1y ago

"Progress"

279 comments

Yep, thats what this is
- Yeah, I dunno why OP put quotes on it.
  
  My guess is OP is being sarcastic because progress to many people means more highways & cars. More construction and development.
  I wish we had more of this kind of progress near me (Colorado USA).
  
  Yep, lame.
  
  Obviously just being grammatically correct by putting the title in quotes!
  
  Luckily for op they can edit the title, so please do @tictac2@lemmy.world
  
  He was just making a point"."
  
  Wondered the same.
  
  He's thr CDU in Berlin. They want to reverse those two pictures.
  
  Sarcasm.
- It's a dream come true far as I'm concerned.
- I haven't found anyone adding the detail that the photo is a bit deceptive.
  The road is still there, it was just moved underground. It surfaces at the bridge in the background.
  It's definitely better, but the car traffic is still there, just hidden.
  Source: I live a couple minutes from where the photo was taken

Are you suggesting this is not progress? Because this is honestly amazing.
What's the point of water if you can't chill by the water
- All my homies like chilling by the water
  
  !hydrohomies@lemmy.world
  edit: oh wait - it actually exists?!
- This title is under a few layers of irony, there are similar pictures floating around of green spaces converted to highways in the US with the same title, OP is suggesting the European version actually is progress
  
  It's a worldwide phenomena. The "Big Dig" is a great example of urban space reclaimed from above-grade highways.
- I think there should be some shading structures around the walkway.
  
  Maybe some self-building ones that also act as a carbon sink.
  
  The main walkways and the bike lane are actually located in the shade provided by the line of trees.
- You know people drink water too right? It's not just a backdrop for your selfies lol
  
  Not me, I'm a purist. I drink only hydrogen and oxygen.

Why the quotes? It looks much better.
- I highly doubt OP knows what quotes mean here
  
  "Sarcasm"

Why the ""? Getting cars out of cities to improve quality of life is a major progress.
- The cars are still there, in massive numbers. You just can't see the tunnel they built between those two pictures. It's right beneath the feet of the pedestrians.
  
  At least they can´t kill cyclists and pedestrians this way and the emissions get somewhat contained. Of course this is only a compromise but on the way to car free cities it might be a useful intermediate step before we can actually get rid of carbrainitis.
  !fuckcars@lemmy.world
  
  That still seems better though. Less noise, safer and more usable space.
  
  If you're there, can you hear them if you put your ear to the ground?

This is actual progress. I'd love for places to have more green
- I agree ! We unfortunately are cutting trees in favor or roads in india !
  
  You don't need more roads, you need better quality ones :)
  
  Why more roads?

More trees, more happiness
- Less cars, more trees, more happiness.

Why did you put the title in quotes
- because the cars are still there just OutofSight
- c/unnecessaryquotes

Ah yeah they should’ve just done the American thing instead and bulldozed the whole strip of town to put in a 20 lane wide interstate with a Bucees and Walmart/s
- Should have bulldozed the whole Rhine
  
  They basically did that.
  What people call „Rhine“ is a heavily straightened and channelized artificial water road.
  Especially in the 19th century they cut off many loops and bends to make it more accessible for ships, to make the land useable and to get rid of flooding (narrator: „it didn’t work“):
  https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinbegradigung
  (don’t have an english article, just look at the pictures)
- Stop it! I can only get so hard
- The road is still in the same place, but it's a tunnel nowadays.
- America has done almost the exact same thing as in this photo: https://images.app.goo.gl/i6UN6uCZWBjUqNL57
- I think this is my first time seeing the “/s” on lemmy. And I really hope it doesn’t follow users here. We fully understood the sarcasm without it. It was honestly so much more a statement with ironic wording than it was even sarcasm.
  I feel like we’re better than this. We can’t complain about Hollywood and advertising dumbing everything down to the level they think we need and then turn around and spoon feed each other the most basic forms of speech.
  
  You might be able to easily spot sarcasm, but not everyone is blessed with that ability. Many autistic people, for instance, struggle to detect sarcasm. And comments being text only makes it harder. "/s" is an accessibility tool and implying that using these tools is "dumbing down" communication is honestly a very shitty move.
  
