Top products from r/UrbanHell

We found 10 product mentions on r/UrbanHell. We ranked the 9 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top comments that mention products on r/UrbanHell:

u/qmm24 · 5 pointsr/UrbanHell

Check out this book, I’ve lived in NYC for several years and this is the best comprehensive analysis I’ve read
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250160073/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_JdVKDbJ3TRRYV

u/snapmehummingbirdeb · 32 pointsr/UrbanHell

You can't explain India in a sentence or two and you can't grasp it in a few days vacation.

India is the type of place that requires studying to get. It requires actual dedication to understand all the layers it holds. It is so ancient is seems alien to most of us.

I recommend this book to anyone who really wants to understand India before they go or if they never plan on going: https://www.amazon.com/India-Mutinies-V-S-Naipaul/dp/0307739732

u/tommywalsh666 · 82 pointsr/UrbanHell

I have a coffee table book full of stuff like this. It's called Boring Postcards USA. Lots of nondescript office towers, concrete block motels, strip malls with acres of parking, etc.

u/nildicit · 3 pointsr/UrbanHell

This is from Michael Wolf's "Architecture of Density" and no, it's not nearly as bad as it looks; in fact, most middle class Hong Kong residents live in these tower blocks, and the waiting list to get in them is very long. This is actually desirable in terms of living, knowing how limited and expensive space is on the peninsula. The lot of Michael Wolf's photography deals in forced perspective, so saying it's /r/urbanhell does it a but of a disservice.

u/LordDinglebury · 19 pointsr/UrbanHell

Thanks, will definitely check that out!

Also responding here for /u/rock_lobsterrr since they asked for some recos as well.

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson is about a deadly cholera outbreak in Victorian London. The disease killed so many that it led to the creation of the Bazalgette sewer system that London still uses today.

New York: An Illustrated History by Ric Burns, Lisa Ades, and James Sanders is a beast of a coffee table book that outlines the comprehensive history of Manhattan from swampland backwater to thriving modern metropolis. It's chock full of some fantastic stories, including the one about two reclusive brothers who were found dead in a brownstone that was heavily booby-trapped. (One was invalid, and the other was killed by his own booby traps.) The whole book is a lovingly-created tapestry of New York's ambitious, brutal, and just plain weird history.

That's all I got for now, but if I remember something else, I'll add it to my comment.

u/TeeBryanToo · 50 pointsr/UrbanHell

OP HERE: This is my former bedroom window (current, captured in Google Earth), where we were living when I was born in 1964. The building is at N. 35th & Lisbon Ave., in the Washington Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisc., USA.




I have no memory of living here. By the time I was a toddler, my parents had moved us to a suburb, Brown Deer, where I could have a backyard and streets to bike on. But they felt torn about leaving what was then a dream neighborhood.




My folks lived in this apartment, above a hardware store, from the mid-1950s until 1965. They adored it. In those days, this area on Milwaukee's Near North Side was then a bustling hub where residents walked to a grocery store, a movie theater, and a bakery. Downtown Milwaukee was a 5-minute drive.




My relatives have told me how "classy" our little place was, with an "Oriental" theme in black, white and red. (Mom and dad always had great taste in decor!) It was the kind of apartment and neighborhood I'd love to live in today -- how I wish I could remember!




Or really, I wish I still lived there -- and that nothing had changed. So -- my (white) father had been President of the Milwaukee Jazz Society, and so many of my (white) parents' friends were black, I grew up in a bubble. Brown Deer was always a comparatively mixed suburb, hence my white ignorance of Milwaukee's hypersegregation and particular institutional racism, until I was older (and living elsewhere).




For decades now, the "Near North Side" of Milwaukee has been synonymous with "the black area" or the slum (called "The Core" by Milwaukeeans). Also for several decades, Milwaukee has been the most racially segregated city in the nation.(*) Almost 45% of Milwaukeeeans are white, but 80% of them live in the suburbs -- and only 9% of Milwaukee's blacks do. Living conditions for blacks are actually worse there, in many metrics, than in "The Deep South." (**)




Today, this building is one of the few structures remaining on a block mostly razed in the 1980s due to the crack epidemic. The poverty rate exceeds 60%. In 2018, this 128-acre neighborhood reported 159 burglaries, 414 counts of assault, and 464 "counts of shooting." The adjacent zipcode has the notorious distinction of having the highest percentage of incarcerated adults in the U.S.(***)




To illustrate the low property value there, I compared two similar homes for sale on Zillow -- one on my old block, and one close to where I live now (in Madison, about 70 miles away). A 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house built in the 1930s is listed for $800,000 here ... and for $16,000 in my old neighborhood.




I turned 55 last week, and amazingly, I've only seen this building one time as an adult. Some years back, I drove into the neighborhood, parked my car kitty-corner, and got out of my car with a 35mm camera.




I managed only a couple of shots before a middle-aged woman inquired what I was doing. I told her I'd lived there as a baby, but couldn't remember it. In true friendliness and concern, she told me it was unwise for me to be there. That's why I got this photo on Google.




I always considered myself sort of "woke," but I realized how truly clueless I was about the level of institutional racism, particularly around housing issues in the Midwest, when I read the book "Sundown Towns: the Hidden Dimension of Racism in America." (+) It shocked and humbled me. It helped me to understand what happened to my old neighborhood and why it became an "urban hell."




(*) https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/milwaukee-shows-what-segregation-does-to-american-cities.html




(**) https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/05/390723644/why-is-milwaukee-so-bad-for-black-people




(***) https://www.milwaukee53206.com/




(+) https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-American/dp/0743294483