Why Everywhere in the US is Starting to Look the Same
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Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
References
[1] www.sltrib.com/artsliving/202...
[2] / why-everywhere-looks-t...
[3] www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/EN/publ...
[4] www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...
Select footage courtesy Getty and AP; Select imagery courtesy Geolayers; Select music courtesy Epidemic sound
Really? I hadn't noticed.
so your riding us highway two from everette to duluth
these 5 over ones don't seem to really be in popular in canada
I clicked on this video and thought "Not Just Bikes is sounding a lot like Wendover" until I realized this wasn't your video.
Haha! Well played, @Not Just Bikes … well played 😉
Givn the 7K of comments I won't bother but I was going to point Sam at what you produce. Small bits of very selective bits of London look how Sam describes!! But that is very very selective! UK also has very strict laws about use of Green Belt land that makes such strip constructions at interstates utterly impossible. Building anything in the UK is hard & expensive. We have very strong urban planning depts, who seemingly watch your programs & are very against stroads! Similarly housing estates are very different even in the same estate due to the need to put different sorts of housing on radically different but very small plots of land.
I used to work at a theme park in central Florida that everyone knows and many Americans visit once in their lives. My favourite question to ask when getting to know the Guests during their wait was "Tell me about your town. If it's a weekday, and you don't want to cook, what's your favorite place to eat out?" I can count on one hand the number of National Chains as answers. The rest were local places unique to their area. The guests would light up talking about them. I remember a handful of places that got on my Bucket list from those answers. Homogeneity is convenient, but it's not memorable. I really hope that we find a way to shift priorities from convenience to highlighting each town's unique attributes and places.
I feel you, once you prove a real homemade Italian style pizza from a local restaurant, you would never want to go back.
@@Jose04537 and once they tare it out/miss it up it saded you. i had places that visiting family/work out of town id bring a cooler/storage for the good food for the way home 1200miles and or bring it the my buddies/wife or kids at home
So very true. You can eat at all the "Usual suspects", as my family calls them, in Anytown, USA. I want to eat someplace that is unique to where I'm travelling to. A few years ago, I went to Germany. For 15 days, we ate at only local restaurants. We passed by a zillion McD's, and Burger Kings, and Subways. Nope, sorry I can eat that mediocrity at home, which I rarely do. We always to this, no matter where we go. Give me a mom and pop, and I'll enjoy myself.
@@sixletters9759 when i go out which i try to limit my self to doing for more than one reason i try my best not to over lap my "at home food" 😉 and or get a different experience, one of the reasons why i love places like the french carfay in Omaha NE get dressed up glitzy for dinner and a movie 🎥 or theatre 🎭 and spoil my self rotten same for higher end travel like a train or ship liner, sadly 😔the air travel sucks now days and makes me feel like 🐄mow in a small can getting artificiality insemated lol, add in mc-D and id rather save it for a higher level vibe 😉 that or i was a kid on construction 🚧sight/rig that got burned out by quick cheap 🇺🇸 fast food and or roadside living for the most part
@@sixletters9759 i still could do a driving myself road trip vacation ( something like drag week ) but it would have to be planned out to be pleasurable experience ect. but i seem to be a boat/river/sea kinda guy for R&R
I live in Denver and it's always a bit embarrassing when people come to visit from elsewhere in the US (particularly the Midwest or inland West) - they ask what's good to do in the city and I'm just like ...probably all the same stuff as in your city ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
skiing!
@@Slenderman63323 right! but that's up in the mountains, really, and the traffic is so bad these days that no-one's staying in Denver and driving up for the day. Most of the good (or at least, distinctive) stuff in Colorado is outside of Denver
@@poundlandvodka Denver has plenty of stuff to do for locals. Lots of neighborhoods just outside downtown with local restaurants, older walkable commercial areas and some great urban parks. For sure it's not a great tourist city, the 16th street mall is underwhelming and downtown is still very office focused (meaning quite dead on the week days now). But as a local, being able to bike a lot of the city and get to a lot of great restaurants, cafes, and little niche stores throughout makes it a good place to live for me. For people visiting I always tell them to go downtown once, then rent a bike and bike the cherry creek trail to one of the many great neighborhoods along the creek. I moved to Denver for work and as a city to live and work in it does a lot right to serve it's citizens. The local government is surprisingly functional compared to what I'm used to. The biggest thing the city could do better is rezone citywide rather than the piecemeal rezoning. Too many of the wealthiest neighborhoods have been able to get away with locking out new housing and even avoiding the sidewalk initiative ( because they don't have sidewalks so they believe they shouldn't have to pay into the new initiative , they don't have sidewalks because the city only recently took over sidewalks city wide and the rich neighborhoods didn't build sidewalks to literally keep poor people from walking through the neighborhood ).
Can confirm... Shortly before covid I visited my brother in Denver (I live in Maryland) and outside of driving out to the red rocks area and walking around a bit, there didn't seem to be anything particularly special or memorable about the city. Now that he's moved away I wouldn't ever bother going back
I’m a Denver native and I can confidently say there is jack fucking shit to do here. Maybe that’s why we all smoke weed.
For me the ultimate problem is that I find myself constantly having to deal with large corporations. Whether it’s at the store, bank, or hospital. A nameless entity is behind it, and that is worrisome for so many reasons. With sameness we ultimately lose the personal interaction that we need to have any chance at being treated fairly.
I kept my credit union despite being over 300 miles from the nearest branch. They charge BS fees like every bank (how am I supposed to know someone wrote me a bad check yet I get fee'd?) but at least they aren't a terrible corporation like Wells Scammer Fargo to boot!
That's understandable. I find that where I live the franchisees are bigger jerks than the corporations though.-live out of town trying to make a buck
I cut all my accounts at Wells Fargo. Don't like them.
Vote with your dollar, avoid the huge corporations as much as you can. Buy local and support you local mom and pops.
@@andrej7941 Stop using them, vote with your dollar.
Gotta say, the irony of a video essay about the costs of standardization and homogeneity being sponsored by a "one stop shop" stock footage provider is pretty delightful.
Yeah, I had a good laugh when I saw the ad at the end....
All buildings look the same. So do all KZhead videos.
Ik you're joking, just want to point out to the apathetic cynical readers in the comment section that the first subject here affects every facet of daily human life in the US and the other is a stock footage site. They share no connection. If this cures one person's cynicism, it's worth leaving this comment.
@@musicplaylist6353 ya video material isn’t the same is our habitation that we live with at all times.
@@bradfordsnyder6444 Pretty much every person on earth is being defined whether or not they are woke, anti woke, twitter addicted not twitter addicted. Globalization has been a horrible disaster, IMO.
The sphere of creators covering the quirks of US urbanism grows ever larger.
I hope to see this trend continue. Even other European cities have a lot to learn from countries like the Netherlands. Car dependent developments continue to get built, and it's such an insane waste of resources
fan behavior fr
@@ryanscott6578 Got to Dutch communities online and hear them complain about horrendous housing prices, stagnant wages, and government over-spending. Every place has problems.
@@jadawo No one's calling The Netherlands a utopia, just that it has good infrastructure.
I like how Vox dropped that "gentrification building" video a week ago too
This is the exact reason whenever I travel I make a point to research all the unique food options in a place and avoid the chains. Visiting someone in North Carolina and them taking me to a Longhorn does not create the experience I’m looking for in travel.
Right. Me and My Daughter talked about when We travel even out of the USA We don't wanna see a CrackDonalds nor Murder King. I love different unique things in life.
Yup food and nature is the unique things left
I had the same exact experience, I went to Texas with my family to visit my aunt and she took us to a Longhorn too 😭 the steak was pretty good though I ain’t gonna lie
People in North Carolina eat at Longhorn though so it is a real experience for that area
@@benjaminma1788 did you cry all over it?
This is existentially horrifying. I’ve lived in the northeast my whole life, my city is over 300 years old, 90% of it is historic and walkable architecture and due to it being a small and lesser known city it is still possible to find semi-affordable housing here. I pay 1800 for a 4 bedroom in a walkable neighborhood, it’s an 200 year old multi family home, 3 apartments owned my a single local landlord who’s great with upkeep. The horror I felt when I took a road trip out west, and found NOTHING like the apartments in my neighborhood. Places twice as expensive owned by massive conglomerates in unwalkable neighborhoods. It was kind of a culture shock. The idea that there are so many places and neighborhoods where people don’t know their neighbors, don’t have a coffee shop they meet their friends at, don’t have a grocery store or park or library or bar within walking distance… I was considering moving out west for work but I don’t think I could give up what I have here…
Interesting. What you describe as your ideal is my hell. My home is a sanctuary away from people and their accompanying bullshit. I'd never want to live where I could see/hear my neighbor.
It's worse out west.
I mean he's really talking about suburban areas, not peaceful and rural solitude. I think there definitely will always be a contingent of people who prefer the rural lifestyle but the majority of folks would be happier with walkability. also in most other countries that I've been to, rural places are still walkable and have town centers. @@jms9057
Damn what area are you in? I’m looking to move out for the first time and feeling a bit intimidated by the exact things described in this video.
