https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/beneath-the-skyway/
For those that don't know, 99% percent invisible is this lib architecture/engineering podcast that has the most smooth brained takes whenever politics is inevitably brought up. I think this episode is the worst in that it's about the Minneapolis Sky Bridges and the systemic race and class issues surrounding what is a good piece of public infrastructure. Essentially Minneapolis has a bunch of indoor pedestrian bridges connecting buildings together because it's cold outside. What went from a mere mall attraction expanded into a network of buildings connected by skyways, it's a legitimate public good however being America it's not surprising there was some racial and class disparities that arose from this project.
First off the pedestrians being elevated above the street made the first stories of buildings less valuable, second cars basically had free range on the street below because pedestrians were using the sky bridges, third access to the sky bridges was being restricted by business owners because blacks, youths, and poor people were using them. Now these problems could be solved in a lot of ways, better access to the bridges from street level, make the bridges public property, actually encourage people to use the bridges instead of drive. What was 99% invisible solution? Tear them all down, turn them into aquariums, make the street pedestrian friendly because the bridges are the result of systemic racism.
I'm not denying there was some kind of racism or classism involved with the construction of these bridges, the problem is the bridges are useful to everyone and the only people enforcing the racism are the security guards and business owners. I was expecting some speech about how the walkways should be available to everyone with how useful they were, but nope, let's just destroy a useful piece of public infrastructure because racism. This is your mind on the California mindset, I bet the host took an uber home after recording that. What a shitty fucking take.
there are cities that didnt get nearly as cold that have skywalks and it was definitely lame. minneapolis can get deadly cold though.
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New York and Chicago could use a skyway system, it would make walking much easier.
Houston has a mix of tunnels and skywalks because of the intense summer heat and periodic heavy rain.
We originally were going to have a single connected sky-bridge, but builders started objecting to connecting units because hey why should I have to provide a benefit to someone else's office project? We switched to tunnels because it fell to the city to build and maintain them rather than the building-owners themselves. Only problem is... Houston floods. So now we have this giant liability hanging over the city's head, because individual builders can't play nice and the city admins are too cowardly to inform a uniform building code.
Also, the east side of the city has walkways while the west has tunnels, which forces you to run up two flights of stairs in order to cross the city without getting rained on.