James Howard Kunstler continues his walking tour of one city
block in downtown Saratoga Springs,
N.Y., a classic Main-street
American town. We resume the tour on the corner of Division Street and Railroad Place, where a major urban infill
project has produced a brand new urban street that is well defined on both
sides by five-story high buildings, with dignified frontages, ground-level retail
space and apartments above. Kunstler points out some architectural problems and
weird transitions but he's mostly pleased by the new buildings in this neighborhood.
As we leave the new urban street, things completely fall apart when we
encounter the results of the urban renewal schemes of the 1960s. Most of the 20
acres in front of us is surface parking, occupied on the fringe by inappropriate
suburban buildings.



[Note: Use
Google Street View to follow along with this
program. Visit: http://maps.google.com and enter this address: 402 Broadway Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.
Cross Broadway, head up Division
Street and turn left at Railroad Place.]


www.kunstlercast.comDirect Download: KunstlerCast_24.mp3 ( 14 MB | 20 mins.)