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Comment by ivankirigin | Hacker News Reader

There is also a very good architectural argument that old cities make for better quality of life. If you're Houston or LA, you're built for cars. That makes for a worse experience than subways and walkways. The public parks in Boston are excellent. The Minute Man bike trail is unrivaled, as far as I'm concerned.

There is a great feedback loop here too. People that like things like the Public Garden are more likely to demand changes keep the feeling.

Even the Big Dig, while a bullshit waste of public resources, turns out to make the city much more pedestrian friendly. It largely emerged because the city was too old to retrofit a freeway system that could handle the capacity above ground.

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The Big Dig made for a huge improvement. People who lived here in past years should see http://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2008-05-14

That's quite striking. I agree that is has been pretty awesome, from what I can tell. I only moved to Boston right as it finished.

There was inexcusable corruption and incompetence in the construction though. That puts of a taint on large municipal projects generally.

The elevated highway it replaced was such a complete disaster that it's a net win to have it gone even with all the corruption.

From what I've heard, though, the old highway was designed the way it was because of corruption too. The palpable aura of corruption in Boston probably doesn't help it as a tech hub. Corruption tends to yield low quality of life, because so much of the money that goes into the government goes to political supporters rather than into beneficial projects.

I've noticed practically all very corrupt cities (Syracuse was a striking example) are economically backward, though it's hard to say which is cause and which is effect.

I doubt corruption is the cause. Most American cities were very corrupt during the late 1800's, yet had amazing economic growth. Detroit, Cleveland, Syracuse, etc were all startup hubs back then.

All governments funnel money to their employees and supporters. For us subjects, what matters is that the rulers are competent and think for the long term. If they are smart and optimize for the long term, they realize that the best way to enrich themselves is to grow the pie, not to gobble it all up. The guys who ran Tammany Hall understood this, more recent corrupt rulers like Detroit's Coleman Young did not.

Don't you think the industrial revolution is a unique period? And who is to say corruption didn't have a big impact, just lessened by the booming period?

I don't get what you are trying to say. Yes, it was a booming period, that is the point. The question is why it was a booming period.

I don't think rule by corrupt political machines is ideal, I'd prefer if it if cities were run as joint stock corporations. But despite its many shortcomings, Tammany Hall and its ilk were much better at ruling than most of our modern city governments. Compare how the recovery of Chicago after the great fire to that of New Orleans after the flood. Or compare it to the (non-existent) rebuilding of the World Trade Towers. They were building infrastructure at amazing rate, we are letting it decay. If I could trade the current Boston government for Tammany Hall, I'd do so in a second.

Agreed, the park system and the walkability of Boston is great. The problems come when you want to drive somewhere or find an affordable place near the subway with all modern kitchen and laundry stuff. We could do so much better, just tear down all the old 2 and 3 story buildings and build bigger, better ones....

We could do so much better, just tear down all the old 2 and 3 story buildings and build bigger, better ones....

This is exactly the wrong thing to do. You end up with a sterile wasteland.

I get where you're coming from, but that's quite a leap. Newer development doesn't imply sterile wasteland. A lot of suburbs are sterile, for sure. But a lot of urban development integrates quite nicely with the surrounding area, often adding to the appeal of the neighborhood. eg: Church Corner in Cambridge. Then there's the full-on live/work/play development like Atlantic Station in midtown Atlanta. Both areas are quite vibrant.

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