Exploring the social, environmental, and political impacts of urban highway expansions in Texas cities like Dallas, Houston, and Austin, as detailed in Megan Kimball's book 'City Limits'. The chapter discusses the displacement of communities, closure of essential institutions, and the broader themes of inequality and climate change driving these infrastructure projects.
Megan Kimble is the former executive editor of The Texas Observer and has written for The New York Times, Texas Monthly, and The Guardian. Her new book is City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways.
“I have never lived in a city that was not wrapped in highways. It’s hard for me to imagine anything else. And I think that’s true for a lot of people today. ... [But] we have known since the origins of the interstate highways program that building highways through cities doesn’t fix traffic. And yet we keep doing it. To me, that really fueled a lot of the book. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
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