I-84 is the only reason I can get to civilization in a reasonable amount of time. Without it my average commute would triple.

Their base premis is it was the highway not the times. Waterbury got bisected by 84 and it went downhill for the same reason manufacturing died out in the US due to regulation.

84 isn’t that bad guy, the city planners are. Time and again across the US major interstates cut cities in half.

Beatrice Fox of the G Fox department stores was very influential and insisted on the highway having exits near the store.

Ugh... this is heartbreaking.

And if it wasn't built there'd be several thousand people who wouldn't have had their homes destroyed and tens of thousands that wouldn't have had their neighborhoods decimated.

Do you really value your commute time above other people's homes that much?

If I-84 hadn't been built through Hartford, the civilization you were looking for would be IN Hartford.

"We're going to name a street after you!"

"Well that's mighty thoughtful."

"It's Ann Street."

"Wait, but...there's literally nothing there."

"Yeah, we don't actually like you all that much."

Sure, that worked out great. How is G Fox doing now?

Well yeah, it's the only way to commute by design. The fact that removing it would increase your commute by that much doesn't say much about I-84 being designed well or even being inherently important, it just means that the US has not given you the freedom to have any alternative options. The entire infrastructure system is built around car ownership at the expense of other ways of getting around.

Another reason for me to hate I-84

Not to mention all the other god-damned highways that block access to the CT River and plow through neighborhoods, leaving behind dysfunctional housing / commercial areas that can't function to preserve any sort of vibrant community. Hartford deserves a do-over...at least put more of the highway underground, if not relocated to a more sensible place.

It probably lasted longer because of that, but we have lost a lot of department stores that were standalone businesses to ones attached to malls.

Dont forget about the mix master just over the river in East Hartford in the area that was called "The Meadows". Hundreds of homes, business' and a grade school were demolished with the residents displaced.

They get paid for it.

They merged with Filene’s in the 90’s which eventually merged with Macy’s

They were in business for 150 years... And she sold the business 5 years after the Highways were put in for $40million. Pretty sure she did fine for herself.

Do they get paid enough for it?

Yeah I agree, I'm often running around all over CT for work, yeah that section of highway is intimidating but it really does make my travel easier

So... I would have to drive even further? What are you talking about. Not everyone lives in Hartford.

Same reason why up until recent decade, many of the unionized clerical worker state employees had an hour lunch break. B Fox wanted employees to walk downtown and shop on their lunch breaks.

Even beyond the devastating cost to the city, if the highway didn't go directly through the city centers in Hartford and Waterbury, commuters wouldn't have to deal with traffic jams literally every single day. The highway twists and turns through the city, slowing traffic even more than just the higher number of people entering and exiting around there, and results in a more dangerous driving experience. And there are no good alternate routes through those corridors of the state.

My dad grew up in East Hartford. He vividly remembers his house had to be moved down the street for some type of construction project. I’m wondering if it was because of this now

Even if the government offered you a fair market value for your home, would you be happy to uproot your life, lose your neighborhood community and start over? And if you're a renter, you get the same treatment with not even relocation expenses covered.

Very cool! Thanks for the heads up

My girlfriends family lost their entire farm to I84. Forced onto a smaller property nearby. They're still salty about it and I don't blame them for it.

FWIW G. Fox was one of the original anchors of Danbury Fair

Crazy that the footprint of the mix master is basically the same size as all of downtown Hartford. Even if you want to look at it from the most conservative economics only perspective, that is trading off a fuck ton of potential economic opportunity and tax revenue for an interchange.

>"One of the things that really upset me was that the desolate asphalt covered cities I had visited in the US and Canada weren't always this way. I was told the cities were like this because they were designed for the car. That's not true. They weren't designed for the car. They were BULLDOZED for the car.

>.... This is a picture of Houston in the 1970s. No, it wasn't bombed, they did this to themselves. This used to be a compact, walkable city that was just as good as those in Europe or Asia, and they destroyed it."

https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54?t=449

>People used to be so proud of this place they had built [downtown Brainard Minnesota] that they put it on postcards. No one is making a postcard of this place [the same place today].

https://youtu.be/XfQUOHlAocY?t=140

Suburbia is subsidized by city centers and even poor neighborhoods are more cash positive than car centric suburbs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

These videos by the excellent channel Not Just Bikes explain where North American urban planning went wrong and how redesigning our cities for the car has destroyed communities.

