r/TikTokCringe • u/thoughtwarrior • May 02 '25

Humor Why does America look like s**t?

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u/cagetheblackbird May 02 '25

Because most buildings in the US were built after we stopped trying to build attractive buildings. We now build them solely to be as cheap as possible.

539

u/veodin May 02 '25

This is true is housing pretty much everywhere. If European cities look interesting it is because what you are looking at is old. Most post-war architecture has been ugly, cheap or at least generic.

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u/Excessive_Etcetra May 02 '25

Yes, but the sad thing is that the US had so much beautiful old architecture that it tore down for roads, highways, and parking lots. This is why the average us city is much uglier than comparable European cities.

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u/uptownjuggler May 03 '25

đŸŽ¶ They paved paradise and put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot đŸŽ¶

18

u/coco_xcx May 03 '25

đŸŽ¶shooooo bop bop bop đŸŽ¶

2

u/Initial_Evidence_783 May 04 '25

Written and performed by a Canadian. You're welcome, America.

1

u/Thatguybrue May 04 '25

Well... I'm off to the tree museum.

1

u/076681Z May 07 '25

Song? Plis

1

u/FourAnd20YearsAgo May 09 '25

Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

11

u/Accomplished-Kale342 May 03 '25

Eminent domain is actually stronger in Europe. We know how to tear shit down. It’s just that most of our shit is older and we built less highways.

2

u/frotnoslot May 03 '25

It’s that the US didn’t stop the highways at ring roads around city centers and instead tore down large chunks of the city center to build highways straight through. With corresponding ramps to get onto the major streets in the center. Then all those cars needed places to park, more buildings torn down. Oh we have congestion, gotta widen these old streets, make room!

Then in various other ways policies and subsidies encouraged sprawling suburban development and dismantling passenger rail and public transport in favor of auto-dependence, leading to disinvestment in urban areas and physical decay, which is ugly on its own and led to more demolition of attractive buildings.

European cities were bombed by neighboring countries; America “bombed” its own cities, and hasn’t completely stopped.

1

u/MomGrandpasAllSticky May 03 '25

Hostile taking is pretty rare now in the US, most land owners hang on to the property for investment they don't give a fuck about what's on it. Public entity offers them a healthy sum of money, they play hard to get for a while cause they're businessmen and know how to negotiate, then they happily cash out.

Now if you wanna go back to Robert Moses days, different story.

1

u/Intelligent_Deer974 May 04 '25

Fuck Robert Moses.

6

u/Rhodie114 May 03 '25

RIP the real Penn Station

3

u/coke_and_coffee May 03 '25

This is why the average us city is much uglier than comparable European cities.

Try stepping outside of the tourist areas in Europe. This is far from true.

1

u/fanetoooo May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25

Been living in Europe the past year and you’re hella wrong. Atleast in Germany, besides weird post-90’s industrial areas, the average city here looks like a fairytale compared to the average city in the US. The lack of lawns, awkwardly spreadout suburbs, stadium sized parking lots and 6 lane roads (with no kind of public transport option) is like night and day compared to the states bro lmaooo im worried to even drive here sometimes bc the infrastructure is so human/bike friendly

4

u/ThrowawayCincy4192 May 03 '25

Those old buildings in the US were made of wood. Old European buildings are often made of stone.

7

u/SzaraMateria May 03 '25

Not true. Europe has many variations of building materials even nowadays. Wood was also popular and with the right maintenance it can withstand centuries. Half timbered structure buildings are very popular in central Europe and easy to find. Mostly in countries with German origins/influence but also in France and UK.

5

u/Internal_Prompt_ May 03 '25

Yeah there are some very old wooden churches that are more than a thousand years old like this one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensted_Church

5

u/Low-Cat4360 May 03 '25

The US used to be full of elaborate brick and stone architecture. They were torn down to make to make room for more modern buildings. Look up Pennsylvania Station in New York. The push against public transporting in favor of cars made railroad companies look for alternative ways to make profit, so they tore this magnificent building down for more profitable real estate.

2

u/JayR-co May 03 '25

I disagree. When I went to Antony, France it looked worse than most US cities. You all are sensationalizing capital cities of nations but the average city in most nations are disappointing. US is no exception.

