This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

What you're about to hear is the second part of a two-part series.

Part one was last week, so if you haven't listened to that yet,

go do that now before you hear this one.

But for the rest of you, here's a recap.

It was a beautiful image, a new image, a new alternative for living in cities.

Put the people up, give them a view, give them space down below, free the grounds.

It was a great image.

After World War II, Modernist architects offered people a new vision for urban planning,

a so-called city of the future, where people would live in high-rise apartment buildings,

and cars would drive on elevated roads so that the ground could be open for recreation.

Housing, shopping, and traffic would all be separated out into distinct zones.

It would mean the end of congestion. It should be kind of smooth,

nice machine where you're very comfortable.

These new modernist ideas for urban design were used to some degree in developments all over the world,

but in Amsterdam, they took this modernist idea really far.

The Belmert Mir, it's the apotheosis of all modernists thinking.

It was the best attempt to build the city of the future.

But in the late 60s and early 70s, as the first residents moved in,

the Belmert Mir was not living up to its promises.

The waiting list disappeared really fast.

The desperate people that start screaming, where is the subway, where are the shops?

...