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i grew up in a 1950s tract housing development and always found it boring and barren. because out city of Syracuse was actually vary beautiful with many tree lined streets with houses with front porches on them. i moved into my hometown of Syracuse in my adult life and have enjoyed living in our Tipperary Hill neighborhood for 28 years but now live on our North side as a senior citizen now who doesn't drive anymore i find living in the city more convenient with a bus line and stores within walking distance. the only problem now days is the criminal element that's in our city now. but in reality the criminal element is everywhere now days. as our American society has degenerated over the years to what it is today. I'm so glad that i never had children in this day and age

I miss Hartford Whalers 🐋

The southeast gateway cities are anything but low density.

I believe the gangs and violence during the 90's is really what destroyed Hartford. Commuters didn't want to spend time there and the suburbs were able to capitalize on it. Hartford was never able to be the draw it once was.

Multiculturalism has a price.

How about New London, CT? They had high hopes for that one too.

Growing up in Hartford county, this hurts my soul to see. Bushnell Park is beautiful, but that's really all that's left. The reality is that CT as a whole is in a downward spiral. Both families and businesses are leaving the state en masse due to our abhorrent politicians and their awful policies which invite crime and welfare leeching. It's a terrible place to live if you are an industrious person.

Having graduated from trinity college, there are indeed many reasons for Hartfords downfall, but but the main reason has been white flight shifting their tax base to their rich suburbs. Just live Detroit and Philly and other great cities. That's what white well to do ppl do to thriving urban centers....

Thanks for the video, very interesting and sad. I live near Hartford, drive through often, rarely go there for anything. The highways are ridiculous and I can see how they have destroyed the city. Unlike Boston which was able to reclaim a chunk of itself from the highways it’ll take a century of decay or massive effort to rebuild Hartford.

Cosmopolitan is the word you would use to describe hartford right now. Very multicultural, and it's main industries are office spaces to various companies, and street level restaurants that are owned and operated by immigrants.

This is excellent, thank you.

Was there 3 weeks ago.. let’s just say it’s a 3rd world nation. Couldn’t wait to get out of there. A sad shell of her former self.

My first viewing of this intriguing series you created, and it won't be my last. Subbed.

Work from home and leave the city.

Flew to New York City a few years ago and looking out the window at my home state of NC all the way up through the mid-Atlantic: so ugly. Horribly ugly.

Downturn there started in the early sixties....

I'm from Springfield MA (20 miles N). Same exact thing happened with a only the downtown being spared

these videos ignore anything good about these cities. There's lots remaining in St. Louis that is simply great. Urban destruction of the 50's / 60's is now old news - everybody knows about it. What's done is done. Best to focus on the future.

I live just outside of Hartford, and took the bus into the city for school. I walk past most of the photographed locations in this video on a daily basis. Hartford is a city with a population of just over 100,000, while its metropolitan area clocks in at over a million. How many cities have a suburban population more than 10 times itself? The issue is that almost all the money that is generated in Hartford is done so through a select few insurance companies, and then taken out of the city into the suburbs (which are wealthy indeed) by the insurance workers. There is no night life in Hartford, downtown is a mixture of insurance professionals and homeless people, there is very little tourist attraction whatsoever… so many poor people suffering while wealthy professionals suck all the resources out of the city and leave… there’s nothing quite like it, I would encourage anyone to visit downtown Hartford to witness the stark contrast for themselves.

The state of America’s cities lies in decisions made by elite Whites who are protected by their wealth, from the wrong headed social engineering policies they have promoted for the last 70 some years.

It's called neo liberalism. Aka Hayek. There's a direct line from Hartford to the destruction of Gaza.

Grew up north of Hartford. Shame that I will never know this place as it was. I would like to suggest Springfield, MA or Holyoke, MA for the next season, should you make it.

The simplicity of modern full-glass facades have their place when they aren't butchered with artistic interpretation, only serving as a reminder that our society has become so decadent that even the buildings where people live and work are expected to be form first and function second. I could even forgive using pure concrete if it was turned towards something like a pseudo-Greco-Roman aesthetic instead of squares with all the appeal of highway barriers being stacked as high as we can get them. As someone that's reasonably afraid of heights (my limit is about a 40-foot drop, the kind that's actually dangerous to one's physical health), high-rises with panoramic views are far less appealing than the relative stumps of brick buildings with smaller windows. Bricks by their nature of requiring mortar also have a delightful color contrast, and even variable color between the individual bricks themselves. Not even accounting for the soul that's brought in with the simple addition of ledges at each floor level, let alone springing for any sort of decorative masonry. But instead, lucrative spending isn't on making the building look nicer or upgrading the amenities, it's spent on tearing the thing down so it can be entirely rebuilt for as cheap as possible, if it's rebuilt at all. My current urbanizing suburb is currently in a fight to address a highway expansion. The intent is to fix a very abnormal outlier point of traffic congestion, but the proposed road even at its most conservative is set to cut through or replace at least 14 homes and take dozens of acres from one of the local farms. I couldn't imagine an entire city of people allowing something like this unless their community had already fallen apart and/or the government came in with an iron fist.