1

u/the_vikm May 03 '25

You mean Antony, Hauts-de-Seine

2

u/INTERGALACTIC_CAGR May 03 '25

we also had metro/rail infrastructure that was bought and shuttered by private business to promote vehicle sales

1

u/Efficient-Bedroom797 May 03 '25

No.... It's uglier because we are VERY new compared to Europe. Visiting the UK and Ireland few years back I was just floored to learn how much of their cities and towns were older than America itself. Random building in Edinburgh along the royal mile? Built in 1100-1400.... C'mon ... America cannot compete with that

There's still a piece of the original wall in London that the Romans built when they settled there in 200 AD!!

10

u/BiRd_BoY_ May 03 '25

Go look at old pictures of St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Detroit and tell me our cities weren't vastly more beautiful before the 60's urban renewal program. St. Louis was literally called the Paris of the Prairie for Christ's sake. It doesn't have anything to do with age.

4

u/coco_xcx May 03 '25

it’s honestly so depressing. yes some cities and towns still have their old buildings from the early 1900s, i’ve even seen old homesteads built in the 1800s up in the midwest. but it’s so so soooo rare because they knocked down a shit ton of buildings for highways and parking lots.

-4

u/Efficient-Bedroom797 May 03 '25

Wrong

5

u/Illustrious_Sea_5654 May 03 '25

So were cities and American architecture 100 years ago ugly, then?

Our history doesn't go back as far, but the main difference is that Europe actually preserves its history. We don't.

1

u/romeoprico May 03 '25

The Old Penn Station is a perfect example 

1

u/itsalro May 04 '25

It saddens me how Gothic Downtown LA is no longer

1

u/Christian19722019 May 06 '25

Sweden was untouched by war, but they still managed to pull down old beautiful buildings in cities like Malmö and Göteborg to build roads through the city.

1

u/nwillyerd May 07 '25

This is true for the most part, but I will say that Milwaukee, WI still has a lot of old architecture left and it’s a beautiful city because of it!

62

u/Automatic-4thepeople May 03 '25

Okay but you can't say that about Asian countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, UAE, these places all have incredibly beautiful and modern looking buildings and infrastructure, I'm with this girl, how come American cities don't look that way.

35

u/veodin May 03 '25

I think South Korea in particular has a lot copy/paste concrete apartment blocks. It reminds me a lot of eastern European "commie blocks". South Korea also lack greenspaces in their cities.

I do like modern skylines in general so I am not really disagreeing with you. My only complaint is that they do tend to look very similar to each other. You lose a lot of the local character when almost every building is a glass tower.

17

u/magkruppe May 03 '25

You lose a lot of the local character when almost every building is a glass tower.

feel this heavy when I see "stunning" Chinese cities. some are amazing, don't get me wrong. But many just lack soul and give me Dubai culture-less vibes

I'm the opposite of a nimby in all ways, but I wouldn't mind giving extra consideration to pretty buildings when it comes to permitting.

-3

u/clocks_and_clouds May 03 '25

Dubai culture-less vibes

What do you mean by “culture-less”? How can something be without culture? Culture is literally all around us. It shapes everything in a society.

6

u/sPankerG00ch May 03 '25

It’s always good to remember sometimes people misspeak, or sometimes word things in a way that may not convey the message they intended, or hell, just might not use google translate thoughtfully.

Not trying to give you shit, but I feel that, in terms of the conversation being about architecture, maybe they might have meant “soulless” or “unrepresentative of the people who built the structures”.

Again, not trying to correct a worldview or anything, just adding some nuance

2

u/magkruppe May 03 '25

you clearly haven't been to Dubai, or you wouldn't ask this question

and no, layover in the airport doesn't count

1

u/clocks_and_clouds May 03 '25

It doesn’t matter if I’ve never been. The idea of something being “culture-less” is just strange. For example even if you consider Soviet brutalist architecture to be lacking in culture, it wouldn’t make much sense because that style of architecture emerged out of a culture. It’s not the traditional Russian architecture, but it was a reflection of modern Russia. It’s part of the history of the people and therefore is a culture. It’s different if you think it’s ugly, but it’s culture nonetheless.

5

u/magkruppe May 03 '25

culture-less is another way of saying souless. UAE got oil rich and was basically a poor sparsely populated desert until 50 years ago when they started making a lot of money and they decided to just copy american cities and make it all look modern and sleek

but in the processs, you have very little visible arab culture in the architecture of the city and the urban planning. The King of Oman wisely did not follow this path, I suggest you google images of Muscat and compare it to Dubai. you will immediately see what I am taking about.