SHOCKER YANKEE. the rest of us DON"T live like you do and DO NOT WANT to live like you do. I don't want ANYTHING within walking distance of me, because any shops and stores in walking distance are homeless magnets. I know this to be FACTUAL because I live it. I have 3 convivence stores 3 blocks down the street where they all congregate.
If you hadn't name-dropped the city, I wouldn't have noticed your footage of one of my favorite restaurants two blocks from where I used to live.
Apollo's?
@@jackmeacham3 Yep
@@okj579 He even got bullwinkles in there
See I just saw a stroad and assumed somewhere in the English(ish) speaking part North America. But then again a lot of those global franchises do have out of town units that look the same here but usually just tucked away near a motorway.
Same here. Moved from High Street to Detroit 2 months ago and I really miss it. Columbus is such a great city
I'm Spanish, and I'm also seeing this same issue with modern infrastructure. It is even more noticeable because there are still a lot of places that have stayed authentic to how they were in the past. When I go out with my motorcycle, all major roads look the same and are forgettable. But when ever you take a small path, every turn opens to a new view, unique and memorable. Sameness not only makes us love less our environment, but it makes it smaller in our minds, and also makes our lives feel shorter, as there is no novelty in anything.
You want to talk sameness of design, let's talk about motorcycles! Two flavors, Inline 4 or V-twin. Looks like a Michael Bay Transformers dick, or "Cruiser" Pick your brand, all the same. I have to buy 80's bikes to get anything that doesn't look exactly like everything else.
@@mzaite Fucking hilarious comment
@@mzaite At least those can have an interesting/fun exhaust note! Most bikes that are catered towards beginners or are in the ADV category are all parallel twins, the most boring method of making power in the motorcycle world unless it's made by Yamaha. Sure my CBR250r just sounds like a dirt bike with it's single cylinder, but at least it's a somewhat noteworthy sound for a sports bike...
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles and, I hate to say, one of these days the auto lobby, the highway construction lobby, the auto users' lobby, and the police unions' lobby will eek to make it illegal for cyclists to use the roads. Once they succeed (IF), you're going to have to mount your bicycle to your car, drive to a public bike path parking lot, and pedal to the other end of the path and back.
Here in Puerto Rico most of the sameness you find is on malls and fast food restaurants (ask "WallieB26" as he laments all modern ones in The States are "boxes without soul"). Gladfully the 5+1 apartment complex (5 floors in wood topping 1 floor in concrete) is pretty much OUT OF CODE in the Island because modern construction has to sustain hurricanes and the preferred material is all-concrete except for condos. Also, (correct me if I'm wrong) most if not all of the international construction concerns are not represented here. Maybe someone (preferably from outside the Island) should check how our building architecture is better, the same or worse than the Stateside equivalent.
I'm living in Europe now and it makes me angry that in a huge country like the US there's not one place you can live affordably with everything you need within walking distance and good public transport.
Wow, you hit the nail on the head.
doesn't happen in Europe too, unless you can afford a 500k house in the city center
That's because most cities have refused to build apartment complexes for years. Most people don't want them because they consider renters to be 'riff raff'. The inner ring suburbs that were built in the '50s could get away with this, but not anymore. Now it's catching up with everybody. You'd think cities would mandate certain minimum thresholds of different types of uses but in reality they are not.
@@Markilgrande depends where but in general there is always a bus station nearby or a train network to move easily around the cities. roads are nothing like the ones in the United States, there usually a max of two lanes and plenty of cycling spaces or at least decently sized sidewalks.
We don’t have good public transportation I’ll give you that but it is also expensive to live in many places in Europe
If anyone else lives in Northern Virginia, you know these 5-on-1 buildings are EVERYWHERE. They are selling these units starting at $800k like wtf how is anyone supposed to afford these when most homes people live in are under $500k?? The worst part about these for me is they don't even feel like a home. You walk in and it feels like you're in some super private hotel/office and it all just feels so fake like you're not really at home, you're just paying to live in an office building with bedrooms. They always give them pretentious names like "The Fields at ______", "The Meadows at _____" like they're in their own city. dude it's just an apartment behind Safeway lmao
I moved from NJ to Alexandria, VA. The townhomes in old town Alexandria are $2 million -$3.5 million. Most have 1 parking spot. Crazy!!
Yup! There was a news article last year about "affordable housing" in Stafford County. It was advertising a cookie-cutter suburb in the middle of nowhere with no infrastructure, and was starting at $700k. "Affordable" my ass.
I agree, I hate these buildings.
In Arlington and I see a new apartment building every week. It’s nuts!! couldn’t agree more - it doesn’t feel like a home.
Expressing disagreement does not need an F bomb
"The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!" - George Carlin
Well, the two political parties is an illusion of choice, for sure.
@@debravictoria7452 Handful of insurance companies, we don’t need that many. How many towns are there in the US? Too many. Too many funds to maintain this many towns. If only there a way to help people get out of poverty and help them migrate to the urban areas. Like how China has done it. Heck, Japan, especially Tokyo, has over 30+ million people. And USA is larger than Japan. We can have multiple Tokyo’s in America.
THANK YOU
@@debravictoria7452 I think it's more apt to say that American politics has been reduced to a choice between a bumbling, endlessly failing capitalist democracy, and full-throttle theocratic dictatorship run by insane people. There is definitely a choice present, just not a very good one.
@@alohatigers1199 The thing is that alot of people dont want to live in mega cities, myself included.
I remember when in my hometown (tiny little place, about a thousand people), they tore down a historical (and I mean over one hundred years old) building that used to be a drug store and ice cream parlor, and replaced it with a gas station ...when we already had a failing gas station just down the road that they could have bought and redone. We aren't even near a damn interstate! Instead of allowing that century-old building to continue to exist and remain a testament to the town's history, it was instead destroyed and replaced by the most humiliating monument to American modernization that I've ever seen. As far as I know, only a brick remains from that building and I keep it in my room for keepsake. Shit sucks, man.
The historical building was also made by capitalism based on economic and architectural trends at the time. It shouldn't be surprising when a capitalist enterprise bulldozes a capitalist enterprise in order to make room for more profits.
Historical in the American sense = 100 years but In Europe a 100 year old house isn’t something special at all. You will regularly find people living in 400-500 year old houses
@@emrefifty5281 Right, but I'm American and this is about America. :L
100 years is nearly new.... i live in a house, 120 years old.... my cousin in a house of nearly 200 years.... and the city hall is a castle from over 500 years ago.... my town is a new one, just 830 years old! my fathers family is new to this town, just over 400 years they living here!
@@Arltratlo pfft the future is now OLD MAN!
As someone who has never been evicted, much less missed a payment, I had a corporate landlord try to start the eviction process on me because the left their trashcan out - once. Corporate landlords are a sick joke and I would prefer to go live out of a van if I otherwise would have to do it again.
This is nothing new....it's been going on for decades. When I was a kid in the 1960s, we used to take a lot of road trips, where every town and state had its own identity and looked nothing like the one before it. Fast forward a few decades...corporate greed, monopolies, urban sprawl, gentrification and other ugly reminders of modern life bringing a McDonalds, a Walmart, a CVS, a Home Depot, a Dunkin Donuts, malls with the same stores inside, and a Target to Anytown USA. Gone are the small businesses which brought individuality and uniqueness to each town along the way. Remember the roadside architecture of buildings shaped like what they sold? Giant hot dogs and ice cream cones. Now, you can travel across the country and feel like you never left home. Actually, it was Howard Johnson that came up with this idea for his restaurants many decades ago.
Not to mention radio was bought up and ruined by a leveraged buyout corporation, so there are barely any differences in artists or songs. Country music has been taken over by a bunch of whiners so pathetic they need to sell their truck because their ex rode in it.
@@randomvideosn0where there's nothing wrong with the last part. But everything else is okay
I like how this video doesn’t dwell on whether this type of development in the US is morally good or bad, but rather it focuses on the incentives and rules that encourage these buildings. As citizens, understanding “how we got here” enables us to have more productive conversations
That’s true of many issues. Understanding the cause of a problem is the only way to find a productive solution.
Yes, while the homogeneity might serve a purpose, it's also seems sad. Climate/weather is becoming one of the few reasons to travel. I live in the Washington state and oft travel to California in winter for better weather. The developments are mostly homogeneous, esp along interstate highways.
@@alankoslowski9473 Climate can actually also be a good reason for a different building style, to regulate the indoor temperature better without needing excessive heating or cooling. I won't expect the fanciest designs that some people have tried to make to do passively maintain a liveable indoor condition, but a bit of investment up front would likely break even within the lifetime of the building with saved energy expenditure. However I suspect the same problem might exist there that's a bit of an issue in my country, landlord owns the house and the renter pays the energy bill. So the landlord has little incentive to insulate the place or provide efficient heating/air conditioning installations beyond the bare minimum legal requirements. The requirements have been improved here over the years, but I think it still only applies to new buildings or when a "major renovation" is happening. So many older places will still be stuck with inadequate insulation for many years to come leading to high energy bills of the residents.
Very good point! I much prefer this type of presentation that leaves the good/bad decision up to the watcher
DOESN'T DWELL!? He spends half the video trashing 5 over 1s like any NIMBY and doesn't really make any real point about why sameness is bad: it's all just an excuse to trash new developments.
