noteworthy wrote:
"Twentieth-Century Sprawl" explains important -- and largely unexamined -- changes in the American landscape.

An illuminating look at how highways have dramatically transformed American communities, aiding growth and development in unsettled areas and undermining existing urban centers.

The book takes a "follow the money" approach to show how government policies -- from as early as the 1890s -- subsidized the spread of cities and fueled a chronic nationwide dependence on cars and roadbuilding, with little regard for expense, efficiency, ecological damage, or social equity. As federal, state, and local governments invested in toll-free highways, Americans moved in unprecedented numbers to newly accessible open land on the urban periphery. The consequence was the collapse of center cities, ballooning municipal debt, and rapidly increasing air pollution, not to mention profound changes in American society and culture.

Wow, I love the "blame the government" approach. Welcome to a fresh installment of total bullshit. If you want to point at something, point at Detroit, and their move form conception forward to push their product, with a mutually exclusive mindset. 100 years ago, the United States had the greatest mass transit system in the world, both within, and between cities.

But that doesn't sell cars, so the passenger and transport trains were crippled, and the streetcars were dismantled. You now NEED a car to get anywhere.

Blaming government is nice, but let's not forget who was bribing these guys to do what they wanted, or who were doing things to best serve their constituents (pick ANY rep from Michigan for the last 80 years, and you can pretty much count on them to back the car industry, either from the side of ownership or the UAW, both sides want cars).