Comments by "Minerva\x27s Owl" (@HighFlyingOwlOfMinerva) on "How to Remove a Highway" video.

  1. I'm glad to see you guys slowly untangle yourselves from the car infested mess that is those huge ugly highways and move more towards roads and boulevards we have in Europe instead! It'll take a while before there will also be things included like specific tram- and bus lanes, but you'll get there eventually I'm sure. But, since I'm from Europe, I noticed these are mainly happening in the so called 'blue' states where Democrats are in power. I also noticed it's mainly 'red' states like Arizona and Texas that suffer the worst with these huge 6 to 8 lane highways, so I'm curious - are there any projects regarding the tearing down of highways happening in these places? It would be a positive sign for infrastructure in general were that the case.
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  2. By the way, I'm not sure if you ever covered this before but you should really look into three European cities with peculiar stories regarding post-WWII car infrastructure. They're all Dutch and it's funnily enough that world famous city of Amsterdam and the lesser known (and loved) cities of The Hague (Den Haag) and Rotterdam. Amsterdam is known and praised today for its unique architecture and canals, but it almost could've gone the way of your average American city thanks to... an American. David A. Jokinen wanted to bulldoze many iconic neighbourhoods in Amsterdam to create the TRUE AMERICAN DREAM of large roads and ugly highways cutting right through the cities. Why? Because it was the future of course! He did the same to the neighbourhood of Bezuidenhout in The Hague, which was bombed by the Allies in 1945 by accident. Sadly both these plans were partially executed and still stand out like sore thumbs today. Rotterdam got the worst treatment - bombed in 1940 by the Germans, the first plan to rebuild the city in a sort of weird original hybrid with the same roads but 1940s style traditionalist houses like in Middelburg never happened and a functionalist implemented his plans for the city instead. The result? Rotterdam today has large roads that resemble mini-highways, much of the water once present has been removed and its rich history as a port city has ironically evaporated. It's quite depressing but worth a read and a mention. Greetings from Europe! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokinen_Plan
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