I was born in Wisconsin and I live here today. However, for six years of my childhood, I lived in Pooler, Georgia, right outside of the historic city of Svannah. When I lived there, there really wasn't much but a few low density suburbs and rural houses/farms. Our house was on a quiet, dead-end country road, and behind it was miles of forest. My family moved back to Wisconsin in 2012, but we kept in touch with a few people in Pooler. Over the past decade, these friends of ours kept gushing about how Pooler has gone through a growth spurt and an economic boom, and how we wouldn't recognize it now. Indeed, a glimpse of Pooler's census information would confirm these reports. Finally, in the summer of last year, while on vacation, my family paid Pooler a visit. Our friends were right. It had changed an awful lot. And yet, I immediately recognized it. I recognized it not because it had any resemblance with what I recall about the area from my childhood, but because it had become indistinguishable from any other small highway-borne city in America. It is exactly the kind of city this video is about. When were driving through Pooler, I had a physically sickening reaction to how familiar everything was. Here we were a thousand miles away from home, in a completely different environment, driving through a city that looked almost identical to a few cities in Wisconsin (Janesville comes to mind). It was surreal and infuriating. Then, just to rub salt in my wounds, we visited our old house. Though I know it sounds dramatic, my soul was absolutely crushed to find that the forest that lay directly beyond our quiet little house had been replaced with a complex of several large "luxury" apartment buildings. The "sameness" of the area, the sterilized banality of Pooler's celebrated economic growth, felt genuinely oppressive. Again, I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but it truly made me sick to my stomach to see how just how uniform much of this country has become. We travelled one thousand miles just to end up somewhere that could have been right down the road from where we started.
It's almost like humans are humans and like the same things.
@@Ushio01 Have you ever been to the US?
UCC, uniform commercial code
@@Ushio01 more like corporations own and operate everything and are erasing any individual culture, or unique qualities
@@chrism8180 What about the UCC?
This reminds me of the Tennessee Williams quote "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland." Except these days it seems like everything else is suburban Los Angeles.
Don't forget Chicago, that's another pocket of civilization
This is the only true and real comment here , Tennessee has become an external Los Angeles suburb as well as parts of Texas
I live in Chicago now and am from nearby, and even if I’m looking to move from my current neighborhood and it’s not like everywhere else, this quote hits hard. And I haven’t been to NYC, so spending a week in New Orleans when I was spending a miserable year as a middle school teacher in Indiana absolutely brought me back to life. “What, you mean it’s not all the same here?”
Hi CitiesByDiana 👋
The fact that those giant corporations don't sell those apartments but rent out is messed up. That means in the future some time, they will control the majority of the housing market and increase rents and other prices however they want. This is too dangerous.
People pay it. Let them fail.
I agree.
It is dangerous because it will create poor people and they are dangerous fo be around
@@jaysmith1408 people have to live somewhere.
You will own nothing and be happy.
Some call this airportisation, which is fitting. People in airports are usually stressed and/or tired and won't care what they eat. They're also from all over the world, so making it the same everywhere makes sense. I'm pretty indifferent to this happening in airports, but it's sad if it happens to entire cities. It makes them feel like less of a place.
Utilitarianism, affordable housing slums, democrat lock step voting.
i have been to several international airports and all i can say is......wtf are you talking ab? is this an american domestic thing?
@@EspeonMistress00 Mostly it seem like every town and city in this country is similar and Americans are used to seeing the same stuff than anything interesting.
@@captaingoodguySentientA.I. lock step voting isn't just a Democrat thing. I'd actually argue it's much more of a Republican thing. But they still both do it.
Well, the US is an artifical country with no real national Identity.
What kills me about the "five on ones" is that, despite being historically cheap to build and maintain, nearly all of them tend to be billed as "luxury apartments", meaning you can kiss affordability goodbye. These days "affordable" seems to translate to "the thirty-year-old housing project that's riddled with gangs, drugs, and crime, and is a good windstorm away from completely caving in on itself".
The other thing is -- like apartment blocks around the world with combustible aluminum composite cladding -- the building system is deemed "safe", until it's not.
America is funny, is 30 years considered to be a lot for a housing project there? Maybe you shouldn't build them out of wood and they would last longer :)
@@Georgije2 lots of things are explained by the fact that if a company cannot get ROI in America in 10 years, they will not do it, even if overall profitability in the long term will be greater
Yea basically
"the thirty-year-old housing project that's riddled with gangs, drugs, and crime, and is a good windstorm away from completely caving in on itself" That's an issue on the way society and government approaches and treats less fortunate people.
Our country contains so much stunning beauty in its natural environment, that it really deserves matching beauty in its built environment.
Well, the western part of the country has nearly all the beauty. Someone living in Indiana or Oklahoma probably sees very little natural wonders.
At least the southwest has its own building style, along with california/florida, etc...
My city has four or five of these built out in the last few years. There's no affordable rentals available anymore. One bedroom apartments are going for $1600. It's horrible.
Crazy that $1600 for a one bedroom would be considered a steal in nyc
Thats normal here in orlando
I am an Indian living here in the US . We used to do overnight interstate travel on trains back in India . Once we arrive in the morning it will be like arriving in a whole different country . Different clothing , Buildings , different food , different languages , different cultures .. I have traveled around 15 states in the US from Michigan to Virginia .. Wisconsin to Tennessee .. was surprised how similar the states were . From roads to buildings to hotels .. everything was similar ..
Interstates are standardized for safety but yeah I don’t get everything else
Could have to do with the fact that the US is only 245 years old, whereas India is a civilization thousands of years old. There simply hasn't been enough time for the US to develop regional diversity in the manner that India has.
@@quinnroberts3158 and it never will. Modern humans no longer have communication issues so even in 5000 years time, the US will all look identical. There will be no diversity because there will be no possibility of divergence as everyone is in contact and all changes are public
@@WETiLAMBY Or...we work collectively to design away from that? I mean, probably a pipe dream but you never know.
@@WETiLAMBY Bullshit. Urban America will clash with Rural sooner than later. They are vastly different cultures.
Ive traveled much of the US by car several times, including moving cross country from East to West and honestly its crazy how similar everything is, especially as a traveler. The landscapes change drastically but the towns and cities people live in largely remain the same
Yeah you can say that again because they live almost same life ...... nice to meet you Reena
It’s brainwashing and conditioning people to act, behave, think, and live a certain way. There is no more diversity which is what makes cities unique. If everywhere is the same why bother even travelling just to see the same thing again.
@@vble2337 I guess we could consider me brainwashed on at least a few scores. Each year for 12 years I've been driving round trip 6 days cross country. Over this time I've developed the habit of always seeking the same hotel chain and nearly the same national chain of places to eat. When you've just driven 9 hours all you need is the same perfect bed & pillows you had last night 500 miles south....and a Micky D
I love going on a long road trip, crashing at any motel I decide to, waking up on a sunny day and going out on some exit arterial tucked in the country and getting some breakfast.
@@vble2337 Construction never has had much "diversity" in its time period. People just do what works. Regular travel is a luxury of the last century.
In Vancouver, Canada there are laws that each new building needs to be of a unique design to add to the look and feel of the city. As well, there are laws surrounding the height of each building so that the mountains are visible from every single point in the city no matter where you stand, and the heights of each buidling correlates with the mountain range behind it so that it is synchronous with the heights of the mountains, bringing about a pleasing zig-zaggityness to the skyline.
Ever been to Surrey/Langley...? 'Same but different' condo buildings as far the eye can see... :p
I wish my state had that. Would not be hard if the right parties got elected
Except isn't rent sky high in Vancouver?
The thing is, the design doesn't need to be unique, it just needs to be nicely done. In fact uniformity creates some sense of place. Think about the french quarter in New Orleans, or pretty much all of inner Paris with the beige colored Hausmann apartment buildings with their iron railings. If done right, sameness is great.
That’s one thing I love about other countries. For example, in Mexico, I’ve been to deserts, tropical forests, colonial cities high up in the mountains, beach towns, and the largest metropolitan city in North America: Mexico City. And yet, their cities are thriving with variety and diversity, not mind-numbing, homogenous chain restaurants and supermarkets. Each one of their 32 states are individually unique.
“What’s left in a world devoid of walls is the pervasive power of sameness” Damn good writing
I thought he said “satanists” and not “sameness” and I got confused lmao
Don't let this distract you from the fact that I get bullied because my classmates think my videos are the worst. Please don't agree, dear te
We are living in historic times of US late stage capitalism!
@@BD-zg7is The living always feels like being on the threshold of history. Capitalism has been in this so called "late stage" for a while now.
Was hearing this by coincidence while reading your comment!
Been saying this since I was a child, I remember my family went on our first road trip when I was about 10 years old. We traveled from San Antonio to LA Along I-10 and through all the cities we passed they all looked the same. El Paso, Las Cruces, Tucson, Phoenix, and eventually LA, I honestly couldn't tell them apart from where I grew up. I remember being so disappointed because I had thought that there would more unique and interesting buildings but it was literally the same strip malls just rearranged. The first time I ever came across a truly unique city was when I went to Chicago, it was like "Finally! a downtown with actual unique architecture that doesn't look like endless suburbs and malls".
Me getting out of NYC and going other places. Man was I disappointed
You guys are so worked up about superficial aesthetics.
