City planners have long tried to make cities “better.” Sadly many of their efforts made cities worse in my opinion. In the past, cities generally grew up as organic places, mixing business and housing. But city planners thought they could do better. City planner segregates housing and business and generally tried to remake cities in to match their vision. Segregating business and housing made cities soulless and far less interesting.

Below are two pictures of the same street corner in Washington, DC–Check out these two pictures. The top picture is 8th and H, NW circa 1920 and I shot the bottom picture today.

(Click on the pictures for larger versions) DC circa 1920 was far more interesting than it is today. DC looked like an interesting city and today it looks sterile.

I’m not sure of all of the factors that lead to DC becoming a sterile city, but I’m sure one big factor was the city planners.

Today’s planners believe that we should no longer segregate uses. But today’s city planners hate cars. It’s ironic that in 1920, 8th street was far wider than it is today.

I should note that the top picture is from Shorpy.com. Shorpy.com is a photo blog of old time photos. It is very interesting to look and the picture and see how things have changed over time.