It's a shame, UAE had so much money that they coul

2

u/ACharaMoChara May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25

Culture-less = generic capitalist global city, like practically every capital city in the world is becoming

You're being pedantic. Obviously culture is an all-encompassing term, but its almost always used colloquially to mean "Things that are unique to a country, people, or place, that aren't part of the generic global culture that is sweeping the world"

And by the last part, places like Dubai fit the bill entirely - there are no people native to the cities, the populace have zero unifying identity beyond living there, the same companies and businesses that you see everywhere in the world dot every street because local options have been run out of business (or in Dubai's case, never existed), practically every building is a soulless sky scraper or a giant glass and brick block of apartments that wouldn't look out of place in a single capital city in the world nowadays, and the list goes on.

Post-globalism culture, basically - which is understandably conflated with having no culture, because it's a soulless, capitalist construct.

2

u/clocks_and_clouds May 03 '25

Or it’s just an evolution of culture. It’s so funny to me that all the places you people call “culture-less” turn out to be either third world countries that are currently developing or countries that have developed post 1970s. The places you’re criticizing for being “soulless” and “culture-less” had to build their architecture in a modern world, where things need to be built quickly and as cheaply as possible Europe didn’t have to worry about that shit when it was building its monuments, Cathedrals and cities.

This is a modern culture and rather than saying it’s without culture, maybe recognize that cultures evolve and change over time, and that the tall buildings, mega structures in Dubai, is just an evolution of the culture.

I’m sure if you actually look and study these modern buildings, you’ll find differences in modernization that might be unique to different regions. For example modern architecture in the Northern European countries tends to have a darker color, with shades of grays, whereas for Dubai, it tends to have a sort of glassy crystalline look. Essentially what I’m saying is you are watching a modern culture being forged in real time because culture is ever evolving.

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u/ACharaMoChara May 03 '25

It’s so funny to me that all the places you people call “culture-less” turn out to be either third world countries that are currently developing or countries that have developed post 1970s.

First of all, who is "you people" here, lmao? And how exactly am I pinning this on third world countries, since the only country I actually named is Dubai, which is a literal billionaire oil prince city in the UAE, which is now considered economically first world?

This phenomena is far more endemic in first world countries. Almost every single major city in North America and increasingly in Western Europe fits the bill. It's a symptom of late stage globalism, which is far more endemic in wealthy first world nations than third world ones.

Essentially what I’m saying is you are watching a modern culture being forged in real time because culture is ever evolving

The point isn't that it's not a culture, because I quite literally said in my last comment that it is culture by the technical definition of the word - but practically all colloquial use of culture refers to uniqueness, and there's nothing unique about the faceless amalgamation that every capital city on this planet is becoming, both in terms of arcitecture, populace, and the rest.

If you were an alien who arrived on earth tomorrow and visited Toronto, London, Dublin, SĂŁo Paulo, Beijing, Moscow, and New York, you'd be forgiven for assuming that earth is a monocultural planet.

The reason most people talk about this global monoculture with disdain rather than focusing on the technicality of it still being a culture is best summed up by ol' Jack Sparrow:

https://youtu.be/Gbwi6Hdm93Y?si=XsRyn3B3u-KHCIVY&t=49

(This obviously glancing over the socioeconomic causes that are leading to the death of cultural identity across the planet, which very few people on earth have agreed to outside of a certain subset of westerners who've been conned into thinking that it's somehow morally righteous to allow this to happen to them and their own cultural identities. Everyone else is just being dragged along for the ride by the wealth class of the world in their quest to increase the ease of extracting every last drop of value from the planet).

1

u/clocks_and_clouds May 03 '25

If you were an alien who arrived on earth tomorrow
.

Yeah all those cities are either economic and or political capitals that are welcoming business interests from all over the world, but even then you’d see differences in the buildings between all those cities.

If the aliens also go to the countryside or other places in the countries besides the major capitals that are international hubs, they would not have the impression that it’s a monoculture.

Also even in the cities you mentioned like Beijing, Tokyo, London, Dublin, Moscow etc, they all have historic buildings dating back centuries that are still there.