I love the north east, the only issue is the weather. You can't be up here of you domt like having cold, snow and darkness for almost half pf the year in some areas.
@@jatnierdorta winter had gotten a lot warmer these past 20 years so it's not much of a problem for southerners to live here like it once was
@@fnonpm i agree, we didn't have snow until after Christmas this year, but unfortunately the leaves still fall at their usual cycle and it ends up looking even uglier. I love a proper white winter, but when its just brown and gray its hideous.
I like your choice of Plank Road, Fredericksburg. Using the exact site of horrific bloodshed in the American Civil War as an example of how everywhere looks the same to the point where that road's history is irrelevant really drives home the point of homogeneity. Although I must admit to not being certain whether that's intentional.
Lookup Swedish housing cooperatives. Aka "bostadsrättsförening". It is the most common home owning system here. It's a nonprofit run by the tenants themselves where each tenant own a percentage of the whole housing. Usually same buildings or neighborhoods of 3-100 apartments per cooperative. Because of strict regulation how you have to run them, they benefit the tenants themselves and there are no landlords. This model needs to be adopted elsewhere.
I've actually stayed at a hotel in Fredricksburg and couldn't tell that the footage in this video was from other cities. It's quite uncanny for me, especially since my town has only begun to adopt "modern America" a few years ago. I really hate watching the unique architecture of my town being destroyed and replaced by the new architecture. They even picked up and moved a very important and historically significant building in order to build something else on top of the land.
I live by Fredericksburg and didn’t notice at first 😂
Totally agree! I live on the swedish west coast and while it's kind of cool with tall buildings and all, It's not so cool when they remove 8 blocks ca 3 centuries old buildings. Do you know what did with the land? They built a huge mall right in the center of the city! That happened around 10 years ago when didn't live and I was also 8 years old. Anyways developments like these have pros and cons like everything in this world.
We live in a dystopia
@@mattball6136 same!
You should play Mother 3
Wendover really played the "These are two pictures: One is your locker and the other is a garbage dump in the Philippines" on us
Always nice to see a b99 fan
@@hrishabkumarsharma1355 Nine-Nyeen!
That one’s the dump.
They're both your locker.
He did, he did…
I've noticed this is why the most popular tourist towns/cities in the US ARE the ones that have enforced uniqueness over time - they have strict zoning laws or building review processes that only permit certain architectural styles that fit the "vibe" of the place. Some places that come to mind are Sedona, AZ, Big Bear, CA, Palm Springs, CA, Pasadena, CA, etc. Those places have, for the most part, retained an identity that makes them unique, and people seem to want to visit or live there. But I don't know if it's a "chicken or egg" situation - are the towns/cities able to maintain architectural integrity because they're desirable, or are they desirable because they have maintained uniqueness and architectural integrity?
So if you said he’s on the West Coast? What about the south central in the northeast?
Santa Barbara, CA. Santa Fe, NM. French Quarter New Orleans.
Im from wv and it makes so much sense that 72 percent of our restaurants are a franchise. Even our Irish pubs are literal kits you can order.
I spent the last twenty-five years on the road, watching this happen in real time. It’s depressing. And, i can report, it’s the same story in Canada.
i am driving for a longer time in Europe.... and the countries still look different...
It's the same story...but with 1-2 differences. In Canada, such services and standards are at least partially different province by province in a way that it isn't state by state in the US, such that one part of Alberta looks the same as the other, and the same thing in Nova Scotia for instance. My own Quebec is different from all the others in that the homogeneity within that province is in French, obviously.
@@Arltratlo It's not quite so bad in Europe. But a Holiday Inn Express in Spain looks the same as a Holiday Inn Express in the UK and a Holiday inn Express in Turkey...
@@Reason077 one reason i rent rooms in local hotels... only in a chain hotel, if i just need to sleep a single night... or just to tired to drive on, with my motorbike!
I think the consequences of sameness are felt on a longer timescale, too. Deprived of anything making them unique, towns also lose any sense of personality or investment from the community. It doesn’t retain people from generation to generation, it doesn’t inspire participation in local government, it doesn’t serve to connect people to the place they live or the people who live around them. Most places in the US are already essentially governed by large corporations because of this phenomenon.
Wow. Very eloquently put.
This comment deserves 10k likes
Here in Maine, it’s the same with Dunkin’ Donuts. You can’t go more than maybe 20ish minutes without seeing one in Southern Maine. And I’ve started to notice the layout becoming the same
I usually don't comment on KZhead ever, but I was compelled to by your example of the homogeneity of the Sydney, Frankfurt, Santiago, and London CBD skylines. I've been to Frankfurt and Santiago (and have seen pictures of London and Sydney), yet couldn't tell the difference between them until you showed the zoomed-out photos. As for the actual topic of the video, when I travel I similarly feel drawn towards what I recognize and know even when I want to try new things, which is the point of travelling in the first place!
Man, you really brought it home with "The difficulty is that the convenience and the cost are experienced by different parties". It's an almost universal problem with everything we do these days.
Yea, I really do feel like so many of the problems I see in today’s world just get traced back to “companies only care about profit.”
Exactly. Take pollution and CO2 emissions for example. The convenience is experienced only by the corporation during the polluting while all of the cost is experienced by everyone else.
@@alexrogers777 Well, don't ignore that the pollution provides the convenience of cheap energy to all. It's not like they're polluting for fun. We buy their cheap energy, regardless of the cost. You can't offset pollution blame to a corporate boogyman. We are all culpable.
For anyone wanting to do some more reading on this, the economic concept is called an externality.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet It's moreso due to misaligned incentives than profit chasing. Pretty much any sort of organizational system/ruleset ever created by people has incentive problems. Its far larger than just companies. And like any problem the question isn't about what the correct solution is, it's about which set of tradeoffs is optimal.
It reminds me of the first cities I built in Cities Skylines, where the zoning tool basically forces you to make every neighborhood the same when you are inexperienced at planning the city or haven't modded the game.
Unfortunately, mixed zoning is impossible in CSL since you cannot have Residential and Commercial in the same building.
I would love a multi high density zone for CSL where its 80% residential and 20% commercial, it would balances things out so well, but I think it would break the games engine
Ironic, since the developer is European. But I quess, it because they follow traditional Sim City recipe.
Thanks to modern architecture.
@@asantaraliner it's impossible?
Riding cars around Georgia for all of my life and now driving in them across the interstate, I do have a kind of nostalgia for those interstate roads that have the same 20 or so brands every couple of miles of interstate. It reminds me of the warm summer days I rode with my parents to Sam's Club as they took me to see their work places, and I felt the warm seat fabric and car air that just felt so relaxing to me. Also, if you like uniqueness, it leaves it up to you to find out what about a particular place *is* different from the others. For me this is made no more apparent than my obsession with paleontology and geology in general which drives me to find what geologically sets areas apart from each other. It's like the unique bits of a region are scattered around like a large-scale easter egg hunt.
Probably one of the worst things about 5 over 1's is that they almost always use a significant portion of their lot for car parking, usually 1.5 spaces per unit which could be used to increase the amount of affordable units or really anything else considering how useless parking lots are in the grand scheme of things
I've been noticing the trend of extremely similar apartment buildings going up all over the country for years now, but until this video I didn't realize there was a name for it. Turns out I've been seeing 5-over-1's everywhere. The more you know.
It seems to be the same in the UK.
We are flying into the sun in search of profits while we sacrifice our culture and art. Future generations will be wondering why there's so many copy paste, crappily slapped together buildings and studying how they lied to us all to sell them at a premium. The children of today have a lot to do in terms of leveling all that garbage.
Our city has strict zoning codes so when they wanted to build a 5 over one in my neighborhood, they only let them build a 3 over one.
@@tomfields3682 strict zoning is WHY shitty buildings like these exist, removing SFH zoning will make better missing middle housing that can be constructed by people on their own land instead of corporations making these mega apartment blocks
@@r3d0c Exactly! But at least where I live neighbors have input into basic design of buldings such as height.
I'm glad you’re covering this
Cuando yo era pequeño, envidiaba el modo de vida americano, casas unifamiliares, jardines, coches...con el paso del tiempo creo que he sido muy afortunado de vivir en una pequeña ciudad española, en un piso con un balcón, teníamos un parque enfrente, a donde al acabar el colegio íbamos todos a jugar allí, había y hay un bar con terraza donde muchas veces se sentaban nuestros padres a beber un vino o una cerveza, cuando se hacía de noche los niños abandonabamos el parque y este quedaba para las parejas de adolescentes... yo fui siempre al colegio andando, a comprar golosinas andando, a mi me gustaba mucho que mi madre me mandara a las tiendas a comprar cosas que se le habían olvidado, andaba en bicicleta cuando quería y a partir de los 14 o 15 años íbamos a la playa en bici o en transporte publico. Hace unos 30 años, al otro lado del río a 5 o 6 km construyeron una zona residencial, en una colina al otro lado del río, tipo americano, al principio fue un éxito, hubo gente que vendía sus maravillosos pisos para comprarse una casa con jardín y piscina, actualmente esa zona está en decadencia, las familias con hijos adolescentes no quieren vivir allí y la gente mayor tampoco, porque no hay ningún servicio, hasta para comprar el pan debes ir en coche y eso que hay aceras e iluminación, pero la subida andando es muy cansada, los pisos del centro de la ciudad se han revalorizado mucho más que las casas unifamiliares
Ningún país es perfecto. Pero como un Americano me encanta la forma en que están diseñadas las ciudades europeas. Están diseñados para ser sociales. Las ciudades Americanos están diseñadas para el aislamiento.
