The Road to Inequality

How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermined Cities

Clayton Nall

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781108417594
• eBook ISBN: 9781108280976
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Road to Inequality shows how policies that shape geographic space change our politics, focusing on the effects of the largest public works project in American history: the federal highway system. For decades, federally subsidized highways have selectively facilitated migration into fast-growing suburbs, producing an increasingly non-urban Republican electorate. This book examines the highway programs' policy origins at the national level and traces how these intersected with local politics and interests to facilitate complex, mutually-reinforcing processes that have shaped America's growing urban-suburban divide and, with it, the politics of metropolitan public investment. As Americans have become more polarized on urban-suburban lines, attitudes towards transportation policy - a once quintessentially 'local' and non-partisan policy area - are now themselves driven by partisanship, endangering investments in metropolitan programs that provide access to opportunity for millions of Americans.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Table of contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Guide to Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 How Highways Facilitate Partisan Geographic Sorting
• 3 Highways Polarize Metropolitan Political Geography
• 4 Transportation Becomes a Partisan Issue
• 5 Implications for Transportation Policy Making
• 6 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index