Pete if there is another thread on this or if there is another place this should go, feel free to merge/move.

So I'm a young pup (24) and have only learned about city/civic planning, urban development, etc. since I started following this forum. I've become more involved in the past year or so after reading occasionally for years. I don't know much of the history of OKC as neither of my parents substantively lived here until the 1980s (my dad's parents are from the midwest, he moved down here in the early 80s. My mom's parents are from El Reno/Calumet, lived here when until Mom was in HS, then moved to Colorado. Mom moved back in the early 80s as well).

So everything I've really learned about OKC has been on this site. I know not much about Urban Renewal but it constantly comes up and I have a couple questions about the movement that will hopefully clear some things up for me:

1. When did UR emerge as a movement?
2. Who were the major people/players, National and Local, that pushed for the movement to take root?
3. When did UR die off and why?
4. In terms of OKC UR, I understand that I.M. Pei put together a grand project...what caused that vision to not come about?
5. What have been the responses to UR in other cities?

Feel free to correct any misconceptions I have about UR if they have presented themselves in this thread. I is unedumacated bout thiz stuff.

Nationally, funding started with the 1949 Fair Housing Act. Add to that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The ideas for rebuilding cities in this method go back a long time but the modern movement we are afflicted with in OKC came directly from Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier) and his Radiant Cities ideas. Pei was a Le Corbusier follower. It also spun off from the City Beautiful movement.

Le Corbusier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier)

City Beautiful movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Beautiful_movement)

If you get the chance watch the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. It is the culmination of all these ideas ending in total disaster.

Nationally, funding started with the 1949 Fair Housing Act. Add to that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The ideas for rebuilding cities in this method go back a long time but the modern movement we are afflicted with in OKC came directly from Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier) and his Radiant Cities ideas. Pei was a Le Corbusier follower. It also spun off from the City Beautiful movement.

Le Corbusier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier)

City Beautiful movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Beautiful_movement)

If you get the chance watch the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. It is the culmination of all these ideas ending in total disaster.

Do you think the City Beautiful Movement ended in total disaster?

Do you think the City Beautiful Movement ended in total disaster?

I'm not all that upto date on the City Beautiful movement as a whole. They made some great public spaces but I know replacing housing with parks didn't work out so well for those living in the houses. However, it was Pruitt-Igoe that ended in disaster - much like every other public housing project that was built by the same mind-set, and not the City Beautiful movement.

Here is a history of the City Beauthiful Movement in OKC.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/C/CI007.html

People were living in cold water tenements before City Beautiful.

I understand that. I'm not knocking City Beautiful. I'm just saying Urban Renewal was the modernism version that grew out of it.

+1 on watching The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Worth your time.

Came across an amazing old film posted online by the Oklahoma Historical Society


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhXaPSz8Sto

Shot in the early seventies (it would appear), it gives quite a lengthy overview of what Urban Renewal was trying to accomplish. Lots of footage of downtown (and surrounding areas) of the time.

Absolutely fascinating to watch. Guaranteed to stir some emotions (and not all good ones either).

The Valir 10th and Hudson page is broken, but a lot of land on the block immediately west of the Valir site recently sold. Is MidtownR behind Midtown Hill LLC? Midtown 11th and Park Place LLC was the buyer of the Valir Health land a few weeks ago.

Midtown Hill LLC from Corsair Estate LLC, 409, 411 and 417 W Park Place, 420 NW 11 Street and 1135 N Hudson Ave., $1,087,000.

Oklahoma County land sales | NewsOK.com (http://newsok.com/oklahoma-county-land-sales/article/3745184)

Oops, wrong thread. Meant to post in Midtown thread.

Density

http://i.imgur.com/g1PeZ.jpg

Original (http://jeffmoreau.smugmug.com/Architecture/Architexture/22033030_GSBcqS#!i=1873411693&k=hpH5Nw6&lb=1&s=O)

...
So everything I've really learned about OKC has been on this site. I know not much about Urban Renewal but it constantly comes up and I have a couple questions about the movement that will hopefully clear some things up for me:

1. When did UR emerge as a movement?
2. Who were the major people/players, National and Local, that pushed for the movement to take root?
3. When did UR die off and why?
4. In terms of OKC UR, I understand that I.M. Pei put together a grand project...what caused that vision to not come about?
5. What have been the responses to UR in other cities?