Yo creci en Panama, y mi niñez fue muy parecida a la tuya. Creo que fue mas por el tiempo en el que vivimos más que el lugar. Ahora vivo en Estados Unidos, y escucho las historias de como vivían los niños en años atrás en USA, y era igual que nosotros. En bicicleta todo el día sin sus padres saber donde estaban.
I like how you actually referenced Maine a few times in your comparisons. It seems like most people in the U.S think Maine is part of Canada or something and just ignore it.
The apartment I live in in Salt Lake City just got bought by Greystar and seeing the paragraph on the valet trash service is spot on. It’s a mandatory $25 per month fee, and you can only place trash outside your door between 5-7pm, Monday - Friday. I get home from work at 7pm rendering the service unusable and I can’t opt out. Additionally, the hallways reek of garbage. It’s ultimately a stupid money grab from a massive corporation
Yep, dealt with the same thing in San Jose. It sucks.
I'm in the exact same situation with my apartments in Texas however they don't enforce the garbage rules at all so for example last weekend all my neighbors left their trash out for the entire weekend, it's outdoors though so no noticeable smell issue. They are also getting prepared to force us to pay for spectrum tv that we don't want, on top of increasing our rent by something like 15% last year.
@@GamePlague in Texas too! I almost chose a different apartment than what I’m in now but, when I learned you have to pay $75 a month for a Spectrum internet/cable package and can’t opt out, I was like nah fam… lol
Everyone who plays Geoguessr will confirm that the whole urban North America looks the same. If you're in a regular American city, you can't tell at first glance whether it's in Texas or Alberta.
To be fair geoguessr puts you in a rural wasteland 90% of the time rather than near actual civilization, to the point where you have to understand the soil type to understand where tf you are.
if you're in a regular american city I'd say the odds of you being in Alberta are slim to none (sorry for being nitpicky but the opportunity presented was entirely too good)
@@b1g_m00n this is true...but from Edmonton to Calgary to Saskatoon it's the same story.
It’s hilarious how often this happens to me. The only way to know where you are is by finding highway signs.
@@b1g_m00n I've in Texas, and it was scary how similar Edmonton was to most suburbs here. In fact, most of Canada just blends right in with the rest of the US. However, Vancouver will always be my favorite North American city.
I think the problem is one of too much power for big corporations. Even compared to my visits 20 years ago, chain franchise stores have replaced more and more of the retail experience in the USA and a lot of Canada.
Amazing. You've told me more about the crazy "mid rise" apartment blocks in the middle of Fort Collins in one minute than I've learned everywhere else put together and I grew up here! Fun fact; those same buildings replaced 3 story apartment buildings. Think about that for a moment...
i was LITERALLY just talking about this. Almost everything in the united states is franchise. SuperMarkets , Gyms, Restaurants, Hotels, Movies, Aracades, etc. etc. The number of franchise locations far exceeds the number of local individually controlled business here in almost every aspect of the economy.
@@sweetembrace6706 yeah kind of but also on extremely shit city planning and building laws, which you could argue is deliberatly being imposed by a capitalistic ruling class.
@@sweetembrace6706 ok thinking about it car lobbying and such definetly contributed a big part to many countries transportation infrastructure, so youre right it is essentially a characteristic of hypercapitalist society
@@sweetembrace6706 you can’t blame capitalism, because Europe is massivley diverse and not at all cookie cutter. Blame the country it’s self for A) encouraging completely different towns and cities to adhere to the same building codes that might suit one but are not all all fit for purpose in the other, and B) the economics of your country that made private/limited businesses run by normal individuals and not franchises, doomed to fail.
@@sweetembrace6706 You think if we had a socialist model you wouldn't get the exact same result?
@@hans8205 Or more radically the left is so concerned with green tech ponzi schemes, they aren't focusing on the root cause of almost every problem our society faces. You won't cut carbon emission unless you start attacking issues with zoning.
I like how neighbourhoods in Finland are zoned to have wide variety of housing, to prevent big economic differences. So within a block or two you can see 3-6 floor apartment buildings, row houses and single family homes next to one another. Regular small forests or parks too.
So you think that doesnt happen in the US? I'm amazed how much people fall for vids like these to the point they really think its the same all over. Theres tons of mixed housing in the US lol. And better housing too.
@@timmyt1293 I'm sure it exists, but in Finland it's every single suburb. We don't have those cul-de-sac single family house suburbs at all.
@@MilnaAlen the single-family cul-de-sac style where all the houses/property look the same are basically the bottom rung of housing in the US currently. It's not the standard to design like that anymore. These types of videos confuse a lot of things tbh.
@@timmyt1293 Bottom of the rung, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Slums are bottom of the rung too. There's still a big difference between a country that allows awful housing to exist, and one that has systemically torn it down and rebuilt neighbourhoods to be livable and equal. I know lead pipes are far from the norm too - but the point is not a single one should exist in a developed country.
@@MilnaAlen Are you sure? No lead pipes? That's your criteria, has to be 0%? Oddly specfic considering they aren't really a thing anymore either. But yeah since Finland never used them you don't have to replace them in every individual home to hit 0%. You win, you're developed! Lol, I don't even understand how you can be so proud of your urban development, your cities like Helsinki/Tampere are bland, drab and boring. And suffer from a lot of monotony as well. So does rural Finland. This kind of vague idea of mixed housing isn't the only thing that you should focus on. You could actually be superior if you tried rather than just trying to feel like you are. I mean seriously the typical housing in Finland is shittier and more basic than the US, despite US housing being way too corporatized and cookie cutter. I honestly think you're trying to escape the reality that Finland could be much more fulfilling by assuming things about the US that make your living situation seem relatively better than it is.
As a local and native to Colorado, I appreciate seeing so many different mentions of towns or cities in Colorado and helping myself and others to understand these kinds of problems.
Traveling around the USA many years ago, I felt that larger cities always looked the same. Maybe it’s because I’m from Boston originally. But I saw the same thing in Japan. Tokyo and Osaka and Kyoto are unique. But all the other mid-sized cities (Sendai, Nagoya, etc) look the same too.
Sounds like we all can skip visiting Japan!
@@adambathon just dont go to the more minor cities. Kyoto and Tokyo are still like nothing else in the world.
"Fast food offers consistent mediocrity" Damn i felt that
Some how this video manages to be so depressing despite being only about architecture. Just that crushing feeling of sameness across an entire country is devastating. It feels like there's no escape from it. I grew up in the middle of the country and everything felt the same there. Miles and miles of fields with the odd small town that only has a grain elevator, church, post office, and water tower. When I moved to different midsized town all three of them have a similar feel despite how unique they should have been. And urban centers are so foreign to me that they are just gorgeous in person because I so rarely see anything like it. But this video showing how unspecial those places are from any other place I lived just crushed me. I don't know if that's just a personal thing or an experience anyone else has shared but it truly is such a sad feeling of uniformity. Like everything I hate about the suburban sprawl is completely all incompensing Edit: I feel, upon reflection, I may have leaned in to heavily on nagitivity in this comment. There are good and bad things to sameness. And that's not to say there are unique natural and man made features in this country. But what I feel is the problem with the sameness is that it touches everyday life. Sure, if you get a bit of time off work and know where to go you will experience that unique touch that is obviously still alive in America but you see that so rarely.
Why is sameness depressing? It creates a sense of unity and common culture that is so entrenched in our lives it’s extremely easy to overlook our similarities and sameness
@@saberur66 I agree that sameness doesn't have to be depressing -- major corporations are in the same place, and 50-80% of restaurants are the same in downtown areas and US states, but that doesn't mean there aren't unique destinations, food & drinks, culture, and people in each location. Sameness has its downsides, but it also offers convenience and ease of access.
Well yeah that bothers me a lot as well, though I do think it’s slightly exaggerated, I mean sure the architecture and layout might be the same everywhere but the nature is often very unique as he said in the video, if you want to recognize and appreciate what makes architecturally identical american towns different pay very close attention to the rocks, the plants, the waterways
You said it perfectly
It's interesting to hear that from an American point of view. As a European I've always thought the same thing about American cities, but largely chalked it up to culture shock. It seems from the other comments that some people adapt to it better than others but to me the soullessness would be just as crushing.
I live in an area where the only options are 5-over-1s or single family homes. I’m making well above minimum wage full time and I can’t afford either. You have to chose between $2800+ a month for a single family home or an apartment for $1400+ a month. If you can’t do that you have to live with roommates well into your 20s and 30s. This video did a great job explaining how 5-over-1s aren’t actually helping provide affordable housing
Love it love it what a great video, you have confirmed everything I have know for years now and I thought I was wired because I think this way or I was seeing in a autism perspective… love that you mention Oregon is because of the timer sales? Sameness is a scary thing but in the same time a hulsim feeling so many words and stuff I can say about this video love that you jumped subjects through out , shows how much effort you put to blend in all this factors … wow just wow … so I am not crazy after all ! Thanks man !
