Forgotten Innovations of a "Perfect Town" 

Video Suggestion: The analogues parallels and Stark contrasts to An archology vs. Walkable outside areas that function basically the same.

I mean, that doesn't sound very complex. He's an arsehole

pretty sure the cage trick was to prevent him from rising from the dead to suck people's blood. same concept as the big ass stone slab they put over reagan's grave

He was also buried 20 feet down, as opposed to the standard 6 feet for Chicago graveyards, both to make it harder to dig up his body and desecrate it, and to insure he was closer to Hell than anyone else in the cemetery.

@@andrewdreasler428 Was 'insuring he was closer to hell' an actual cited reason for the depth? It sounds like the sort of thing that'd pass into cultural consensus from jokes told at the time. Like how in the UK, we like to say that Margaret Thatcher's grave was made accessible to the public so it could be used as the world's first open-air gender-neutral toilet.

Super interesting, thank you

If a constructed site gives good use for 30 years, but grows old compared to newer tech and needs, what's wrong with razing it and building something completely new for the next 30 years? I think we think we can plan for the future, but it rarely seems to work out.

​@@High-Tech-Geek You think razing the Prague old town would be a good idea?

@@ireminmon Only if it's not serving the needs of its residents. I understand after longer periods of time, a place gains a sort of nostalgia and quaintness although it may not be the ideal functioning place. But if it was razed and rebuilt every 30 years since it was built, you wouldn't even be asking that question. You'd be enjoying a modern functioning site.

​@High-Tech-Geek that's super inefficient and not a sustainable way forward

​@@MrJohMaknah, most building life is about 30 years. Then the plumbing goes and the roof and windows leak and the mechanical equipment, boilers, water heaters, etc all breaks down and has to be replaced or upgraded. Paint and wallpaper peels, everything rusts and stains, and the wiring is all obsolete & outdated. I used to think buildings would last forever but construction standards these days are so poor and cheap. There's no craftsmanship anymore. Just start fresh. It's the only way we can build cheap crap people can afford. The world is all about getting cheaper and cheaper and charging more and more. Sad but true.

That part made me spit my milk

I thought the same thing but he does criticize them at the end...

it's the dot now.

​@@Will-gp9ok Wait, isn't that good? I am pretty sure that first mention of "spectacular new cities" while showing the line was sarcastic...

I bought a living unit in Neom. It is seconds away from the hyperlinktube. The figs are the finest in SA. Long live the Saudi government, they bestow upon me all the blessings of the earth. My turds are trucked out to the figgery and supplement the soil.

Because your books weren’t partial technicals of the time or morbid analysis looking at everyone neutrally and what factors caused changes in policies, like the Panic of 1893 for Pullman, making the Great Depression look like a half-measure. A byproduct of simply letting industrial giants rise and fall by their own merit, but a giant swath economy went down with a few giants. The books you read were biased narratives, which tbf gain a lot more interest and are easier to write for someone with less information. But they can be really fascinating when nobody’s the villain, but there are still culprits.

I just realized this while watching too😂

Nominative Determinism

It's also a form of recycling.

And both are amazing products

Say, doesnt the main reason for the fall of these cities are the extreme monopoly by a single company and the exploitation of its residents? While its nice that everything in the town is pre-planned and arranged neatly, i heard that because food, energy, and transportation are all owned by the same company they work for, entire worker's income would eventually flow back to the company and they are left with 0 surplus and cant save money. After a while, wouldnt it be obvious that this planned cities's hidden purpose were to squeeze its worker/inhabitant dry all for the profit of the company?

The opposite is also true. When you don't set down any rules or set them down too slowly, the city doesn't have time to evolve. I speak from my experience in Delhi. It is growing from a city of 230K in 1911 to 600K in 1947 to 4 Million in 1971 to 34 Million today. That last stretch from 4 to now 34 Million especially took its toll. And the city is growing still, expected to be 43 Million in another decade. People came in before even the plans for the city could evolve. Forget the evolution of the city itself. Evolution will not always work. Planning is faster and thus valuable. We need to learn to make city plans that can be adaptive, conducive yet resilient to evolution.

So the solution is between planning for everything and not planning at all. Lol

@@death_parade My capital city, Jakarta, also fall under similar problem. I think the problem lies in the fact that city planning would only occur if the country(or at least city) is advanced enough with a good number of intelligent, literate populace. And for such things to happen, the town needs high economy circulation and.... High populace. However, in developing country, if a city is already high in economy and population, in most case (capital city, for example), it will be TOO LATE to employ any city planning. This is very apparent in my country since, embarrassingly enough, a lot of our primary infrastructure is the leftover of VOC (and others) colonization. Our local government rarely care about city planning and only focused on earning more income (also leftover attitude from VOC) hence why when a city planning discussion arise, there are too few field left for any planning. From limited things that i know of, my country is in the ending stage of "property boom" and looking at china, its gonna be a nightmare. There are too many people and houses in the country and the only open, "empty" field left is the forest. Which, you know what calamity will happen if those forest are cut for more housing and infrastructure. Things are still looking bright in my country, but that is because the "doom" is still far away, preventable, and there are still room to grow. If its any indicator, our international debt is still rising, our corruption is still in the trillions, out new capital city is a huge money drain, and environmental problem (both natural and man made) is rising, you know where this is going.

