OK, born and raised a Detroiter. Over 60, and here's my take on what happened.

[Heywood J]

39. You're correct. The last three are dense, (vaguely) midwest city neighborhoods in a city founded in

1793, which can't grow outward anymore. Those shiny new condo towers have obliterated the old city blocks on which they now sit, and you can pass things back and forth to people in the right lane of the freeway. The other photos just show the larger setbacks from the surrounding residential areas to keep down the noise and pollution. You probably didn't think someone would build a 20-lane freeway through the middle of nowhere.

My point was to show you that transportation in large urban areas can be done better than it has been in the past. The fact that a system which used the cheapest of methods produced an admittedly bad result in many areas does not mean that no one can ever do any better. Any large urban project like that should, by default, include some kind of plans to ameliorate any effects it might have, whether it be more greenspace, brownfield cleanup, sound barriers, a larger buffer to adjacent land uses, pedestrian overpasses, etc. We can't pretend that there's no need for mobility of people and goods today, especially when housing speculation and increasing land values push people and industries to the fringes of metro areas, but nor can we ignore the need to do it correctly.