The Interstate System

One of the most consequential (of course by consequential I mean both good and bad consequences) pieces of legislation in the United States in the 20th century has been the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 (or the National Interstate and Defense Highway Act). From its inception until it was officially ended in 1990 the US constructed more then 40000 miles of interstate and is the largest public works project in US history. City life in the United States has been drastically altered by the presence of the Interstate System.

What makes the Interstate system so unique (a lot of countries have freeway systems, ours was inspired in many ways by the German Autobahn system.) is the fact that the freeway system doesn't just connect cities but actually runs into the center of most major cities as opposed to going to the edge of the city and then circling around. This choice was made because it was reasoned that it would benefit a great deal more people if it serviced the inner cities as well as out going traffic. this however brought in a serious problem: there is not a great deal of extra space in the center of a city to build a massive new road and interchanges so space had to be made instead. Some people insisted that the interstate routes should follow the railway routes already built in the city but bottom line consideration forced the decision to in fact build them on the cheapest land possible, this of course meant building right through the poorest areas of town.

The states therefore went forward with the construction of the freeways destroying block after block of homes in their quest for downtown access. This probably resulted in the most devastating consequences of the interstate system: the destruction of the intercity neighborhoods. Humans of course have social needs that extend outside of the familial structure often small towns fulfill this need. Allowing people to interact and providing a strong social safety net the is built up though the connected and intimate nature of the relationships built up in the community. A large city often fulfilled that need through its neighborhoods which often took on the characterizations of small communities in a large city. Obviously a neighborhood is not a direct equivalent of a small town, but it often served as the most prominent social world for the people who live there. When the interstates were built they plowed through the blocks without any consideration to where the neighborhoods. Now think about this a strong community is in a few short months, even weeks, ripped out of its foundations. People are now separated from their schools, churches and grocery stores by a chasm a block wide and many blocks long. A 15 minute walk turns into a 30 minute trek and close neighbors are now completely cut off. This destroyed the fabric of life that had sustained these people for many years.

This effect mainly affected the low income neighborhoods and people, but the middle and upper classes wrenched themselves out of their own social situations because the interstates now allowed them to move further and further out of the city contributing to urban sprawl, intense traffic jams and a vacuum of tax income for the central city while also sucking industrial jobs and services out with them further exacerbating the inner-city problems. This not to say that pre-interstate cities were urban utopias, but it is important to be realistic about the effects of the interstate on our cities.

There have been positive effects from the interstate as well. Can you imagine having to drive from Boston to LA if you had to go through thousands of little towns along the way? Now little towns are a joy to go through when you are looking for an interesting and unique place to eat, but if you are just driving though, having to slow down to 25 mph every 10 miles starts to really get on one's nerves. The ability to (theoretically) drive from one coast to the other without stopping once that is pretty convenient and it has allowed many people access to some of the wonderful treasures this country has to offer, but we must remember the mistakes we have made, in order to better correct those problems and also so that we don't make these mistakes again.