@@vanzeralltheway8638 Well maybe the Indonesian experience is different, but in India, our problem is not a dearth of talented, educated or intelligent people. I mean look at our scientific achievements in space or nuclear, etc. So we do have city planning. It is simply substandard. And the reason for our substandard city planning and execution is politics and bureaucracy. And I think that is a problem almost everywhere else in the world as well. Politics in a democracy leads to silly vote bank politics, where if a large number of voters have simply created an unauthorized colony, a politician promising to distribute "authorized" certificates to such unauthorized colonies will simply get elected to power. And because (as Osho famously said about Democracies"but the people are reT @rded), the people don't care if the unauthorized colonies they live in have poor urban planning. Bureaucracy, meanwhile, leads to silly procedural hurdles where even the bureaucrats themselves, despite understanding the situation, are helpless. Because they can only follow the laid down laws and procedures, can't make their own laws up. For example, suppose you as a bureaucrat in an Indian city working under the local government realize that implementing car-pooling in your city during the festival season can help reduce some of the peak congestion, without having to widen the roads. Sounds good. But wait, the decision to implement car pooling in YOUR CITY can't be taken by you or the local government. Because an outdated law called the Motor Vehicles Act dictates that such a decision can only be taken by the Central/Federal Government. Ofcourse you being a local bureaucrat have absolutely no say in what the Central Government does. So despite having a better way, the bureaucrat is forced to take the more inefficient and resource intensive method of "widening the roads," causing EVERYONE more problems. All because of an archaic law. I do agree that for proper Urban Planning, a city needs to have enough money in circulation. This is one major Achilles heel of Indian Municipal Corporations: Low tax rates. Taxes collected are so low that barely any money is there for maintenance, forget innovation or improvement. Cities in India rely on funds from Central and State Governments to get even basic upgrades, like upgrade to public transportation, civic amenities, etc. Indonesia does indeed seem to be under-performing compared to its potential and from what little I've read in the comments of various Indonesia-related videos, most folks do indeed blame corruption. Lower level governments in India (Municipal corp level, etc) also have this problem of corruption. Which is why even though Indian National Highways built by the Central Government are good quality, the city roads are of poor quality get potholes right after rains. Simply because petty corruption is rampant in Road contracts within Cities while it is rare and difficult to execute in Highway projects done by the Central government.

I wanted to know more as well. He did mention there was a food hall, church, parks and a doctor, so I presume there were other amenities as well? I'm not sure what the townsfolk were wanting? We're told the quality of the construction was good and the needs were well thought out. Now I feel like I need to research on my own, but I wish Stewart would have told us more info about the reasons for the failings. Was it simply expensive booze?

Although I'm strongly anti-capitalist, I think it's important to recognize that in this case it's primarily the "central control" part that's creating the vulnerability. Being for-profit likely made it worse, but I think it would have been similarly vulnerable if it _hadn't_ been for-profit.

@@High-Tech-Geek Those were pretty much the limits of the amenities. Pullman was playing a game of SimCity before there were computers, and he wanted 'his' people to do what he wanted, live how he wanted, THINK how he wanted, and put their entire lives toward the company's profit. If you lived/worked in Pullman (it literally was the same thing,) your boss was also your landlord, and if the company decided that times were lean and wages needed to be 'scaled back' the rents were NOT. Wages, rents, and prices were all set by Pullman himself, he knew how much of the employee's paycheck came back to him, and if it was under 100%, he was unhappy. To make a long story short, the town of Pullman was yet another example of how Company Towns are nothing but an attempt to have slavery without it 'technically' being called slavery. When the workers threatened to strike, Pullman locked them out of the factory and said, "None of you are getting paid for this entire month, but all your rents are still due."

@@andrewdreasler428 Oh, so the fall of the town is inevitable then. I heard that this kinda town also doesnt let you have savings so its harder for you to move away and live somewhere else.

@@andrewdreasler428 Or a savegame of Cities: Skylines for that matter.

...also crime against nature, but that's a different story.

It depends on the country. Mostly direct human wastes are not allowed for hygenic reasons. And our developed country sewage is just too toxic to be used (directly). It's different for residual sludge which was processed.

Look up Milorganite.

@@reinhard8053yes, people and businesses in cities use too many toxins and poisons that go to the sewage, not usable for farming before pricy processing

Most sewage from humans and pigs is to acidic. There is some chemicals that are mixed in the vats and the it is pushed into bricks. Worked at a box place and we had the same system and regulations as sewage treatment plants.

I recently learned about how some cities in Europe use their sewer system gases to create electricity.

Time for you to do some own research my man. Cause this 12 minute video is a complete whitewash of the asshole that was George Pullman. Also this company town was a golden cage, designed to keep his workers under control and always in the clock

You gonna remember it?

The most famous company town in the UK is Saltaire. Built on the river Aire by Sir Titus Salt in 1851. It was famously also a dry town. There is a pub there now called "Don't tell Titus", and the mill is a beautiful big building that repurposed as a gallery and public space.

