this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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I haven't found a good print of this yet but apparently this image has been cropped: https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2013/08/SHOA.MED_.jpg
Those last three panels were an epilogue R. Crumb did ten years later as three possible answers to the question posed by the original: "WHAT NEXT?!!"
You can actually read the captions in this higher resolution version.
It wasn't cropped, that was some kind of addition.
Let's be honest. Early 20th century city planning was the best both in walkability and aesthetics
To be fair, we don't remember what it smelled like. I'm sure a pile of horse manure on a hot summer day wasn't too pleasant.
I think he's talking bout when they used trolleys for transport
It's really surprising how many cities, even small ones, had some type of trolley system in place that got overrun by the automotive movement. And now can't figure out how to insert a good mass transit system into one that's made for cars.
Also, a song that came to mind in seeing this image is Dire Straits' "Telegraph Road".
Do you know about National City Lines? It was a front company run by GM. They bought streetcar companies around America and dismantled them systematically.
I was talking about the city planning, not about the actual city
In North America perhaps.
Nah, everywhere
Good old Breezeworld, PA, I know it well :)
This place exists because two interstates intersect each other at this point, did you expect a tram?
True, it’s not like in the comic where it evolved from a regular town. It’s just such an iconic example of a horrible modern landscape. Plus I used to drive through it on my way to CMU from Maryland, so I have a personal connection. It was the halfway point so a very handy rest stop to be honest.
What can we do to fix this? I agree with the dislike for cars and the desire for walkable cities, but when I see posts like this, it makes me really wonder about the way forward.
Public transportation is the obvious solution, trains/busses/etc. should have been the standard from the start, but we are here now. We can’t get rid of the infrastructure thats in place, so how can we fix it?
We can’t get rid of the infrastructure thats in place, so how can we fix it?
You can swap it with public transportation. The same way public transportation was swapped for car dependent hell
I'd love to see a better imaging of this but I can't quite make out the source credited on the bottom
R. Crumb, “A Short History of America”; 1979
Top left says it's "A Short History of America by R. Crumb"