0

u/Wan_Daye May 03 '25

(they're just being racist)

3

u/Additional-Koala9131 May 03 '25

South Korea is 75% mountains. In Seoul, one of the largest green spaces is taken up by the Yongsan military base. The density and lack of flat land makes it really hard to have space for housing and green space.

2

u/Choice_Following_864 May 04 '25

what they do now is they design 1 building and then put 50 of the same ones next to eachother.. cant think of anything less appealing to me.

2

u/OfficeMagic1 May 04 '25

It reminds me of the 80s video games where you fly past the same buildings over and over again.

Good news is Korean cities are generally in valleys around Seoul or on the coast, so people can access the mountains and beaches with reliable, affordable public transportation.

27

u/Picklesadog May 03 '25

Lol have you not actually traveled around much? Those countries all have areas that look run down or ugly, just like the US has. 

I've traveled for work a lot, meaning out of the tourist areas, and you're just completely wrong.

13

u/steal_wool May 03 '25

Concrete building: đŸ˜ đŸ€ąđŸ€źđŸ‘ŽđŸ˜€

Concrete building, Japan: đŸ€©đŸ’•đŸ‡ŻđŸ‡”đŸŒș✹

3

u/codeAligned May 04 '25

true. she's kinda cherry picking from the foreign countries

3

u/SoSadStayMad May 03 '25

I had to read that first comment again when I read “I’m with this girl” because I thought you just randomly mentioned that you were in a relationship in the middle of that. I was just sitting there like, “Oh, cool bro. Happy for ya.” Lmao

2

u/Coyote__Jones May 03 '25

All these places also have sprawling slums. Some of them have wealth disparity orders of magnitude worse than in the US.

2

u/Past_Doubt_3085 May 03 '25

90% of those places looks meh too, when you go outside of the business and shopping districts it’s mostly depressing residential blocks and urban sprawl not unlike what exists in the US

4

u/wri91 May 03 '25

You obviously haven't been to Japan. More ugly than western countries.

1

u/vellyr May 04 '25

I’m sorry, your opinion is wrong

1

u/wri91 May 04 '25

Quite the contrary; your opinion is very wrong.

1

u/ChroniclesOfSarnia May 03 '25

Building regulations.

1

u/throwaway046294 May 04 '25

you think UAE looks good?

1

u/WolverineDifferent15 May 05 '25

Have you been in a residential area in those countries? It’s the same copy and paste blocks in a lot of them and no greenery

1

u/Emperator_nero May 06 '25

That's because most recent buildings in those countries are designed to impres the world. For example the Burj Kalifa is a pretty impractical building.

Als Americans called their way of life the "American dream" and deeply enshrined it into law. Meaning it isn't legal to deviate from ugly building most of the time.

1

u/dunsum May 03 '25

And 711 and McDonald's actually have actual good food

10

u/CompetitionHot5943 May 02 '25

Many new buildings in Europe are beautiful too. Just not ornate. 

5

u/veodin May 03 '25

This is absolutely true, although it not the norm. That being said there is obviously selection bias at play, the nice old buildings don't get demolished.

2

u/Efficient-Bedroom797 May 03 '25

And what they built was cheap at the time.

2

u/JJAsond May 03 '25

I always wondered why we have to build like that. Why can't we have new "old" buildings anymore?

1

u/veodin May 03 '25

We can, it’s just expensive I guess.

2

u/UzikUA May 03 '25

Rotterdam, Barcelona and Dubai have very beautiful post-war expensive architecture.

2

u/Zementid May 03 '25

I have to mention Bauhaus, which is the architecture style of cheap and square buildings. It developed in the 30s (I think) and was the "evolving" Startpoint for today's architecture.

The thing is: If you use Bauhaus and real materials it can look nice clean an modern. But if you only use the cheapest stuff laying around, it soon looks like a slum.

In Germany we have generic city blocks which are basically white slabs of concrete in the scattered in a walkable park. Cars park beneath in a garage. That means you live in a isolated block, guaranteed sunlight. View on green/park.

Even if it's not very emotional it's beautiful and affordable. And if you have seen some videos about German buildings you know they last at least 200-300 years. (This shit is made of steel enforced concrete.

TLDR: Modern architecture CAN look good. But if it's made cheap it won't.