  It's sometimes impossible to detect sarcasm from just text, that's why Poe's law exists. You may be good at understanding sarcasm and satire, but some people aren't and putting /s is making sure that everyone understands instead of just you.
  I feel you on the dumbing down part though, but I think sarcastic comments are not a form of media that must be left only to be enjoyed by the people who are "better than this".
  
  You forgot the /s
  
  I agree with you but its sorta funny given peoples reaction to the quotes which im like pretty sure was not intended to invert the words meaning.

Why is there open and close quotations? Isn’t this progress?
- Because when the word "progress" is used, it is usually a loaded term with some specific connotations. The quotes indicate this is a reference to the word "progress", not a use of the word "progress", and it's intended to draw your attention to the fact that this change, while clearly a positive and desirable one, contrasts strongly with what is usually meant when a person says it.
  
  Nice explanation, jerkface

No quotes needed this is literally progress

The new look is sexier.
- I mean look at the curves of that beach!!

Yes. It’s progress indeed.

I started writing a comment of confusion because I thought I was on the mildly infuriating community not the mildly interesting community.
Overall yes this is wonderful progress that more cities need to adopt
- Most cities just can't really afford it
  
  yeah, car infrastructure is expensive and they should just get rid of it entirely.
  
  They actually can't afford not to. Walkable cities improve the economies of cities because people are actually able to get to stores on roads that would otherwise be swamped with cars. It improves health and safety as well.

Yes progress! Using the quotes there make it seem like you disagree that this is progress, which I will choose to believe you didn't mean it like that.
I have seen a few pictures like this from around the world. It's pretty encouraging

Yes. Yes it is.

Why scare quotes? I lived in Düsseldorf back in '90 (go alts - that was the name of my school team, and yes it was sponsored by Alt bier 🍺... different times), it's always been one of Germany's more clean cut, upmarket cities, but this picture makes me want to go back and check it out again.
Then again, I'm a queer transfem and I'm in BERLIN, THE QUEER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Düsseldorf is in the last instance just meh.
- Cologne is pretty gay and not far away. Come by during CSD!
- Why not visit Hamburg? It's like a cool version of Berlin
- I grew up next to Düsseldorf. I freaking love this city. Wouldn't it be so expensiv i would live there.
  Because it is a magnet for anime fans, i early came in contact with queerness and different worldviews. Düsseldorf still has a big connection to art and due to figures like Joseph Beuys the art community is still pretty progressive. I went to university there and the campus had a progressiv Atmosphere there as well.
  But on the other side the city is full of rich and conservativ people. A weird contrast. I would say Düsseldorf is educated while cologne is more open and welcoming.

Look at all the people enjoying the waterfront now. It's a beautiful sight to see.
That place found its humanity again.

Not sure why the quotes exist, but this is beautiful to see.
Better late than never, and I hope we can take these examples to other car-centric places to fix.

Nature is healing

ITT: why the quotation marks?
- No stroad

Damn, I jealous. I hope my country start investing in non-xar centric progress soon.
- For real. This gives me hope for American cities
  
  Most americans are of the mindset that cars make us free and anything public transport bad ! I doubt if that will improve anytime soon !

How can I get this for Los Angeles?
- We need this here in Brisbane as well.
  
  Ive lost hope for London
- Dreaming
- Public transit and shared autonomous car usage.
  
  Public transit ~~and shared autonomous car usage.~~
- You can't

Amazing place! I’m from there. The Rhein is amazing and it’s a great park right next to the old district.
- are yall ever warry of france?
  
  I love France they’re our EU brothers and sisters. Strong together.

Wasn't it just moved underground?

As an American I'm just assuming that road was moved to be widened and a bunch of low income housing and many blocks worth of historic buildings were demolished in the process.
- Don't worry, the historic buildings were destroyed years ago to meet minimum parking requirements
  
  They did that in my hometown... :^)
  
  Good old "urban renewal".
- Low income housing is a far better use of space than preserving "historic" buildings that are actually just out of code, poorly designed, and slowly decaying old houses that never actually had any historical significance.
  The needs of people who are alive and struggling today are infinitely more important than your nostalgia for the homes of dead rich cunts.
  
  You totally misread what I wrote, but thanks for the pointless rant. For a minute there it felt just like being back on reddit.
  
  Way to miss the point and go out of your way to be mean to someone who probably strongly agrees with you
- No, the street is now underground.

Portland, Oregon did it first. And they just got rid of the freeway instead of burying it.

