Part A--Look up the definitions to, or find some information about, the following
before you start the reading (these can be informal notes):
Macadam— Broken stone of even size used in successively compacted layers for surfacing roads and paths, and typically bound with tar or bitumen.
Subsidy—
Flat fare—
Robert Moses—
Henry Ford—
Mass transit—
Horse cars—
Trolleys--
Hinterland--
FHA—
VA--
Mortgage--
Beltway—
Red-lining---
Edge city—
Lobbying interests--
1956 Interstate Highway Act--
Part B--Be prepared to answer the following in our class discussion:
Why is Henry Ford such an important figure in this history?
Henry Ford made the cars affordable to the millions of people. The new cars cheap and reliable and the assembly lines made the production much faster and more efficient. The development of the automotive industry had a great impact on the development of the American economy and society.
What profession tended to dominate city planning boards in the early 20th century U.S.? And why is that significant?
Realtors, car dealers and other stakeholders that were not interested in the long-term development of the cities were the members of the city planning boards.
Why was the automobile the “most potent influence on the rise of local taxes between 1913 and 1930?”
The local people, who were mostly the working class, had to pay more taxes, because construction of the new roads and other public infrastructure was very expensive. The cities did not have enough resources to cover the expenditures.
What are all the ways in which the explosion of the suburbs hurt the inner cities of the United States?
Development of the suburbs had a very negative impact on the inner cities, because the people had to buy the cars in order to commute and it led to the situation when the public transport such as streetcars and buses became inconvenient and low quality. Moreover, the urban and cultural life suffered too and the poor districts or ghettos started to emerge, because the middle class people moved to the suburbs. There were some other negative consequences such as ineffective use of the fuel resources, ineffective management of inner cities and absence of the long-term vision because of the immediate profits related to the construction and car sales.
What was the impact of automotive travel/internal combustion machines on American Agriculture in the 1920’s?
Productivity of agriculture increased sharply and the farms faced the problem of overproduction. In addition, agriculture did not need as much labor force as before. Therefore a lot of people who lived in the rural areas moved to the urban areas. The family owned farms were mainly replaced with the large agricultural businesses that exploited the land without thinking about the soil erosion.
T/F Cars caused the Great Depression (be able to defend your answer).
The cars did not cause the Great Depression. The economic crisis started due to the failures in the stock market, barriers in the international trade, and ineffective work of the government that limited the money supply. At the same time, automation of production and agriculture led to the rapid growth of output, but the demand was not equal to the supply. There was only certain indirect negative impact of the cars on the economic situation in the country.
PART C---Explain the following quotes (what is the author talking about?)
“The projects Robert Moses built set the pattern for imposing the automobile on cities all over America, and for destroying the countryside that surrounded cities.”
Robert Moses believed that private cars had to be the main type of transport and he did not care about the development of the rail transport or public transport. In order to build the new roads for the better car traffic, he applied all kinds of measures. During his career approximately 250,000 people were evicted from their homes so that the new roads and suburbs could be built. Thanks to Robert Moses, some quiet rural places were transformed into the places where the middle-class city dwellers could spend their leisure time or live. As the result, the countryside around the cities changed dramatically. The large number of the new roads caused the development of the suburbs around the cities in the 1920s-1960s.
On the principle of traffic generation—“As a mathematical rule . . . any highway built to alleviate congestion on an earlier existing road, would only succeed in generating a larger aggregate amount of traffic for all roads.”
This quote means that the problems of congestion cannot be resolved by means of the larger number of roads. The new improved roads make driving more convenient and popular. So after the new roads are built, soon the car traffic increases. Therefore, city planners have to think of the other methods that could help to control or limit the traffic, for example paid roads, higher taxes, better and cheaper public transport, etc.
“The superhighways not only drained [cities] of their few remaining taxpaying residents, but in many cases the new beltways became physical barriers, “Chinese walls” sealing off the disintegrating cities from their dynamic outlands.”
The new beltways and road systems led to the disintegration of the different city districts and outflow of the businesses to the outskirts or the suburbs where they could pay fewer taxes and get access to the large number of customers. The new convenience stores and other large shops were opened. Thus the suburban culture and economy was created and those who stayed in the cities were likely to live in the run-down areas that often reminded ghettos.
“. . . Not everyone failed to notice that the end product of all this furious commerce for-it’s own sake was a trashy and preposterous human habitat with no future.” (p. 108)
In the late 1960s there were many protest movements against the cultural values that the American society was based on. The counterculture of the 1960s led to the rise of alternative lifestyles that rejected the importance of the material goods as a source of happiness. Nevertheless, the protests were not able to make the profound societal changes and approaches to the city planning and reliance on the cars remained to be dominant in shaping the way the people live.