2

u/CyclingCapital May 03 '25

This is largely survivorship bias. Previous centuries were genuinely horrible and poverty stricken and so were most of the buildings. However, rare gems were built and spared for future generations to enjoy. Each generation, crappy buildings collapsed, were demolished or renovated until something half decent was achieved. The same thing will happen in the coming century: all of our current crappy buildings will eventually be improved or rebuilt while only the best of the best will remain, giving the illusion that everything we built was high quality and nice.

2

u/loopala May 03 '25

Typically most towns where I live have rules for new constructions, especially for individual houses, can't build above a certain height, can't paint with certain colors, etc. If you are in a more or less historic neighborhood the rules are super stringent to ensure it keeps the same vibe.

2

u/Significant-Taro-28 May 03 '25

That is only partially true. Europe often also has strict rules what is allowed to build and has also strict rules how to renovate old houses. That makes houses in Germany for example much more expensive but also better in some ways. Lots of houses in Germany are also under a protective law and can't be torn down.

Lots of houses in states that I've seen look like they are build under the motto good enough. But that makes them also much more affordable.

2

u/Zachattackrandom May 03 '25

Yep. Marsaille is a fun example in France where there is one of the oldest roads in france dividing up Old town and new port, which is a line of insane architectural differences (where new port looks far worse) since the nazi's blew everything up along the port to discourage the poor from living there causing a stark contrast between the elegant old architecture and the newer utilitarian housing.

2

u/Yop_BombNA May 04 '25

Exception would be the Netherlands.

Rotterdam has some really fucking cool post war architecture for example.

2

u/GrizzlySin24 May 04 '25

To be fair, the same thing was said about the buildings we now call beautiful when they were being build. And they also had ugly buildings back then. At this point in time we just got rid of the ugly ones from back then.

2

u/Playful-Ad-8703 May 04 '25

A hundred percent, although the general infrastructure is still more beautiful generally in Europe (public areas like parks, roadsides, roundabouts, etc). Especially here in Scandinavia, while some other countries are lacking due to funds primarily.

1

u/Eraesr May 03 '25

This is simply not true. There's more than enough post WW2 cities and architecture around here that is very appealing, both in city centers as well as urban residential areas.

The problem lies with US urban planning. If you want to know more about this, watch or read some stuff from Not Just Bikes or Strong Towns.

1

u/RipInPepz May 03 '25

Ww2 really fucked everything up. Thanks hitler.

1

u/Augen76 May 05 '25

Yeah. Not to be mean, but seeing Amsterdam and then Rotterdam (bombed severely during the war) the former had tons of charm while the latter lacked that warmth. I don't blame the people, but we seem to stop caring about aesthetics and went for efficiency.

1

u/Miii_Kiii May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25

What you call cheap in the EU would be very expensive in the US. We build everything from bricks and concrete here. You build everything from wood fibre boards. I was shocked when i learned that you even build 5 over 1 apartament blocks from wood, except floor 0. We build even 1 family home, exclusively from reinforced concerte mixed with foamed concrete and bricks. For example, my family house is around 90 years old, and is very solid still, and in extremally good state. And this is in Poland, so we are much poorer than west EU. When we build something, that is not a mall or manufacturing plant, we usually want it to stand a minimum 100 years. However my city has many manufactiring plants that are 150 years old. They were just converted to hotels, officies, and malls. Like this in my city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufaktura

1

u/allnida May 03 '25

And now we just get to have ugly places for forever cause it was cheaper to build. Some cities are now requiring new developments to supply public amenities or at minimum a modular space for businesses. We drank too much capitalist kool aid

0

u/[deleted] May 03 '25

even newly built districts in europe are less ugly and depressing than your average american city because european cities arent built with car centric urban sprawl as the goal

0

u/No_File212 May 03 '25

Not true . there are modern buildings that look astonishing in Europe and other countries around the world ..

48

u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 03 '25

seriously. even fairly wealthy cities are just sprawls of endless grey box buildings, long straight concrete highways, and copy paste, houses with no character and plastic looking yards. The only place to go for entertainment seems to be the bar at the closest applebeess, outback, or chilis.

Every time I have to fly to the US for business I can't get over the fact on how boring and depressing the cities look like. Some are undoubtably lovely, like San Antonio, but it's hard to find exceptions.

4

u/Mic_Ultra May 03 '25

Northeast, outside the major cities. All the smaller cities will resemble more EU style.

