reduction of urban vulnerability a Cold War priority, and worked to encourage dispersion of people and factories as a civil defence measure.

quote:

It is important to remember why cities were building highways through the fifties and sixties; why the federal government was promoting low-density suburban development and why companies were moving their corporate head offices to campuses in the country: Civil defense. One of the best defenses against nuclear bombs is sprawl; the devastation of a bomb can only cover so much area. Shawn Lawrence Otto wrote in Fool Me Twice:

quote:

In 1945, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists began advocating for "dispersal," or "defense through decentralization" as the only realistic defense against nuclear weapons, and the federal government realized this was an important strategic move. Most city planners agreed, and America adopted a completely new way of life, one that was different from anything that had come before, by directing all new construction "away from congested central areas to their outer fringes and suburbs in low-density continuous development," and "the prevention of the metropolitan core's further spread by directing new construction into small, widely spaced satellite towns."

But the strategy had to change after the development of the more powerful hydrogen bomb, and with it, the realization that having people living in the suburbs but working downtown was a problem. “President Dwight D. Eisenhower instead promoted a program of rapid evacuation to rural regions. As a civil defense official who served from 1953 to 1957 explained, the focus changed "from 'Duck and Cover' to 'Run Like Hell.’”

To service that sprawl and to move people quickly in time of war, you need highways; that is why the bill that created the American interstate highway system was actually called The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956- they are exactly that, defense highways, designed to get people outta town in a hurry.

It’s clear that the suburban way of life didn’t develop because suddenly people could afford cars; it happened because the government wanted it. In The Reduction of Urban Vulnerability: Revisiting 1950s American Suburbanization as Civil Defence, Kathleen Tobin quotes political scientist Barry Checkoway:

"It is wrong to believe that postwar American suburbanization prevailed because the public chose it and will continue to prevail until the public changes its preferences. ... Suburbanization prevailed because of the decisions of large operators and powerful economic institutions supported by federal government programmes, and ordinary consumers had little real choice in the basic pattern that resulted."

After getting the people out, the next step was to actually move the industries and offices out of the dense urban cores, where so many corporations could be taken out with a single bomb, and establish them in suburban corporate campuses where just about every one of them would be a separate target. There was actually a National Industrial Dispersion Policy, designed to decentralize industry and commerce. Tobin lists 5 measures that would reduce urban vulnerability, written in 1952, measures that effectively killed cities:

Further development of industry (including normal peacetime as well as defense activities) should be slowed down in central city areas of highest population density and industrial areas of target attractiveness.

A beginning should be made in reducing population and building densities in residential areas of greatest vulnerability by adoption of program of urban redevelopment and slum clearance.

New buildings constructed in or near target areas should be built according to standards that make them resistant to A- bomb blast and fire and which provide for adequate shelter areas.

No urban areas should be developed so intensively as to create new (or extensions of existing) population or industrial prime target areas.

New defense industrial plants should be located at a reasonably safe distance from existing target areas.

To the guys with bombs, those things that we love about our cities, that we urbanists fight so hard to protect, they are not desirable, they are problematic. Benjamin W. Cidlaw, Commander in Chief of the Continental Air Defense Command, told a conference of Mayors in 1954:

quote:

"Your city means everything to you, everything to the people who live in it, and everything to me. To our possible enemies, however, who sit down at their planning tables to compute a schedule of take-off times for their existing bombing fleets, the hundred biggest cities represented here by you do not mean historic streets and beautiful parks, school systems in which you have pride, or the churches which are your fountains of faith. They may mean to them only those aerial forces and weapons required to produce the 100 pinpointed minutes of atomic hell on earth necessary for their destruction."

Shawn Lawrence Otto concludes his chapter:

quote:

"These accommodations for defense brought about an immense change in the fabric of America, altering everything from transportation to land development to race relations to modern energy use and the extraordinary public sums that are spent on building and maintaining roads— creating challenges and burdens that are with us today, all because of science and the bomb."