For excellent tracing and analysis of Okc's experience, I heartily recommend Steve Lackmeyer's & Jack Money's 2006 book, OKC: 2nd Time Around. My book review is here: Doug Dawgz Blog: OKC 2nd Time Around (http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2006/11/okc-2nd-time-around.html)

Thanks Doug!

Density

http://i.imgur.com/g1PeZ.jpg

Original (http://jeffmoreau.smugmug.com/Architecture/Architexture/22033030_GSBcqS#!i=1873411693&k=hpH5Nw6&lb=1&s=O)Where is this? NYC?

Where is this? NYC?

Would think so..."NY Jewelry Center"

Would think so..."NY Jewelry Center"Yeap. I posted that comment prematurely. :/ .... Was unable to edit any further. idk why.

http://i.imgur.com/reN5wwh.jpg

So, Moscow is our model now?

Pete if there is another thread on this or if there is another place this should go, feel free to merge/move.

So I'm a young pup (24) and have only learned about city/civic planning, urban development, etc. since I started following this forum. I've become more involved in the past year or so after reading occasionally for years. I don't know much of the history of OKC as neither of my parents substantively lived here until the 1980s (my dad's parents are from the midwest, he moved down here in the early 80s. My mom's parents are from El Reno/Calumet, lived here when until Mom was in HS, then moved to Colorado. Mom moved back in the early 80s as well).

So everything I've really learned about OKC has been on this site. I know not much about Urban Renewal but it constantly comes up and I have a couple questions about the movement that will hopefully clear some things up for me:

1. When did UR emerge as a movement?
2. Who were the major people/players, National and Local, that pushed for the movement to take root?
3. When did UR die off and why?
4. In terms of OKC UR, I understand that I.M. Pei put together a grand project...what caused that vision to not come about?
5. What have been the responses to UR in other cities?

Feel free to correct any misconceptions I have about UR if they have presented themselves in this thread. I is unedumacated bout thiz stuff.

You could spend years reading about this and studying it. Like you, I didn't know a whole lot about our history with urban renewal until I came here. But for a short answer to some of your questions:

The I.M. Pei plan was designed to tear down a lot of older abandoned buildings and replace them wth modern structures. The fact that we tore down a bunch of cool old buildings from the turn of the century through the 1930s, and were going to replace them with the finest in early 1970s architecture (uglytecture?) makes this plan look questionable today. At the time they thought they were going to be replacing ugly old stuff with cool new stuff. But what happened is that we tore down all the buildings and then the oil bust hit, and First National Bank failed, and all the money went away before we got around to repacing much of it.

So today, instead of us having an abundance of older buildings that could either be renovated or rented out inexpensively like most cities, we have empty lots where those buildings once stood.

You could spend years reading about this and studying it. Like you, I didn't know a whole lot about our history with urban renewal until I came here. But for a short answer to some of your questions:

The I.M. Pei plan was designed to tear down a lot of older abandoned buildings and replace them wth modern structures. The fact that we tore down a bunch of cool old buildings from the turn of the century through the 1930s, and were going to replace them with the finest in early 1970s architecture (uglytecture?) makes this plan look questionable today. At the time they thought they were going to be replacing ugly old stuff with cool new stuff. But what happened is that we tore down all the buildings and then the oil bust hit, and First National Bank failed, and all the money went away before we got around to repacing much of it.

So today, instead of us having an abundance of older buildings that could either be renovated or rented out inexpensively like most cities, we have empty lots where those buildings once stood.

Did OKC undergo UR far more severely than every where else, or are there other cities that did the same thing as OKC?