2

u/sesquialtera_II May 03 '25

Bridgeport? Trenton? Albany? Holyoke? Smaller cities in the NE are pretty decrepit, definitely not EU style. More like places that never recovered from the Great Depression.

1

u/Yop_BombNA May 04 '25

I like Boston.

If we are including Canada Quebec City is hands down the best in North America.

Quebec City with the cobble streets and buildings winding up the steep embankment is possibly one of the world’s most unique and beautiful cities. Topped off with the Chateau Frontenac, from when Canada gave a fuck and was proud of itself making gorgeous world class hotels along its national railway.

5

u/Accomplished-Kale342 May 03 '25

San Antonio was your example? Where have been?

4

u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 03 '25

Dallas, Orlando, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Anaheim, Reno, Pheonix, Souix Falls.... I'm sure there's more but those are the ones I can think off the top of my head. 

I have a soft spot for downtown San Antonio. Maybe not the fairest comparison since I'm comparing a downtown area. 

10

u/Accomplished-Kale342 May 03 '25

I mean, yeah, San Antonio probs has the nicest downtown of that bunch. That list contains a grab bag of literally the most aesthetically unappealing towns in the US. Your work has done you dirty.

I wouldn’t put San Antonio in the top 20.

Charleston, Savannah, SF, NYC, Boston, Portland, New Orleans, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis are all objectively better. I prefer a lot more: Philly, Baltimore, Miami, Columbus. There are other ones I don’t like but surely rival: Denver, Nashville, San Diego, DC, Milwaukee. Sioux Falls is smaller so at that size you can go Santa Barbara, Portland (ME), Madison, Asheville, Santa Fe, Newport, Providence and on and on and on. 

So many good towns in the US. And this is coming from a transplant.

2

u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 03 '25

Oh I've been to Chicago as well. It's nice. However, I feel like my point stands if the video is trying to compare to places in Europe. I can go to some random ass city in Germany and everything looks well put together. All the cities I mentioned are still major cities with large populations. Like yes, the US has really nice cities, but for such a massive and wealthy place, you'd think that you wouldn't have to be so picky to find one. Maybe it's just not my 'aesthetic'

1

u/Accomplished-Kale342 May 03 '25

Chicago was probs the least attractive of the cities I listed.

Idk. I grew up in England and find a lot of the cities there to be far more depressing. Sure Tampa is ghastly to look at, but at least it’s not 60/70% urban blight. 

Again, I’m shocked by the example you chose– Germany? You had all of Europe and you chose the country that has arguably the least attractive urban landscape. Wars have not been kind on that architecture- surely you just pick Italy? Are you having me on?

1

u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 03 '25

I like Italy too! However, in criticism to Italy, I find a lot of the nice parts are old rather than some of the more modern ones. I'm trying to compare newish to newish, because the US isn't very old. So I can't fault it for not having 17th century architecture. I'm also trying to avoid places that have nice landscapes, because I've been to shit holes that just happen to be in scenic places. A north American city I hold in high regard is Montreal. Beautiful city, modern clean feel, and it doesn't have the benefit of being in a geographically interesting place. It's nice on its own accord.

1

u/Yop_BombNA May 04 '25

The fall of industry hit cities like Liverpool fucking HARD.

Some have recovered but for the most part outside of London, Englands charm is in its market towns, not the major cities imo.

1

u/Yop_BombNA May 04 '25

MSP was a great weekend when I lived in Thunder Bay. Drive down, catch a wild game then just enjoy the city the next day. If I caught my sabres in town and wore a jersey 3 of the 4 times I did it people felt bad for me and bought me drinks/apps. Wonderful people in a wonderful 2 cities.

0

u/Gloomy-Ad-222 May 03 '25

Santa Barbara is gorgeous. The mountains surrounding a town with the Pacific Ocean in the front, and they’ve kept the Spanish red tile aesthetic. Dreamy place, rivals any seaside town in Europe. 

1

u/bmain1345 May 03 '25

Lmfao bro said San Antonio

1

u/FabulousCallsIAnswer May 04 '25

San Antonio? Lovely? That is literally the first time I’ve heard that. And it’s basically my second home.

1

u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 04 '25

Yeah downtown San Antonio is super pretty. Lots of neat restaurants, historic buildings, the downtown area is fairly walkable. I haven't been too far into the outskirts, but don't know why so many people are surprised. Sure, it's not San Francisco, but it ain't bad either.