It looks startlingly nice to me. I see no problem

I totally puked a litre of concentrated grape juice in that hot park in 1999.
Guess whose German wasn’t nearly as awesome as they thought it was…

The before reminds me of Portland. The waterfront is wasted with i5 and roads running through it.
- That's how I feel about SoCal. I noticed on Google Maps a lot of homes are taking up the sea cliffs south of LA. I always thought that all coastline in CA was public...

Every urban environment can be improved with the construction of a vague and ominous obelisk
- I see a cylinder bit an obelisk.

My hometown. Looks better than the old photos ;) Come visit us!

Always love more greenery .

Where are the roads? There could easily be a 15 lane highway right there!

Seattle did the same thing. So much better.

Scheinbar passiert doch etwas in unseren Städten. 😊

I can’t wait to see Seattle’s viaduct on here when the full parks, sidewalks, and bike lanes get finished!

This is encouraging!

I think we need a middle-vote button.

Hope Alexandria in Egypt can come to this realization some day
- That might take some time, sorry!

Reminds me of an old science fiction novel I read years ago. Teleportation had became common, so people no longer needed cars. The entire system of interstate highways was converted to long, narrow parks.
- It's so weird to me that for some people the only way to escape the car dependency is to invent fucking teleportation.
- What's the name of the novel? I kinda want to read that now because that sounds interesting.
  
  You’ll be disappointed. It’s a very minor part of the plot, and the construction of the parks is only mentioned in passing. The novel was Ringworld by Larry Niven (written in 1970. Sexism ahoy!)

I like 2019 more.

Looks amazing to me

At first I read the comments and was appalled, then I realized I automatically assumed the shittier picture was the new one. I'm assuming it's because I've never seen it go this direction before.

Why do we keep getting rid of gray space...

2019er Bild sieht irgendwie nach Photoshop aus.
- Etwas. Is aber echt. Ist ganz hübsch dort
- This guy said something photoshop related in German and I hope it is not a photoshop
  
  He said it looks like it's photoshop and not real, but it is real, it's just the weird lighting that makes it look like it. (Hope you wanted a real answer and your comment wasn't just joking, couldn't tell)
- Die Farben sehen wegen der Abendsonne und der benutzten Kamera echt ein bisschen so aus, aber die Rheinpromenade ist echt sehr schön.

Am I crazy or was there a recent post that was basically these two images (different angle, I think) with the dates flipped?
- Maybe you're thinking of the Egypt Coastal Highway that they expanded over a beach?
  I feel like I remember seeing a before and after but I can only find a good after pic now: https://i.redd.it/9mx2c8bgtb4b1.jpg
  Bonus sad view of the traffic that now fills the new space: https://i.redd.it/fyqnzxeuk3ab1.jpg
  
  Ew, that looks horrible.
  
  Oh so that's what it was! Thanks for this, I'm glad(well, technically not really lol) to see the actual thing I was thinking of.

Wow that's amazing. Green spaces are so important to our mental health and happiness. Really great to see this.

Put some of the trees on the right to the left.

Lima absolutely needs to do this.

The Gardiner in Toronto desperately needs to be pulled down (before people die) and replaced with tunnels.
The viaduct in Vancouver is being torn down but I don't think they plan to build a tunnel. It's the fastest way into downtown from East Van.
The difference between these inevitable projects and Dusseldorf is that property value in Canadian cities is so insane that developers will likely push for the construction of biggest types yet in these cities.
- I'd say riverfront land in Düsseldorf has developers drooling also. It all comes down to will, and / or corruption

I wonder why there is a second completely unused road on the right of the 1990 picture
- Here is another picture. you can see the church in the background. ~~The right side is the road to the houses, and on the left is the speed-way with 2x2 lanes.~~ It was (still) crazy back then.
  EDIT: I was corrected. Its not. It is the substitute road.
  Here is a recent picture looking from the other direction. Again the church now on the left. It was a crazy project but it was well received by the Altstadt/Oldtown.
  In the German Wikipedia you can find another nice picture of the Rhine-Bank (Rhein-Ufer). It shows the Steps to the Rhine in 1900 - before the asphalt rolled over all that land. Notice the church and Tower in the back. And today.
  the substitute road
  
  Oh I see. Judging by the 'step' above the road on the first picture it looks like there might have been a dock there before the road was built?

279 comments