Authors: Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor
Date: March 2, 2009
Project: Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and Freeways in the 20th Century
When the First National Conference on City Planning took place in Washington, DC, 100 ago, the delegates failed to foresee the consequences of automobility and suburbanization, but in other ways they were remarkably prescient. They stressed the importance of the linkage between transportation and land use, understood that transportation facilities must be harmoniously embedded in the urban fabric, and viewed transportation investment as a way to direct growth, revitalize flagging areas, and link jobs and housing. Since transportation planners in subsequent decades kept this vision alive, envisioning a network of context-sensitive urban freeways fully integrated into the urban milieu, why is this not what was built?
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