It is important to remember why sprawl was promoted in the first place: as a defence against nuclear attack. It’s why corporations and industries moved out of cities. The purpose of the highway system was not to meet demand, it was specifically designed to induce demand, to get people into cars and out into low density suburbs. It was a strategy designed to help outlast them all.

Arms races, and civil defense plans in a nuclear age are not good for cities, because the same nuclear math applies now as it did in the fifties and sixties: low density means improved survivability. Big highways mean quicker escapes.

So it is likely that any new arms race will hinder the current revitalization of our cities, the return of corporations to downtowns, the reinvestment in transit and anything that encourages densification. Because the people who like bombs generally don't like cities.

ArmZ posted:

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN posted:

new favorite alt history

https://twitter.com/Roycesheibal/status/1496263420022341634

or is it

https://www.researchgate.net/public...s_Civil_Defence

https://www.treehugger.com/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today-4854403

lol i'd

leftist heap posted:

gentrification is the new frontier of anti-ped/anti-cyclist carbrain activists latching onto legitimate issues and completely loving muddying the water to get what they want. just like how they will tell you that removing any parking whatsoever hurts accessibility or how cyclists are actually all privileged. it sucks.

tacodaemon posted:

https://twitter.com/punished_cait/status/1498128390888595463

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

- love, Trump thread.

Polo-Rican posted:

why tf do the wheels hardlock when the motor is non-functional? love too make my car impossible to move when it breaks

We went for a walk yesterday and a tesla whipped through a busy crosswalk, missing us and a few other pedestrians by inches... I'm curious if it was in autopilot and/or if the driver was just being a huge rear end in a top hat. Teslas should have a giant blinking light that's visible to everyone outside the vehicle when they're in autopilot mode

Polo-Rican posted:

why tf do the wheels hardlock when the motor is non-functional? love too make my car impossible to move when it breaks

We went for a walk yesterday and a tesla whipped through a busy crosswalk, missing us and a few other pedestrians by inches... I'm curious if it was in autopilot and/or if the driver was just being a huge rear end in a top hat. Teslas should have a giant blinking light that's visible to everyone outside the vehicle when they're in autopilot mode

ArmZ posted:

DR FRASIER KRANG posted:

I'm seeing lots of people straight up blowing through red lights (like everyone is stopped and they just hop into the turn lane and keep going straight) and it's freaking me out.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I think it's just selection bias but i've noticed people are much worse drivers now than before the pandemic. I've been almost hit someone several times because they completely ignored the stop sign and turned.

ArmZ posted:

Karach posted:

better locked up and immobile than rolling away on a slope?

cool av posted:

well? did you apologize to the driver?

AnimeIsTrash posted:

Yep what type of American would I be if I didn't apologize for walking to places.

Polo-Rican posted:

Normal cars have a parking brake for this reason

vyelkin posted:

i hate cars

mystes posted:

If you hate them so much why don't you divorce them?

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I think it's just selection bias but i've noticed people are much worse drivers now than before the pandemic. I've almost been hit by someone several times because they completely ignored the stop sign and turned.

leftist heap posted:

no people are verifiable driving like goddamn animals now. carbrain mutated into an even more deranged variant

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I think it's just selection bias but i've noticed people are much worse drivers now than before the pandemic. I've almost been hit by someone several times because they completely ignored the stop sign and turned.

quote:

Berkeley had significantly more fatal crashes and collisions causing injuries in 2021 than in the prior year, according to new traffic data released by police in February.

Map tips: Use the upper left corner icon to view the map legend. Use the upper right icon to make the map bigger. Darker markers indicate more collisions.
It was the highest number of traffic deaths the city has seen since at least 1984, the Berkeley Police Department found. There were also 433 collisions last year that resulted in injuries, a 37% increase over injury crashes in 2020, BPD said.

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re than five years after top Los Angeles officials vowed to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city, 2021 instead marked the highest death toll on L.A. streets in nearly two decades.

