Exploring the historical and current impacts of urban highways, the chapter delves into issues of environmental degradation, social injustices, and imbalanced funding towards highways. The speaker reflects on the history of the interstate highway system, revealing the motivations behind its creation and the unintended consequences that continue to shape urban landscapes.
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.”
Show notes:
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