Im glad you’re covering this. Going on roads trips from Texas to Florida, everything just feels the same…just strip malls after strip malls after strip malls. Its just so ugly and uninspired. Why cant we make our suburbs more unique and have character?!?
read strongtowns and watch notjustbikes and it'll all become clear as to how it happened and why its so terrible
The video you watched just gave the answer. We can, but it's less expensive just to copy.
these are related but not the same issue. The reason we have same buildings everywhere is the efficiency of the supply chain and communication. Because of this, local building materials, building techniques and guidelines have been supplanted for a more efficient, centralized and universal plan. This ties into why we have strip malls, but that is also due to auto-centrism which is not necessarily efficient.
Outside of strip malls, Texas and Florida aren’t anything alike. You can’t tell me Little Haiti looks anything like Oak Cliff in Dallas. Miami Beach and Tampa Bay isn’t El Paso lol
@@WHYOSHO it’s on the road trip itself that things feel the same
I realized this fact after I moved to Japan. I can walk a few blocks in any direction and I can see something interesting, a small shrine, a home made store, a weirdly set up garden. But if I walked 5 miles in any direction in my home town in America I would see the same things... similar houses, cars, similar colored grass, and similar trees... All boring...
My friend and I spent ~6 hours straight just the other day just going down streets in Google Street View in a random city in Japan, there was so much to comment on and wonder about. I can't wait for the day I'm able to travel there.
Already the fact that streets and avenues are numbered instead of named.... shows the creativity in US..
Okay weeb.
@@a75431a and no one wonders why manga sells better than the US comics.
@@DeAthWaGer well American music and movies sells more than whole tardy Anime beyatch
Now do the hipster street with the restaurants, bars, art gallery, and shops all cladded with reclaimed wood that’s in every city
Those streets are typically developments owned by Californians.
@@wageslave387 its so damn true. Once quaint, small tourist destination towns in Colorado, devoured by Californians. NYC, plenty of evidence there, especially Manhattan adjacent neighborhoods in Brooklyn...Williamsburg is grotesque nowadays. I wonder some days: if these hipster-grassfed nonprofiting businesses that use trust funds to float----Californication people, if its some external force that just follows them or they deliberately\actively seek to create the same spoiled Cali-aesthetic-way of being boring every damn place they begin to populate. Like we naturally seek new things, new sights, new etc. so how do you get from "oh wow gee, hunny----isnt this town so interestingly different from ours, I love it lets move here! and in time we turn it into something thats unquestionably similar to where we are trying to escape!
@@senglomein5766 so true. Gentrification functions the same exact way as the Californication you describe too.
@@snakejunt its the same guy.
There is the same phenomenon in France around cities with large areas of franchised stores. It's ugly and it killed some stores in little cities who can't struggle against big companies.
Norwegian here to tell you that tomatoes can be grown here. The cheap cost of electricity and even costal temperatures actually makes it viable for greenhouse farming when combined with automation.
"Norwegian here to tell you that tomatoes can be grown here." Ahaha! - one of the largest Tomato farms in Australia is in Guyra - it is quite consistently Cold - but often good Sunlight too. Australia has 'fruit-flies' - bad for ripening fruit; And Australia is mostly too hot - But Put a Greenhouse in a cold place, it will be warm enough and most pests can be kept out - an excellently counterintuitive solution. [And in Australia: Bananas have to be kept in plastic-bags on the 'trees' - too many pests.]
Just like how Israel grows its own bananas in the desert inside greenhouses
@@muzzthegreat we have bananas in Europe, too! but i am in the EU, not in the UK... they need to buy your bananas, and take the pests as additional proteins!
I think he meant like if it weren't for all the automation and globalization we have now, it wouldn't be as common to have tomatoes on burgers in norway, maybe not even burgers in general pre globalization
They can grow there, but maybe it's not scalable because of the conditions.
Starting to? As a Geoguessr player, I can confidently say that most US cities, towns and villages except for those in New England look largely the same. The inside of a modern US place is basically devoid of local information, it's all just stroads and generic urban and suburban houses. The main place signifiers are landscape and Interstate/highway numbers which both are usually found on the fringes. Also, South Carolina has more church signs than US flags, for whatever reason that may be.
This might be why I always say that Im a north east guy because it has that "cozy" factor. Now I can define why
@@clomino3 The heterogenity of building age and thus styles has a lot to do with places feeling "alive", "unique" or even "cozy". When ignoring Canary Wharf, London actually is a great example of how to combine ancient, older and modern buildings.
It's the reason why I just don't play standard geoguessr in the US map - because everywhere is so identical it takes ages to find where you are. That said, I know immediately if I'm in america on the country battle royale
God the US is the most hated country for me to land on. Everything looks the same and the fact that all streets are so wide is so incredibly off-putting to me. *Why do they gove cars so much space?* It's horrifying.
@@user-qv4np3ur5w people with this attitude have never left the main highways.
I lived in Virginia until a few years ago and commuted down Plank Road for about 3 years, and your video cold opening on a zoom in of a street I've seen thousands of times exactly the way I remember it was deeply hilarious to me.
Still amazed at how all the big box stores do such a good job at stocking absolutely NOTHING in such a giant store forcing me to go online.
As someone who's recently fallen down the rabbit hole of urban planning and walkable, cyclable infrastructure, this is a jarring bit of nuance for me. Mid-rise apartments? Bad? It's important to remember as I learn about this topic that there are good and bad ways to execute the same general idea, and always aspects that I had not thought of.
It's not "mid-rise = bad". the problem is the consolidation under capital. They're not built according to need, they're built according to profitability. The scarcity driven by bad zoning laws make it a good investment for those who want to charge top dollar for something that's not that expensive to build. By changing the zoning laws to allow for more mid-rises, the options for consumers will open up, so rent will drop as more supply appears. Also since these mid-rises seem to be super cheap to produce, building social housing using these techniques would enable you to house more people for cheaper. Also, social housing blocks like these are great for mixed use property, something that's woefully underused in the US (and some other countries too). Allowing worker owned small businesses like bakeries, locally supplied green grocers, corner stores, GP offices, etc. would further improve the competitiveness of small businesses. Imagine not having to drive to a big box store just to go buy a bread. You just run down to the entrance of the building, and you have a bakery right there. If there is an alternative, people will go for the most convenient. So we should work towards making short trips by foot the more convenient option for small purchases. It boosts small business, creates jobs, gets traffic off the road, and gives the consumer convenient access to their every day needs.
people keep calling mid-rise apartments the same and boring but as if houses in suburbs are "Unique"
what's bad in the US is not the type of structure... it's the corporate landlords who set prices, and the local bureaucrats who zone them mindlessly. a well-run town could use mid-rises to provide affordable housing simply by having more zones in less expensive areas; and perhaps even lease specific plots to local landlords with a contract/subsidy to keep prices low.
I personally don’t care about their common look, but instead I care about them not being affordable and ALWAYS being branded as “luxury apartments” when they’re anything but that.
@@alveolate I think what is overlooked here is the role corporate banking plays in this. It's easy to get credit for a copy and paste building because multinational banks are used to them. It's harder to get cheap credit for something else. This is what happens when local banking gets bought out. We know longer get good credit rates for buildings that fit the unique needs of a community, instead we get homogenous one size fits all cookie cutter buildings.
I have lived here in Nashville most of my life and, I don't know if any of your stock footage included this city but I believe it absolutely could have. Long-time Nashvillians have been watching this homogenization really accelerate over the last 15 years or so. I guess the city is technically cleaner and safer than it used to be, but as I drive around town I struggle to find much of anything unique about it anymore. I have to wonder what in the world makes a tourist want to come here--chances are most of what you see is going to look just like where you came from. I dunno, it all feels wrong somehow. I don't know that it actually IS wrong, but it can sure feel that way
I like unique spots, a church there, a waterway there, bridges over it, the market place just passed the third bridge... if you know those European city designs it is always interresting. No huge straight lines [sure modern cities can have that] but curves, important buildings, history... You walk around and before you know you find another museum.
It's cause they moved the opry to a mall making it feel like a tourist town theater.
I no longer drive up to the small towns of northern Wisconsin because I drive by Walgreens drug stores every day. Same same doesn't require a 300 mile drive.
We are trading off our creative mind which consumes a lot of energy to more seemingly convenient life (convenient for now). And getting closer to Matrix.
@@MasticinaAkicta America is built for people in cars whereas cities in Europe are so old with such narrow streets they couldn't change design much even if they wanted to.
As architect, I appreciate this deep dive on the world economy around a type of building. Very well written
Oh yeah I have noticed this over my lifetime. You drive hundreds of miles and then the same 8 stores every time you pull off the highway. Its like wtf, why did I even bother lol. When I was a kid there was a measure of excitement in traveling to see different stuff and local originality that seems to have been lost. I'm reminded also of when a woman on my Facebook friendlist was moving to Florida from Illinois. She tearfully posted goodbyes to all her cyber compatriots online, and they passed hugs and cute little gifs. It went on for days. Finally she moves, and the next day she logs in but from Florida, "Hey guys whats up?" It was like geez whats the difference. Also it wasn't long her posts complaining about Florida began appearing very similar to the ones when she was in Illinois. Not like the old days!
