Customer Reviews:
 The comprhensive analysis I'd been looking for July 26, 2010
ALAN R HUFFMAN (Mars, PA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was something that I had been seeking for quite some time. In all the discussions of urban transportation and why our cities and suburbs have the structures they do, I had never found an analysis that, for me, provided a convincing and comprehensive explanation for why things are as they are now. This book did that. It goes back to the rise (and subsequent decline) of mass transit in the form of streetcars, subways, and then buses in major metropolitan areas, the reasons why the US became the first motorized nation in the world and continues to be the most motorized nation, the unexpected impacts of both radial and circumferential parkways and freeways on the distribution of homes and jobs, and a myriad of related subjects.
It also tries to address where we go from here. The choices are not easy. Mass transit after 40+ years of public intervention is of only limited help. We have created a built environment that has serious environmental and sustainability problems with not many choices to escape from the cul de sac we find ourselves approaching.
All in all, a book I've been wanting to find and a very satisfying, if disturbing, study. I will note that there were a few text and table errors that better proofreading might have eliminated, but they didn't really distract from the thrust of the arguments presented.
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