>Nearly every city it alludes to being gutted is thriving.
What do you mean by "thriving"?
The cities that have nice walkable urban centers avoided their destruction via highway. NYC and Boston stood up to their interstate plan. SF's Embarcadero fell down in an earthquake and they wisely didn't rebuild it, which then created a desirable waterfront.
>Detroit is basically fallen over, of course, but blaming the highway system for that is fairly disingenuous.
Urban planners (the people most knowledgeable on this subject) would not call this "disingenuous". The cities that are most prosperous and desirable in this country are dense without highways cutting through them. People want walkable environments with 24/7 activity, not just buildings peppered throughout parking lots.
In Detroit's case they cut through downtown with highways to easily connect them to the suburbs. This also meant adding parking lots. When new buildings were built, the code required a certain amount of parking. This ease of mobility allowed "white flight" to the suburbs. This reduced the amount of people living downtown along with amenities, reducing rent which reduces taxes. Detroit also never annexed its suburbs, so the tax base was reduced even more.
It's basically a textbook case of what not to do. Live by the car, die by the car.
Though Boston did still have an ugly elevated highway separating neighborhoods that was only eliminated by the enormously expensive and disruptive Big Dig.
What do you mean by "thriving"?
The cities that have nice walkable urban centers avoided their destruction via highway. NYC and Boston stood up to their interstate plan. SF's Embarcadero fell down in an earthquake and they wisely didn't rebuild it, which then created a desirable waterfront.
>Detroit is basically fallen over, of course, but blaming the highway system for that is fairly disingenuous.
Urban planners (the people most knowledgeable on this subject) would not call this "disingenuous". The cities that are most prosperous and desirable in this country are dense without highways cutting through them. People want walkable environments with 24/7 activity, not just buildings peppered throughout parking lots.
In Detroit's case they cut through downtown with highways to easily connect them to the suburbs. This also meant adding parking lots. When new buildings were built, the code required a certain amount of parking. This ease of mobility allowed "white flight" to the suburbs. This reduced the amount of people living downtown along with amenities, reducing rent which reduces taxes. Detroit also never annexed its suburbs, so the tax base was reduced even more.
It's basically a textbook case of what not to do. Live by the car, die by the car.
Here are some more cities:
http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/12/60yrsmidwest/