The History of Highway Development

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Roads are not just one thing because they traverse places. You might be on a surface that seems like it's the same thing for 100 miles, but underneath you, the way it's engineered into the landscape might be radically different as you traverse different. Soils and hydrologies and geologies. The challenge of designing roads that would be able to exist in all weathers, in all extremes of temperature, in all landscapes,. That's a pretty big deal. And they go everywhere, which means that everywhere is affected.

We have as many roads in the United States as we have streams and rivers. Produced by Caroline Kanner and Jackson Roach, with original music by Jackson Roach. Edited by Liza Yeager and Mitchell Johnson. Subscribe to The Dig Presents, and support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig. Bibliography (in order of appearance): A Field Guide to Roadside Wildflowers at Full Speed - Chris Helzer Car Country: An Environmental History - Christopher W. Wells On Trails: An Exploration - Robert Moor Snell-Rood Lab Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet - Ben Goldfarb A Short History of the Blockade: Giant Beavers, Diplomacy, and Regeneration in Nishnaabewin - Leanne Betasamosake Simpson Who Belongs to the Land: An Essay on Camps, Blockades, and Indigenous Models of Remaking the World - Lou Cornum Further reading available here.