I work as an electrical estimator in UT just outside SLC, and in the past year, I've submitted bids for probably 20 5 over 1's and am literally bidding another one as I was listening to this. Just before estimating, I did electrical in the field and built some. They do go up super fast, and easy. On top of that, those were among the first my company worked on. At this point, we have specific guys dedicated to these types of buildings because they've got the know how to be extra efficient.
I've done a couple these as well doing the concrete podium and foundation excavation in NY. As the video pointed out, within the building code, these structures occupy of sweet spot of low cost big return. Smaller buildings have fewer units making them less profitable and going bigger means more expensive construction techniques like steel and concrete core (as an electrical giy I'm sure you can appreciate the difference between running electrical penetrations in wood framing and reinforced concrete)
That's why they're great affordable housing. If you look around Europe, cities are mostly similar mid-rise buildings, except they're brick because of the weather.
I appreciate what you do, but this creeping sameness I have felt living in multiple cities throughout the US and seeing the sameness creep into what used to be unique and beautiful cities in Europe have made me extremely suicidal at points in my life. Medication and devoting time to plant native plants helps me feel I have some creative impact in the world. But when the drugs wear off, and when the weather gets cold and the plant leaves brown and die, the work I do feels meaningless
@Suspicious Bird I understand your feelings, although I would posit part of this is the rise of global communication and travel, making these similarities easier to recognize. Repetitive building design is nothing new, be it the Row Houses of 19th century Great Britian, the Khrushchyovka of the Soviet Union, or the post war international style of the Swiss Schools of Design all these trends produced cookie cutter buildings that could be placed just about anywhere. Even Roman Architect Vetruvius, in his books on architecture, laid out strict guidelines for the layout and dimensioning of buildings. In this case , 5 over 1 is just the latest in a long line of designs in buildings responding to external factors to dictate their design. They will fall out of favor at some point, likely sooner than later, as those external factors change and be replaced by something new.
I worked for concrete contractor for 7 years building the podium for 5o1s, it was easy to estimate since they are almost always the same. Concrete over rigid insulation loading bay, 18 or 20ft height level 2 floor, 12" thick with 3" slope to drain...... it was almost mind numbing
I passed up my first offer at an architecture firm because they built 5 over 1's in Phoenix, Arizona. The reason I entered the field was to combat this gross homogeneity that is sucking the creativity and independence out of humanity. I hope this becomes a large subject of discussion over the next few years. Thank you for this video.
Truly hope those principles are working out for you. Appreciated.
It's SO gross here in Phoenix with it, too. I drive around all the time and the amount of 5 over 1's I see with 0 life or creativity and amount of them makes me sick. We're renting a home since it's not like we had over 500k to throw down right there and then for a house. It was built in the 90s and dear god, the sound travels through this house like NOTHING. Wooden floors and paper thin walls make me hear every footstep and sound the person makes in the room across from me even with doors shut. I hate it so much. And I know I'll never be wealthy enough to have a "good" home built to not make every sound heard. Anyway, good on you for passing that up. Hopefully you have something now that is somewhat fulfilling.
👍
If you haven't noticed yet, the field of architecture is extremely resistant to any new ideas because of deeply entrenched nepotism and the like. It turned me off something nasty a decade ago when I graduated. If you can find an office that's willing to try something different, and advocate for something different, I'm wishing you godspeed.
I would rather have 5 over 1s than suburbs, at least
The building with the graffiti is not a 5 over 1. Thats the Denizen in Bushwick Brooklyn. That more is likely concrete or C block as per NYC building code for new development.
I really want to build a transit/bike friendly community with classical infrastructure. There's quite a bit of empty land where I live and we have room to make it. Perhaps one day I'll be able to make my dream a reality...
Another thing I think you should mention, for college towns especially, are some corporate landlords are landing enmasse lease agreements with colleges to force first year students to sign leases with them. I personally had to shell out $1,200 a month for rent my first year of college and later found a locally owned renter for $750 a month my last 5 years in college. This could be a whole different video, though, if you also paired it with things like colleges charging mandatory recreational fees and mandatory meal plans, etc.. Also, you could throw in average intuition rates increasing 7% year over year while the quality of education remains relatively unchanged. Who knew my college education would turn out to be the most expensive worthless decision I would ever make in my life, while I was expected to make these decisions for college before I even became an adult?
@wendover productions read this
This was video about standardization,not about colleges. But maybe he will make that video one day.
Man, and I thought having to pay $60 per semester to the student's union was annoying.
Tanner - good point! And I would hypothesize that most college towns have very restrictive zoning (just like the Fort Collins example in the video) that enables and encourages the over priced housing costs faced by students. Zoning codes (and city greed) play a big role!
College as a kid worked well when everyone in the 1700's was a Renaissance man, well educated in a wide variety of subjects from their youth and of course for Boomers who could pay 400 dollars for a degree, 10,000 dollars for a 1700 sq ft house, and had benefits. For Millennials and on it's a stupid choice to go to college immediately after high school. It's better to start working, build a resume, try different fields, find a company that treats you well, they still exist. Then after you start making good money, think about further schooling. Our generations are best off if we consider if college is even necessary for us (for most people it's a resounding no) and if it is, go after we're financially stable, college degrees are not the path to financial stability for everyone but getting job and life experience IS.
This speaks volumes to the need to be active and knowledgeable of development hears and zoning in your local communities. Having lived in Fort Collins and several other cities across the country, it is a trend I have noticed frequently being constructed in places that are uniquely different areas geographically but the same in construction practices. It is also something I see daily working in the Multifamily industry of the sameness of commuters across the country. If local municipalities adapted zoning regulations to help impact affordability and allow new types of developments, I think we would see changes happen in the future that would be a positive impact.
Local voices, even informed and thoughtful ones, will have almost no influence over politicians and bureaucrats. Investment capital has dispositive influence over councils, planning commissions, regional development agencies, county commissions. Individuals with concerns will be disregarded. Money talks.
@@fyt54321 I don’t think that is entirely accurate. I have seen many projects across the country either move forward or be overturned because of what local input is. While yes, money is a bit aspect, it is not always what wins the day. Local people being involved and active almost always has a bigger impact.
I hate NIMBYS 😡😡
@fyt54321 gonna disagree a lot of it is overworked municipal workers just copy pasting code from IBC or other organizations, I've seen and personally lobbied for changes and exemptions to be made to these codes on the local level where appropriate. Heck most of the rules around the U.S.'s rather poor bicycle infrastructure designs can be attributed to John Forester who wasn't a big money guy, but just a crank who didn't like dedicated cycle paths and wrote enough town boards of his opinions that they eventually got absorbed into USDOT code.
Alex I pretty much gave up on city council already, the residents doesn't matter, the townhall are mostly just a show. I pretty much realized I have to be a nomad, move if an area goes the wrong direction, never put down roots and just enjoy the moment and keep moving....
Amazing video as always, im always baffeld on how you can make a video like this.
I live in a condo building classed as a four-over-one. Built in 1979, it is an early version of the type described in this video, with one less upper floor than the newer ones across town.
It’s such a depressing thought that small businesses are harder and harder to come by. I hope that there will be a push to incentivize less monopolization
I Really want to find an old school hardware store, but unfortunately where I have wandered I have not found one. Sure big box places have tones of options but its all the cheapest shit possible and barely any of the employees understand what you are talking about. Family owned hardware stores have a few guys who know what you mean and exactly where to find it. More care and personality in them, plus they usually have cool old hardware sitting around that is still for sale.
If you want less monopolization build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods, towns, and cities. What is killing small businesses is the lack of access to them.
The government needs to break up these corporations before it's too late.
@@lars1588 that's not how free market works bro
@@bulbman2564 Or a mom and pop pharmacy those are going extinct as well
It's happening here in the UK as well. A new housing estate in Swindon looks almost identical to a new one in Manchester or London. Same design of buildings, suppliers of bricks (when most housing is brick faced, this is surprisingly obvious), same everything. Generations old local identities and design queues are being swallowed by Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.
Happening in New Zealand too, with houses. It doesn’t seem to be taking off with commercial areas though, they’re fairly different, although this might be because geography and lack of people prevent big motorways being put in, with commercial areas built around them.
@@theoridley9204 happening everywhere its sad just in my town they building the same building over and over again everywhere and if you move around to other city it happening to
I'm an architect and one of my designs is to make each building structurally the same, but to make the fascia of the building interchangable to make each look different.
When I visited Taiwan back in 2019 I was amazed at how many small mom and pop businesses were operating throughout the country. Taipei was a big eye opener for me and it changed how I viewed shopping locally. When I travelled back to Canada I noticed that everything looks "the same." I'm not a fan of this sameness and will be moving to Georgia (the country not US state) in May and one reason is to escape this so called sameness.
I wish you the best of luck. I grew up in New Zealand suburbia, which is virtually identical to US and Canadian suburbia, and moved to Scotland for many reasons, a big one being to escape the soulless sameness of the built environment and experience an actual walkable city. The UK is a far cry from Asian cities but we're certainly not short of independent local businesses
You can always shop online at Amazon and Walmart. 400 million other retailers online but every clone gravitates to the 2 mentioned.
Is it any different when all there is to eat are 100 varieties of Kachapuri and Khinkahli?