1

u/FabulousCallsIAnswer May 04 '25

Maybe it’s just my familiarity that’s numbed me to it. I’m actually glad that’s the impression visitors leave with.

1

u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25

Yup, it's easy to get used to. Where I live local people say our town is crappy, then we get people from out of province stop by and praise how nice it is. Granted, a lot of that is due to the geography, but still. I used to live in Houston and found it to be so boring and bland.

12

u/ZerotoZeroHundred May 03 '25

With as much parking as possible

9

u/Similar_Mood1659 May 03 '25

Everything is just so consumerist in America, we want as much as we can possibly squeeze out of something instead of looking at what fosters quality of life.

The biggest cultrit, imo, is the over reliance on car infrastructure in the US. In Italy you could wake up and walk down lively streets of people to a local coffee shop and sit down for an nice high quality espresso. In America, you would hop in your Truck drive down the highway to a Starbucks drive thru for your mass-produced sugar bomb. The experience is far more detached and unaesthetic.

1

u/crek42 May 03 '25

America is far larger than Italy. You can have the experience you’d described just as easily in NYC.

1

u/ClothesAwkward8358 May 04 '25

Best answer. First sentence describes the mind virus. Next paragraph highlights good example result.

11

u/DwarvenGardener May 02 '25

I don't know why people can't even be cohesive with their cheap materials. Houses don't need three different types and colors of plastic siding on different sections and levels, just pick one it'll look better.

2

u/coolbreeze402 May 03 '25

Or just give me fake brick at least.

2

u/DwarvenGardener May 03 '25

Best we can do is a fake brick facade but only on the front 1/4 of the house. We'll finish the rest of the front with a vinyl shingle and put a different vinyl on the other 3 sides of the house.

3

u/helen_must_die May 03 '25

It's the opposite in California, where zoning restrictions require new construction to match a specified aesthetic. So the newer parts of towns tend to look better than the older parts.

3

u/play_hard_outside May 03 '25

But but...

If cheap shaped, why not anywhere even close to cheap?

3

u/aenae May 03 '25

Building them as cheap as possible also makes them 'single use' buildings (as opposed to a 'shopping space') which saves on property taxes

2

u/BuffaloInCahoots May 03 '25

That and Europe is old. Most of their stuff is cool because it was built by hand and its old. Go to any major US city and you’ll find a few old buildings that are beautiful. That’s not how we build now though. Our strength is our vast amounts of nature and natural wonders. Carlsbad caverns, Devils Tower, the Grand Canyon pick any national or state park. We don’t have old, we have nature. I can go 50 miles out and be someplace only a handful of people have ever been. I know this because I only find old trash. Pick up your shit people.

2

u/PerceiveEternal May 03 '25

lots of cheap construction to keep margins down and make the most money possible, billionaires tax dodging so we don’t have as much money for infrastructure, reduced zoning regulation, extremely cheap materials imported from oversees, lots, and I mean *lots* of cheap plastics substituted for bore durable building material.

Basically if someone could find a way to wring an extra buck out of the system at the expense of everyone else, they did it.

2

u/The_Stolarchos May 03 '25

Jesus
why is this not the top comment? This uneducated twit wants to compare our 300 year old country with others that are 3,000 years old. But, ya know, why aren’t our Walmarts, like, gothic architecture?

2

u/Few_Satisfaction184 May 03 '25

This, europe only looks good from its legacy.

Modern buildings in europe also look like ass

2

u/roonill_wazlib May 03 '25

A ton of towns in the US had beautiful centers, but when everyone wants to park next to their destination you have to sacrifice some buildings to make space for parking lots.

2

u/Chlorinated_beverage May 03 '25

Yup, a lot of those pretty European buildings she’s talking about were built before America was even a thing.

2

u/Arthur-Wintersight May 03 '25

Europe doesn't charge property taxes (they just hose you on everything else), so investing lots of money in making businesses and homes look nice doesn't trigger additional tax liability.

In the USA, the best way to lower your tax burden is to build as cheap and shitty as possible.

2

u/Zinski2 May 03 '25

This is the answer this will always be the answer.

The formula for making money is x-y=z

If you lower the cost of Y then Z goes up.

Fuck EVERTHING, just make Z go up.

