THE VIDEO SHELF · american built environment sameness
Why Everywhere in the US is Starting to Look the Same
Wendover Productions explains why American towns, retail and buildings increasingly look alike, covering zoning pressures, corporate standardization and cheap construction types like 5-over-1 buildings.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN uses it as a good explanation of how US zoning and economics produce sameness.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Wendover Productions
- Topic
- american built environment sameness
- Format
- explainer
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 4
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2022–2024
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
> Increasingly though, so much of the U.S. looks so much like the rest in terms of retail/food that I begin to feel the entire country is in fact a mall of sorts. Here's a good video on the subject: [VIDEO]
sidpatil on Hacker News · 2022-09
In Can the American mall survive?There’s a great video by Wendover about how 5 over 1s are a way for corporate landlords to spend less to build worse apartments that they use to corner and consolidate the market. Then, once they stiffen competition, they skyrocket the rent prices. [VIDEO]
maronato on Hacker News · 2024-06
In In Praise of 5-Over-1 Buildings (2019)
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.