Masdar is far from great, but it still beats the copying and oversizing of 20th century American cities with highways and suburbs that the Gulf countries just do so well,. I was quite excited when it was announced, then I forgot it was even a thing. If Masdar was more successful, it would have sent a great message to the developing world that is increasingly looking at places like the Gulf and China, admiring and aspiring, again perpetuating 20th century models.

Masdar is ok, but what's the obsession with pods again?

@@Game_Hero techno bros can't think long term, so efficient modes of transport that are long-shaped are inconceivable to them.

Saltaire, Port Sunlight, Bournville: almost like there was a pre-existing tradition of companies building model towns that Pullman was able to draw on.

Time and time again, city officials hate anything nice. Wren's plan for London, the plan for LA that would've made it a beautiful garden city instead of sterile grids almost devoid of parks in the center, etc.

He went beyond what was constitutionally allowed in order to freakishly control an entire boom town for profit. Sounds very dystopian and marxist. That boom town would have been called a city today had it been independent of socialist company rule. There’s a modern form of this where I live. It’s called university campuses eating a crippled city.

Sadly the ambitions of self-proclaimed "great (white) men" cannot be separated from the desire to control that comes from shouldering the "white man's burden." They are all, at heart, tin-pot dictators in search of their own little 'country' to rule over/play with.We see this repeating WAY too often in American history: some rich white guy who decides that "Society is broken and Only They are the One Strong Man who can fix things."

Unfortunately the steam pipes are not maintained in new York.

I mean, I agree with what you're saying, but that's not THAT far off from a normal town. In a small town, there's only so much work. In order to keep a roof over your head and eat, you have to keep working that grind. If you don't like it, you can try another job if you can find one, or maybe do some freelance around the town. But with a small population, there's only so much that needs done that people are willing to pay for. In a larger town, you have more employment options, but you still have to keep your boss happy if you want to pay for anything. Some form of work is the only way societies can function, and as much as it sucks, we at the bottom rung will always be subject to those above us

Sure it has its own problems, but in a regular town are you not falling inline as well? Arr you truly happy with the government? Are you truly happy with the rules? Rising cost of living? Lowering quality of life? You're not doing anything about it, so are you not doing just as you'd do in a company town?

Theres a difference between a commune and a what we call a town today. One is people coming together to build and work for a comfortable living the other is an amalgamation of companies seeking to profit off a collection of people desperate for any bit of income.

​@@tommy8716 That's a really good description of the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"

The key difference is how free you are to leave

it's a youtube feature now. creators can set up to three thumbnails and youtube serves a random one. then they see which works best and sets that to be the permanent thumbnail afterwards.

@@mfaizsyahmi O that’s lank interesting actually 👌

I'm working on some similar ideas. Especially with the internet and remote work nowadays. We could revitalize entire small towns with groups of like minded people.

But still lots of red brick!

@@SageL13404 There sure is!

Nah, you would probably be too busy working 12h a day for next to nothing. The gilded age was not a good time to live in, and Americans workers used to know the likes of Pullman are not their friends.

@@benjaminlefebvre1866 Oh I meant now

​@@benjaminlefebvre1866cope. It was based

Well this helps explain (from Britannica): "Responding to falling revenue during the economic depression that began in 1893, the Pullman Palace Car Company cut more than 2,000 workers and reduced wages by 25 percent. When it did not also reduce rents and other expenses at Pullman, the company town near Chicago where most Pullman workers lived, many workers and their families faced starvation. A delegation of workers tried to present their grievances to company president George M. Pullman, but he refused to meet with them and ordered them fired. The delegation then voted to strike..."

For starters for profit endeavors are not the solution to homelessness or wealth disparity nor are independent charities. We could start with non profit government housing but no way thats happening in America when we cant even get universal health care.

7:32 dictatorial 9:57 not adaptable

Essentially, Pullman is a company town owned by the company that built it. It is not a community that has a life of its own but a very big house where the company is the overbearing father and his rules matter...

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 “Dad”screwed up.

So many comments just like this. It’s intuitively obvious to anyone who doesn’t worship data and quantitative analysis. Your plans will fail.

@@BillLaBrie Humans aren’t robots. The district heating was great though.

Free market my friend.

@@MITdork Capitalist exploitation, comrade.

I think that's overly simplistic. If given the choice between making money and making railroad cars, I agree that Pullman (and other industrialists) would choose money. But at a certain scale, the industrialist takes pride in how he makes money. It helps him convince himself of his value to society.

@@winterburden you must have been a soft science major.. (engineer here).

@@MITdork that explains your apparent lack of awareness

And nice culturally local architecture

Yeah sounds noce

👏

Powerless workers is the exact reason this failed.

@@Mrwizard-ck7oe Yep. Capitalism ain't great.

People obviously wanted to live there lol

Elaborate

@@trvst5938 - TRACK : Train in the Distance ALBUM : Hearts & Bones ARTIST : Paul Simon

Company towns are not a good thing if thats what you are implying. Community shouldn't be a for profit endeavor

​@Mrwizard-ck7oe it had good ideas though. We can take the good aspects still