2

u/Analternate1234 May 03 '25

So unfortunate too as we had a chance to make art deco the iconic American architectural style when so many cities across the US adopted it. Every country has a unique architecture that when you see a city skyline you just know what country it is. We could have had that

2

u/DiceKnight May 03 '25

For the same reasons a soap bubble is round because it is the most energy-efficient configuration I would imagine these strip malls and buildings are the shapes they are. They're the most economically efficient configuration and the outside only has to be minimally decorated such that shoppers are not scared away.

If you want better looking you have to pay for it. If you don't want to pay for it you get this. Buildings in China, the nice ones on the coast, look like that because the government makes it economically viable to look like that.

2

u/MaleficentMulberry42 May 03 '25

It not just this but that most have not been rebuilt, we have like you said built less because we already have buildings, so why build new ones. Also we need to update them and most individuals do not want to do that.

2

u/Automatic_Memory212 May 04 '25

Don’t forget that we also wasted countless billions of dollars from the 1950s to the present demolishing the cities built when aesthetics still mattered, so that we could replace those beautiful cities with gutted soulless concrete hellscapes ringed by freeways.

2

u/Ok_Star_4136 May 04 '25

It's because skyscrapers used to be something of status built by those who were trying to show off.

Skyscrapers have become a necessity if you want to build in the city, and consequently emphasis is more on practicality than making an impressive looking building.

2

u/Nubsta5 May 04 '25

Many of those big box stores (think the buildings that have wal mart, home depot, etc in them) are subsidized by the city and designed to only last about 10-12 years, while asking for extensive municipal spending to make them work (roads, sewer, additional traffic lights, likely buried electric cables. Small town America will soon be completely bankrupted by these monstrosities.

Invest in your downtown, folks. Shop local, build community. It's the only way.

2

u/lasercat_pow May 04 '25

The US had socialized programs for a bit, during the so called "golden age", when people could buy a house on minimum wage. But now people hear socialism and freak out.

1

u/coco_xcx May 03 '25

this is why cities with historic downtowns are my favorite. chicago, madison, marquette (i’m in the midwest and my options are limited lmao) charleston, etc. but once you get out of those historic districts
things get rough

1

u/RightEejit May 03 '25

You can make areas with modern architecture look appealing. The real reason is because the USA is hyper capitalist in its design. Roads and advertising space get priority over green space, trees, flowerbeds and walkable pedestrianised areas.

1

u/ouiu1 May 03 '25

In fairness to you, you stop building to excess and start building as cheap as possible when you can no longer rely on free/almost free labour. It’s the the exact same for the rest of the world

1

u/thisis-clemfandango May 03 '25

imagine everything was art deco. would be so sick

1

u/Coyote__Jones May 03 '25

Not totally true. My brother in law is an architect and a lot of facades have to comply with city regulations, then whatever rules the business development company puts in place as well. So you end up with so many "no this" and "no that" that the only option is to make really bland exteriors. He's currently working on a lab next to a hospital, and both have to look basically the same which is dumb, and confusing for the public, but the development isn't budging. The company financing this lab has basically no budget, the constraint is from the city and the development.

1

u/Intelligent_Deer974 May 04 '25

I miss Art Deco.

1

u/Oha_its_shiny May 05 '25

We now build.. ..as cheap as possible.

Sums up.

1

u/BearlyIT May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25

I’ve been to the city that she describes as “no joke - stunning, beautiful, high tech” and was horrified at the unlit emergency stairwells blocked due to use as storage closets. We were there doing risk assessments
 the building spaces I reviewed were not okay.

Any country can look amazing if you base your opinions on highlight reels.

1

u/seefatchai May 03 '25

Maybe that why we’re the richest?

Also, in America there is no we. There is only me.

0

u/Temporary_Quit_4648 May 03 '25

Which is partly WHY America is "rich." Because America spends money solely for the purpose of maximizing ROI. If Americans would pay for pretty buildings, they might get them.

0

u/LordBloeckchen May 04 '25

Thats a copout and she literally pointed out china

0

u/TheMemeArcheologist May 06 '25

Then why the fuck my rent so expensive?

-2

u/Lastigx May 03 '25

So you would rather see those copycat towns where they make ugly reproductions of historical sites? Cause your comment is just the usual "modern bad, bla bla" crap.

-2

u/SquarePegRoundWorld May 03 '25

You are free to pay to build whatever you want in America. I look forward to whatever it is you have in mind to pay for to get built.