Last year, 294 people were killed in collisions, according to preliminary data provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. Traffic deaths rose about 22% from 2020. By comparison, there were 379 homicides reported last year in the city of L.A.

In addition to traffic deaths, hundreds more people were severely injured in crashes. The LAPD puts the number at 1,479 — 30% higher than 2020. That averages out to roughly four people injured each day, every day last year.

About half of those killed in L.A. collisions were not in a vehicle. Of those who died:

132 were pedestrians
Another 18 were on bicycles

quote:

NEW YORK CITY — More people died on New York City's streets in 2021 than any year since officials pledged to drive traffic fatalities down to zero, according to a new study.

The city closed last year with 273 people dead in traffic crashes, a new study by Transportation Alternatives found.

Of those, 73 died between October and December alone.

“We cannot let another year go by with traffic violence killing a record number of New Yorkers,” said Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, in a statement.

The grim record coincided with the last year for former mayor Bill de Blasio — who in 2014 adopted "Vision Zero," an ambitious street safety plan with the goal of slashing traffic fatalities down to nothing.

But advocates argue de Blasio failed to fully commit to Vision Zero — an inaction with deadly results, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fatalities hit a low in 2018, according to the study. The tally in 2021 was 33 percent higher.
...
Both the governor and mayor are also aware that automobile violence has, so far, spiked up even further in 2022. As of Feb. 14, 28 people had died in New York City auto violence, up from 17 during the same period last year according to data published by Streetsblog. Of those killed, 16 were pedestrians.

Also, in January 2022, 657 pedestrians were injured by automobile drivers—some seriously. That’s up from 503 injuries recorded the same month one year ago, according to NYPD data,.

Polo-Rican posted:

Normal cars have a parking brake for this reason

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I think it's just selection bias but i've noticed people are much worse drivers now than before the pandemic. I've almost been hit by someone several times because they completely ignored the stop sign and turned.

Xaris posted:

it's gotten insanely bad compared to 2019. various city statistics and even nhtsa has backed up with actual data that drivers have become insane blood-frenzed psychos

im not gunna be surprised that the full 2021 data once it comes out is very grim. december 2021 was absolutely absurdly awful. i don't think ive ever seen so much insanity and stupidity from american carbrains before.

peep the last table. almost 30% increase in first-degree murders by americans


thats just fatalities too. injuries are way the gently caress up

Electro-Boogie Jack posted:

Just gotta repeat what everyone else is saying, which is that this absolutely isn't just you. Overall miles driven dropped during the pandemic, but deaths and crashes increased. It's probably a whole bunch of inter-related psychological things for drivers operating on suddenly emptier roads, but imo the central issue is that a lot of lovely drivers suddenly realized that laws aren't real and there's nothing stopping them from routinely flying through stop signs and red lights and speeding even worse than they used to.

Electro-Boogie Jack posted:

Just gotta repeat what everyone else is saying, which is that this absolutely isn't just you. Overall miles driven dropped during the pandemic, but deaths and crashes increased. It's probably a whole bunch of inter-related psychological things for drivers operating on suddenly emptier roads, but imo the central issue is that a lot of lovely drivers suddenly realized that laws aren't real and there's nothing stopping them from routinely flying through stop signs and red lights and speeding even worse than they used to.

Electro-Boogie Jack posted:

a lot of lovely drivers suddenly realized that laws aren't real

Gripweed posted:

You know that bit in Alice's Restaurant where he goes to the draft office and says "Sir, I wanna kill. I wanna see blood and guts and feel veins in my teeth. I mean, I wanna kill" And starts jumping up and down yelling Kill! Kill! Kill! and then an officer comes over and pins a medal to his chest and says "you're our boy"?

I wanna do that at the police recruitment office but about ticketing traffic violators.

Polo-Rican posted:

i dunno about nationally, but in NYC the BLM protests made cops mad and they stopped enforcing all traffic laws. You'll still get tickets for parking violations, but while your car is in motion you can do literally whatever you want. you can even run people over or smash into buildings as long as you stay at the scene and apologize when the cops show up