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At the turn of century city streets were muddy, dusty and full of potholes, and
At the turn of century city streets were muddy, dusty and full of potholes, and the challenge was exacerbated by the growing number of automobiles. This brought about the ardent need for massive road construction. While the motor industry growth was strictly led by private sector drive, these vehicles have to use public roads. By the 1920’s a coalition of private pressure groups were lobbying for the development of new streets and highways, a move that was also supported by planners, which pressed public officials to bow to pressures. Delores Hayden and Stephen B. Goddard contended that the activities of a coalition of actors, including the federal government, commercial real estate developers, road engineers, and road material suppliers, have been far more important in determining patterns of transportation than the choice of the consumer. Most importantly, the 1921 legislation that created a Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) to plan a highway network to connect all cities of 50,000 or more inhabitants. This development on its own has spurred housing development away from major downtowns, encouraging sprawl (Goddard 1994 and Hayden 2003).
The 1956 legislation for interstate highways was a massive government program for road building; this policy was engineered by both public officials and strong lobby groups including automobile manufacturers and dealers, oil companies, highway engineers and state highway administrators who in 1942 formed a secretive group called the “Road Gang”. Led by Thomas H. MacDonald, the head of the BPR, they proposed a plan to build 30,000 miles of divided highways. In 1956 President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act providing 42,500 miles of what he called “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” across the nation (Goddard 1994). Mumford (1968) criticized such a move, believing that it was inhumane especially to the voters that brought the legislators who voted for the policy. Hayden (2003) also contended that highway engineers destroyed many older neighborhoods, most of which were inhabited by people of color in the process of creating routes into cities and towns. Again, the new suburban highway interchanges had great significance for local commercial real estate, given the 1954 tax laws. Historian Mark Rose notes that “the road building was brutal and speculation was rampant” calling it “federal funding for local and largely impermeable commercial and professional subcultures.” The actions of government at that juncture stimulated real estate development within new frontiers and the formulation of new neighborhoods, the suburb.
References:
Goddard, S.B. (1994). Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and rail in the American Century. The University of Chicago Press. pp. 45, 191. Goddard, S. B. (1997). The Road to Now. The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 553. Transport at the Millennium. pp. 36-54, 68. Hayden, D. (2003): Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000. Vintage Books, New York.
Mumford, L (1968): The City in History: Its origin, Its Transformation & Its Prospects. A Harvest Book Harcourt Inc. New York.
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