You should do a video on Norfolk Virginia! They leveled almost all the downtown in the 50's. Used to be beautiful

Forced demoralization.

Mark Twain lived there in the late 1800s. Hartford was the wealthiest city in America. You didn't need to lock your doors at night. Today, downtown is just an office park for Big Insurance. Most everywhere else is a no-go zone. The notorious North End is 100% Black and Jamaican -- if you're white -- you don't go there, ever. The South End used to be largely Italian immigrants but today is nearly all Puerto Rican. They destroyed the South End. Crime and corruption it what it is now. Sad.

You should do Springfield MA too

St*linist architecture now. I lived in Central CT.

"One of the first to end [slavery]" lol I agree with your argument but that was kinda hilarious, USA was pretty late in fact.

Wow, this is truly sad to see! So many great buildings destroyed. Hartford looked like it had somewhat of a resurgence back in the 80s with the planned skyscrapers to be built, but none of that materialized. Thus leaving us with a lot of parking lots.

Went there on a business trip years ago. Stayed at a luxury hotel. Had a couple of nice dinners. But the city felt nasty and unsafe. In broad daylight I saw a homeless guy drop his pants and have diarrhea right on the sidewalk. I've been to cities all over the world and never saw that before.

social engineering forced people to leave.

Holy crap America would be so different if these cities had survived - there might have even been a European tourism

Who had the money to do so much destruction and replacement?

But WHY level and replace a city when you can build a new one??

Lesson I've learned. If you're going to open a store/restaurant/coffee shop/bubble tea place, look for area with a lot of foot traffic instead of car traffic. Even if you have to pay more on rent.

Great video, thank you for this rundown and the compelling visuals. I think it’s important though to note we shouldn’t be attached to beauty and history purely for the sake of beauty and history- if these beautiful, historical neighborhoods are densely developed, people-centric, walkable, and mixed-use, then of course we should preserve it at all costs! However, these same words and sentiments are often used by the NIMBYs to prevent development, maintain antiquated zoning laws, and perpetuate inaccessible neighborhoods... “History, beauty, neighborhood character,” etc. The fundamental goal is sustainability, broadly affordable and accessible housing, and people-centered urbanism, not beauty and nostalgia

Those before and afters are insane - we're so lucky in England that so many old buildings survive. There's a 300 year old pub at the end of my road and that's nothing unusual. Being surrounded by buildings that are younger than I am makes me feel really stressed out

if you're worried about the ability of tall buildings to nail traditional/neoclassical/whatever aesthetics, you can check out recently completed project "Ouest Village" in Puteaux, Paris region, France

Let me clear this up. White people made said cities, worked in said cities, spent $ in said cities and then once they moved out and blks and Latinos moved in said cities became cesspools.

I used to live in those apartments literally across the street from Katherine Hepburn’s childhood home (now destroyed and all covered over by trees and foliage) on Forest Street. What a time it was back in Nook Farm I’m sure.

I wasn't aware that the USA also had such fantastic architecture. It's all the more sad to see that they've demolished everything for parking lots and highways. Best regards from Dresden.

Italian here: I went to the US for holidays more then 10 years ago and the first question I had was “why do they demolish their old building?” A friend replied to me: “because this country is so young that they don’t have developed yet respect for the past”

Great video

American cities might be ugly and boring, but European cities are overcrowded hellholes with bad traffic and pollution. The densely packed housing in London were slums before gentrification. Full of fire hazards, disease and poor sanitation. The narrow medieval streets were littered with horse muck from all the carriages. It was harder to avoid people. American cities are built on the ancient Roman model, with wide and straight roads so it's easy to get around in your horseless chariot and take an alternative route without having to wait for your satnav to recalculate. Are they perfect? No. Are they easy to improve eg by building a railway above the road, reserving one lane for buses and cycles or reinstating the old streetcars from our grandparents' time? Yes

Recommended to watch video at 1.75x-2x speed

Too bad Charleston is going to get lost beneath the waves from rising sea levels. The city floods at least once every year.

Maybe the fact that it was the gang capital of America had something to do with it

As an architect and urban planner, I'm not at all surprised. Unfortunately, our cities are developed around greed, not quality of life.

It’s the increase of the welfare state and the decline of 2 parent families that led to the decay of the inner city core. Soon the schools went to hell due to rising poverty rates and feral, uncontrolled kids where learning in that setting is damn near impossible. This pushed good families out of the inner core to outside suburbs where there are stable, quality schools for their children. Looking at the cause of the destruction is first what’s needed before you can rebuild. I live in Cincinnati, and yes while there is some development, it will be short lived until the next riot. The main issue is the city leadership won’t admit its problems, won’t promote 2 parent families. They ontinue to make the same mistakes expecting different results. Also the leadership is corrupt with many of its politicians spending time in jail for kickbacks and other corruption. With that said, the suburbs are amazing, well-ran townships, clean and a great place for families.