Ok Gavin.
Why would you move to Georgia lol it's literally a Russian puppet state
Interestingly, the use of stock footage in this video could be considered an example of 'sameness'. Storyblocks doesn't make youtube content but it can provide a look and feel for content creators to use . You might see a few seconds of the same footage on another channel. We probably wouldn't be able to enjoy Wendover Productions if it were not for some degree of sameness making this type of video a possibility... ... Though maybe storyblocks as a lumber provider and youtube as a home developer is a more apt analogy!
Sameness seems to be part of the human condition. Thanks to the walls being removed it isn't just the architecture that is the same. Walk into a school or a super market and observe the style. Then do the same 1000 miles away. Listen to music on the radio in the US. Watch a TV show. Shop for a car or a microwave. Part of us likes to belong and the other part of us is cheap. Society and Industry will cater to these. As these walls breakdown the system evolves and moves towards the lowest common denominator and in the end: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw
The channel itself is an example of sameness, sometimes I never know if I'm watching Wendover or RealLifeLore
@@TheLifeisgood72 true
Certain types of sameness signify what genre the video is, or the creator's ideological or aesthetic allegiances, or the type of audience it's aimed at... sameness in some arenas is bad, but in others we need it to make our world coherent
@@TheLifeisgood72 hitting him where he can feel it. Good one.
You said 5 over 1 and I immediately thought of Scottsdale AZ, totally wasn’t expecting you to play a clip from my favorite part of Old Town less than 10 seconds later 😅
When I was growing up (
The whole time while watching this video I just couldn't stop thinking about how glad I am that I live in Baltimore. My neighborhood is the anti-stroad. Great local restaurants, shops, schools, parks...all within walking distance. I truly truly hope that in the coming years Americans begin to see the value in restoring and preserving our historic downtowns.
But only if they allow more housing to be built in other areas, often times the historic downtowns are destroyed because its the only place new bulk housing can be made.
SF is unique too im from the Bay area
Even more than protecting existing ones, I hope we build more. The only thing preventing the construction of dense walkable downtowns in most cities are zoing laws.
Same I'm in Manhattan but grew up in areas like these, and a big part of my reason for moving to NY was I was so tired of franchise blandness.
One of the best things we could possibly do is take back our cities. Safe, walkable, interesting downtowns have been missing for far too long. This will provide incredible social, environmental, and economic benefits.
As an entry-level city planner, this is indeed soul crushing.
Keep working, listening, looking, studying and learning, Alex! This video sees things from certain perspectives and there are plenty of other views and prisms. Yes 5-over-ones are becoming ubiquitous and undoubtedly we will be building them differently in 20 years. In the meantime it's up to us all -- especially the town planners, architects, designers, sociologists, developers and marketers -- to find the best ways forward.
I beg you please make it better for us working people
@@jjcoola998 Trust me, most City planners are well aware of these things, but we don’t have much to work with if the city council and planning commissions (or whatever your city’s equivalent is) is made up of Karen’s who don’t know anything about planning.
@@alexbosworth1582 Planning is about more than what buildings there are, it is about where the buildings are and the relationships between them.
@@HesderOleh In practice, planning is just keeping the developers happy while somehow sticking with city code requirements.
a series called 'Crime' (was it BBC? ITV?) used the same exact set, including the views from the windows, to film episodes in berlin, london, paris, madrid. this worked brilliantly, but for me contained a surprising unease... or maybe not so surprising - I am old enough to remember when cities had particular visual character.
Glad to see this information becoming more mainstream
In the early 1990’s, I was on a flight from New York City to Atlanta. The guy sitting next to me was a native New Yorker who worked for a company that did business all over the USA. He was also Italian and we got on the subject of great Italian restaurants. He told me the story of being in Phoenix and the team he was working with invited him to dinner. They told him a great new Italian restaurant had opened and they wanted to take him there. He asked what the name of the restaurant was and they said Macaroni Grille. He chuckled, which apparently offended them. He told them he was an Italian from New York with several Italian restaurants so eating at a chain restaurant was of no interest to him. He said “it seems Americans like to build the same places all across the country, so that when they travel to other areas of the US they have that familiarity so it feels like they never left home.” Another famous quote came from the late Anthony Bourdain who once said “chain restaurants are the ruination of the American palate.” I was in Paris once and came upon this loud, obnoxious high school group from the Midwest. I was speaking to one of the teachers in the group and asked if they had any been to any good French restaurants. She said “I’m traveling with American high schoolers, we went to Chili’s.” I just can’t fathom why people find these crappy chain places so appealing. Let alone, how many mom and pop places that serve items that are made with heart and soul need support. I’d rather go to a local coffee house than support that crap Starbucks serves.
This, 100%. To quote the video: "The world encourages sameness. No matter who we are and where we go, we sometimes just want to be able to get quick, decent, cheap, warm food." While it saddens me that I have to partially agree with this statement, the "decent" part is simply wrong - none of the fast food chains have _decent_ food, sorry. With small shops, you really need to be unlucky to get worse-than-fastfood-chain food. While it does happen, I will always take the risk, as the reward is simply too great and comes too often.
I served in the Navy and whenever we made a port visit, I had the hardest time getting my group of shipmates to try the local cuisine. Seriously, they only wanted to go to the chain restaurants. They didn't even want to go into the center of towns to experience the town culture. Americans really don't like being outside their comfort zone.
In my town, 7 mom and pop restaurants closed this year due to lingering pandemic effects, while ALL the chain restaurants are fine. One even got a fancy renovation. I know people ate out less in general during the pandemic, but when people did choose to go out, they clearly chose the chains. The family restaurants that made this town interesting (many had historic value) are now gone and I can count the remaining non-chain restaurants on one hand.
It's easy, I want to spend my money on a known value. I have a friend who brings me to microbrewries and small restaurants. About half of them are any good.
@@trueppp I fully understand the concept of spending money on a known value. What I have an issue with is the "known value" part whenever it is related to big food chains - that value is almost always sh*t, at least in my opinion. Especially (but definitely not limited to) if said food chains are of the fast type.
This was one of the first things I noticed when moving to the US. Except for some mayor urban cities, everything else looks the same. It's incredible really but also kind of unsettling.
It would be one thing if it were actually nice, but it's just cheap, unwalkable, strip-mall garbage.
If one travels mostly by the interstate system, it's very obvious how each highway exit mirrors another. You travel 1000 miles and not really see anything. However, if you take 2 lane highways, you do still see many of the same chains but the towns you enter will differ and give you a sense of actually traveling.
@@johnchedsey1306 over half of Americans live in mediocre and similar suburbs surrounded by stroads lined with chain store stripmalls. Yes, the old towns of most places have some character, but that is a tiny tiny fraction of America today.
As someone who has been living as an American citizen since birth. Meh.
It’s the fact that the places that look the same look like shitcans that makes it even worse.
Would love to Wendover's take on walkable cities, bike instructor, etc
I'm not even American but as I am watching this video, I am recognizing every street like this in the towns/cities I visit in Canada and how bang on this is.
This is something I've noticed since I was a child. It aggravated me, because I wanted so badly to see the world, and see things that were actually different from what I grew up around. When I was finally old enough to escape the US, I discovered that thanks to globalization, gentrification and cheap airline flights, most of the world was almost exactly like what I left behind anyway. There are still places in the world where things look different, but now Covid is making it hard to access those things too. There's just no escape from it. It's like a creeping nightmare.
This is why I love visiting national parks. Cities always look the same but national parks don’t.
It's called capitalism and it's killing the earth and our souls
London doesn't look like Barcelona. Bangkok doesn't look like Hanoi. Cape Town doesn't look like Lagos. Keep travelling. There's loads to see.
Go to Brazil
Where did you go? There are loads of places that are VASTLY from one another.
Some cities have kind of started doing something about it, such as in Boston. In the historic north end (little Italy), Starbucks wanted to open a cafe there but it was highly protested as it would remove the character of the area by introducing a standard cafe rather than little local cafes that have been there for decades.
Hell yeah
Some towns in Maine have passed laws limiting big-box stores, and some have even gotten down to the level that the McDonald's in Freeport had to purchase a 150 year old house and rennovate. There are nearly no golden arches, and just two signs at the streetside indicating that there's a McD's there. Then there's Van Buren, Maine, where the McDonald's restaurant went out of business - small town, too little traffic, and mostly people went to another couple of restaurants instead. You can still pick the building out, barely, from the roof design.
A problem I have seen with "Any Town USA" is that they look the same but are never organized the same, and when you go into these areas, it becomes more important to use GPS. This is worse in areas with no landscape or landmarks to help you understand direction. I feel this when I go away from Colorado, have a set of mountains to orient myself, and go to a place flat like Texas where you have no sense of North. Consistency is nice when you don't know an area, but it's also lame when you want to experience something new or different. People in higher population areas with more of this consistency get jaded to their reality and look for more things perceived as wrong with the world. The normality is also dirty and abused, so the idea that we are destroying everything is much easier to be brainwashed into someone's head.
0:50 I knew it wasn't Plank Road... a few seconds prior you showed a Kyrstal, which we do not have in VA. :(
i’m getting more and more optimistic about the future of us city planning thanks to all the online attention it’s gotten from youtubers and other outlets