Hartford isn't even as bad as some of the cities he mentioned, like Houston, where you can't even walk in most places. Also because Connecticut doesn't have property taxes at the county or state level, Hartford isn't directly subsidizing suburbs like West Hartford. Although the mill rate in Connecticut cities like Hartford is much higher than the suburbs to offset lower property values, which unfairly targets the poor.

Hartford keeps almost going bankrupt, and it IS subsidizing the suburbs- only not through direct taxation. Suburbanites always complain about Hartford's "urban blight" and mismanagement as it can't provide the same quality of life as they expect. It has the single lowest per capita income of any municipality in Connecticut. Yet, it is the economic powerhouse of the region! Without Hartford providing so many high paying jobs in Insurance, government and other industries, then towns like Glastonbury, West Hartford, and Farmington would not be wealthy and desirable places to live for the upper middle and upper class families. The only significant revenue that Hartford proper gains from all this insane wealth is the property taxes from businesses offices, and whatever professional workers spend at the local cafes and lunch places during their day. The rest leaves the city. And when Hartford wants to increase property taxes, these companies threaten to move their headquarters to Massachusetts (Taxachusetts, lol) of all places!

Why do we neglect our economic centers, depriving them of their community and spending thousands of hours of our lives commuting to them?

It's the poor planning that ruin the city, not the highway. But often something has to go when putting a highway through a city. Highways have to go through the populated cities or else they would be useless. Left entrances and exits should be banned and anyone who approved a highway that way should have their pension revoked.

Took Boston years to fix it with the “ if dig” but they did… maybe Hartford should do the same

It's arguably even worse what they did to Waterbury. The whole city was quartered.

The highway could have easily gone around Hartford, with exits leading into lower speed arterials going into downtown. Not to mention literally walling off Hartford from the waterfront, and burying the Park river.

Completely unrelated, but who’s the artist behind the design of the podcast image? What’s the name of this style?

The big dig makes Boston nice but is really completely unnecessary unless we are committed to the car-based paradigm. Just rebuild the intricate trolley network that took everyone everywhere easily, build trains and buses, build walkable communities, get rid of highways through cities completely.

That was the original interstate system plan but then racism among other things changed that.

The root of the issues here is (1) racism, and (2) an almost religious commitment to cars.

Highways don't even have to exist, let alone have to go through a city!

Where do you live, and where are you driving to?

The poor river. Who sandwiches a huge dump btw a major highway and a major body of water???

Bro you ever been to Manhattan? Notice how the highways go around the city instead of up the guy? It’s 101 to have highways go around cities or underground, and to preserve the waterfront at all costs.

The state fucked up urban planning big time and can’t afford to fix the problem because of pensions. Smh

Agree with almost everything but we should clarify that:

• Hartford does receive significant state funding to help make up for its small footprint and the fact that government buildings take up a sizable chunk of taxable land

• CT has an equal or higher tax burden as Massachusetts with none of the economic strength (except for maybe in Stamford). Taxachusetts is a misnomer nowadays, at least when comparing MA to CT

>Hartford does receive significant state funding to help make up for its small footprint and the fact that government buildings take up a sizable chunk of taxable land

PILOT has been underfunded by the state basically since the beginning of the programme, and even at reimbursement obligated would only cover about 60% of the grand list tax value

The park river was buried because it flooded major parts of Hartford every spring. Nothing to do with 84.

Because the waterfront wasn't desirable property untill we started caring about what was being dumped into it.

It severely floods every spring and was literally covered in floating foamy waste until the late 80s.

Attitudes have changed towards it considerably in the last 30 years.

And westfarms, and buckland hills, and Enfield.

Pretty much anywhere in CT you had or have a Macy's was a G Fox originally.

The answer is morons.

In addition to PILOT, cities like Hartford receive Education Cost Sharing (ECS) and municipal aid funds from the state to bolster their education and general operating budgets, respectively. Cities also receive state and federal grants for specific programs and capital improvement projects. Last I checked, roughly 50% of Hartford's yearly budget was supplied from state coffers.

And Hartford takes on the entirety of the responsibility of handling the second busiest downtown in New England, and vendors collecting an absolutely insane amount of sales tax. I seriously cannot fathom how the anti city crowds think they can throw out numbers not thinking we don't already know how the state works.

Oh and PS ECS helps all municipalities in the state to a significant degree... It's not a freebie that Hartford gets. Ffs.

Looks like a Mondrian but it could just be a similar style, like the Partridge Family bus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian

> And Hartford takes on the entirety of the responsibility of handling the second busiest downtown in New England, and vendors collecting an absolutely insane amount of sales tax.

