Roads are infrastructure so ubiquitous they almost resist noticing – until a pothole takes out your axle, or a landslide prevents you from getting to your vacation cabin. But their very existence – from placement, to number of lanes, and more – is also deeply political with profound local impacts. Two recent books look at the history and effects of highways on our towns and communities, and on the natural world.
City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways by Megan Kimble
70 years ago, Eisenhower’s Interstate program built highways through and around most major cities. How were the routes of these freeways determined – who did they displace from their homes, and how did they divide communities and cities? Kimble tackles the origins of urban highways and their lingering legacies, including a continued cultural focus on the personal vehicle as the main method of transportation. Along the way, she engages with grassroots movements calling for highway removal and a new focus on community transportation. If you’ve ever been frustrated by trying to figure out which streets will actually cross I-5 east-west, this book is for you.
Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet by Ben Goldfarb
Roads are built as infrastructure for humans, but they also have immense and wide-ranging impacts on the environments they cut through, and on the non-human life that lives there. Road ecology is a nascent science examining these impacts, and Goldfarb takes readers on a tour of their work – from efforts to count how many animals die crossing roads each day, to quantifying the fragmentation of animal populations and the spread of invasive plant and animal species. Goldfarb also takes us to the people finding innovative solutions. If you’ve ever felt a little sad driving past roadkill, give this book a try.
~ posted by Andrea G.
Leave a Comment