I'm sure there are other cities who did similar things, but we were pretty severe as far as the percentage of downtown properties that we destroyed that were not later rebuilt. Basically OKC destroyed a large number of buildings and then went into a 20 year recession. It wasn't until a lot of the MAPS projects started being built around '99 or 2000 that we really started replacing much of what was lost. Several of the lost buildings just had parking lots in their place until the Devon Tower replaced them.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd guess that OKC had some of the worst timing of any city when it came to urban renewal.

I'm sure there are other cities who did similar things, but we were pretty severe as far as the percentage of downtown properties that we destroyed that were not later rebuilt. Basically OKC destroyed a large number of buildings and then went into a 20 year recession. It wasn't until a lot of the MAPS projects started being built around '99 or 2000 that we really started replacing much of what was lost. Several of the lost buildings just had parking lots in their place until the Devon Tower replaced them.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd guess that OKC had some of the worst timing of any city when it came to urban renewal.



I would say that is a fair statement, which makes it all the more amazing that OKC is pulling this off.

Double post

MICHAEL WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY (http://photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of-densitiy/3)

Hong Kong

http://i.imgur.com/q1jVrG9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BI6zlzM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/dqLPEtZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3ofsLwL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MbO6GRe.jpg

MICHAEL WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY (http://photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of-densitiy/3)

Hong Kong

http://i.imgur.com/q1jVrG9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BI6zlzM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/dqLPEtZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3ofsLwL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MbO6GRe.jpg

How unbelievably depressing.

My god, that's depressing.

But hey, that is some people's utopia of urbanism....buildings to the street....total height density....lots of rentals...

Who wants the suburbs when you can have that.

;-) LOL

I guess all of our advocates for dense urban living must love it though. LOL

That's what happens when you put 2 million people on barely 18 square miles, as is the case in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. To anyone who has ever visited HK, however, you see a city with world-class shopping, non-stop nightlife, excellent transportation, renowned schools, public parks everywhere, plazas, piazzas, and amazing street food as far as the eye can see. I think it's safe to say that the built form of OKC won't ever have the need to sprawl vertically as much as HK's has, but yes this city could use some increased density. There's plenty to do here, but it's all so spread out, making it difficult to have those moments of serendipity where you stumble upon some place new simply by ambling about.

There's plenty to do here, but it's all so spread out, making it difficult to have those moments of serendipity where you stumble upon some place new simply by ambling about.

I happened to find a new 7-11 recently while I was out ambling.

I happened to find a new 7-11 recently while I was out ambling.

Serendipitous, I tell you!

http://i.imgur.com/kkgU8Y5.jpg

Is that picture suppose to represent the urban area we want?

I sure hope not.

No, that picture is what happens when you have a car dependent culture coupled with people who like tall buildings (i.e. - the typical suburbanite). Alas, I thought you liked Dubai Rover. I think I speak for most OKCTalk urbanist in expressing a favoritsm for walkability and low rise density.

Lol. I've never expressed a love of Dubai. What I have said is that it is not someplace people go strolling around like Paris.

I love it...now you say suburbanites are the ones who love tall buildings. Your hatred of other lifestyles just gets more and more weird.

Boston

http://i.imgur.com/oJE20EH.jpg

nm

nm?

http://i.imgur.com/xGPwi8H.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/metPRQz.jpg

This should be renamed "UnFrSaKn's Freaky-Ass Picture Thread"

Will, where is that?

Hangzhou Congress Center (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Hangzhou+Congress+Center+reddit&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44442042,d.eWU&biw=1554&bih=717&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=9fJVUefXKebl0gGd8ICgAQ#um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=Hangzhou+Congress+Center&oq=Hangzhou+Congress+Center&gs_l=img.3..0i24l2.2533.2678.0.2879.2.2.0.0.0.0.91 .176.2.2.0...0.0...1c.1.7.img.8mw_KHETyWs&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44442042,d.dmQ&fp=2241b2ca5eaaeaa9&biw=1554&bih=717)

Map (https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=30.248938,120.205058&spn=0.002859,0.006292&sll=29.127235,112.892208&sspn=30.791627,39.506836&t=h&z=18)

http://i.imgur.com/0JezJau.jpg

Monaco Penthouse 'World's Most Expensive' (http://news.sky.com/story/1069663/monaco-penthouse-worlds-most-expensive)

You know I really hate it when people take pictures of my summer house without permission.