Any business in Hartford is either paying property taxes or rent which in turn had a property owner paying taxes to the city. And the sales tax goes to the state...part of which goes back to Hartford.

> Oh and PS ECS helps all municipalities in the state to a significant degree... It's not a freebie that Hartford gets. Ffs.

Yes, and Hartford receives a disproportionate amount (both overall and per capita) compared to other municipalities.

>Yes, and Hartford receives a disproportionate amount (both overall and per capita) compared to other municipalities.

When you account for the shortfall in pilot promises in previous decades it honestly pales. I really do not see your continued point... Hartford gets help for getting a distressed community much like many others including the state fund dependent rural areas. Yet you never see such attention to the minutia detail of their funding sourcing. Just get fucked mate.

The style reminds me of paintings from Piet Mondrian. I don't know if he's the actual artist or not. The style I believe is abstract art using geometric shapes.

And between the two, it was Filene’s.

The fact that they still bothered to convert the thin strip of land between the highway and the river into decent parks feels pretty indicative of what people actually want for the area. It really sucks because you can see the underlying urban fabric that would allow Hartford to really flourish as a city, it's just buried by the highways. There are other parts of the US, especially in the south and the west, where the sprawl is so bad that you can't even see how they can begin to dig themselves out of the problem, but places like Hartford genuinely feel like they're only a few very big but achievable steps away from being much much better.

Robert Moses actually came very close to running a freeway through lower Manhattan. Right through Greenwich Village, Washington Square Park, Soho... imagine trying to propose that with what we know now? They'd call for your head on a pike. It's a shame that so many other cities were 30-40 years too late to figure out how much damage this sort of infrastructure would do.

What a shame because waterbury is beautiful. The way the valley is drenched in sun at golden hour. And now there is a fucking highway bisecting it.

You’ll never get that architecture back

I know someone who’s family long ago owned a very large section of waterfront property in Fairfield county. It wasn’t all that valuable back then.

Bro, Manhattan isn't a city. New York City is the city and highways go through it.

Lmao Manhattan would be considered a city if you picked it up and put it anywhere else in the world - it’s be a damn big one too. Obviously it’s a borough of NYC but cmon man, the highway systems in the other parts of NYC still do a better job of not carving up a city than the highways in CT!

State workers also got a day off for Christmas shopping until the early 90’s

"lost" and paid out are different things

So very true. I grew up outside of Boston and could get so many places by bus, train, subway. Now the traffic is horrific because everyone wants to drive

Hartford has incredible economic strength. It's GDP per capita is one of the highest in the world. I couldn't find data for the city alone, but just for the "Hartford, East Hartford, Middletown Metropolitan statistical area", aka the "Greater Hartford Area", which includes all of Hartford, Middlesex, and Tolland counties. In 2013, the Greater Hartford Area had the 4th highest GDP per capita of any metropolitan area in the world, behind only San Jose, Zurich and Oslo. It even beat out Boston, New York, Paris, London and San Francisco. The economic powerhouse of the area is the city of Hartford, with its insurance industry, which means its GDP per capita is likely much higher than the area as a whole. The economy of the region has been pretty static since then, with only a minimal change in population or GDP since the insurance industry has been shrinking a bit; so it has fallen a bit on the list as a few other cities have become insanely wealthy in the past 7 years. But it's still one of the most productive cities in the US.

Per capita income on the other hand is much lower, because most of that GDP goes to stockholders of Hartford's companies. The only town in the Hartford Area with a per capita income higher than the GDP is Glastonbury, only by a small amount and it's not a very large town.

In contrast, the Bridgeport area, being a suburb of NYC, has since surpassed Hartford only slightly, and has several towns with per capita income higher than its gdp per capita.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Connecticut_locations_by_per_capita_income

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP

https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-metro-monitor/

And yet the city struggles with its finances and it somehow needs government welfare programs like PILOT and ECS to survive.

They damn well should get ALL that state funding and more. They ought to have their municipal budget funded ENTIRELY through state and federal grants instead of local property tax. After all, they produce the highest value for the state.

Hartford’s a melting ice cube. The state of CT budget is too broke to fund Hartford like a proper city because the state is heavily indebted to legacy pension debt.

I fully expect New Haven and Bridgeport to grow faster than Hartford and to be more impactful to the state economy.

And the rich woman that stoppped the abandoned "bypass to nowhere" at the top of Rt 9 from going thru West Hartford neighborhoods to bypass Hartford and connect with 91N. This doomed Hartford Rt 84 traffic.