Now that blue edge along the right could be a slide all the way to the bottom. lol ;)

http://i.imgur.com/APU1JRG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qS9vrPq.jpg

Are these all your photos?

No, ones that I come across.

Well, they're amazing pictures I must say.

I'm looking for a few books to learn more about the urban renewal movement, specifically some that will help me learn what are considered to be the "best practices" in urban design and development today, as well as explanations for why certain urban designs work better than others to acheive walkable, livable communities. Anybody have any suggestions?

You could spend years reading about this and studying it. Like you, I didn't know a whole lot about our history with urban renewal until I came here. But for a short answer to some of your questions:

The I.M. Pei plan was designed to tear down a lot of older abandoned buildings and replace them wth modern structures. The fact that we tore down a bunch of cool old buildings from the turn of the century through the 1930s, and were going to replace them with the finest in early 1970s architecture (uglytecture?) makes this plan look questionable today. At the time they thought they were going to be replacing ugly old stuff with cool new stuff. But what happened is that we tore down all the buildings and then the oil bust hit, and First National Bank failed, and all the money went away before we got around to repacing much of it.

So today, instead of us having an abundance of older buildings that could either be renovated or rented out inexpensively like most cities, we have empty lots where those buildings once stood.

As much as it sucks that we lost some cool buildings, I guess we can be thankful we didn't build any of that uglytecture. We'd be having to deal with that now. From the drawings I've seen, it looks like Pei was using Logan's Run as his basis for design. Or some other '70s futuristic movie. How would that look for us to have a large portion of our downtown look like a bad 1970s sci fi movie?

http://i.imgur.com/kkgU8Y5.jpg

This reminds me of the deepest level of Inception...

Came across an amazing old film posted online by the Oklahoma Historical Society


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhXaPSz8Sto

Shot in the early seventies (it would appear), it gives quite a lengthy overview of what Urban Renewal was trying to accomplish. Lots of footage of downtown (and surrounding areas) of the time.

Absolutely fascinating to watch. Guaranteed to stir some emotions (and not all good ones either).

What an interesting film. I had almost forgotten that Hefner Pkwy didn't always pass by Baptist Hospital.

Knowing what we know now, it's kind of sickening to see those buildings torn down and imploded. But they thought they were doing great things. And they made it sound great in that film. Talking about a galleria shopping mall and the museums that would inhabit the Myriad Gardens etc. Many of these things didn't quite live up to the hype. I don't know that the shopping area attached to the Sheraton was ever the retail hub they thought it would be. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it.

Those in the past were not stupid or ill-intentioned. Everything evolves and things like recessions change things dramatically. Just like today's generation thinks that we have everything finally figured out, they thought they had if figured out then. And in 30-50 years, our grandkids and great grandkids will be astounded how stupid we were to think we have it all figured out now.

Hey Sid, I forgot to tell you how much I enjoyed your segment at last weeks Placemaking conference.

Thanks. I felt way out of place and honestly, pretty far out of my league. But boy was I glad to be there.

I'm still brimming with excitement from hearing all those talks in the same day. Which talk did you like the most? [besides mine, of course ;)]

I really liked the Better Block presentation and the evening presentation (Hank Dittmar). But, they were all excellent. I also liked the pragmatic tone of most of them...they didn't come off as Urbanista Nazis that sometimes happens. I enjoyed the discussion on re-purposing the suburbs - something we need to think about and not just condemn and ignore them.

I must say, OU's assembling of this slate of speakers and the forum format was great. I attended the constitutional forum there a couple of weeks ago and it was outstanding as well. They do a great job of bringing in the best of the best for these things.

When Dr. Boren calls to invite you, you just say "when do I show up", you don't say "no" or "I'll think about it". Like when he calls for a donation - you just ask "how much should I make the check out for?".

By the way, he was head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and maintains strong ties to the intelligence community...so, he already knows how much you can afford to give.