The Big Roads

Guy Raz interviewed Earl Swift, the author of The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways on All Things Considered.  Here he is discussing building the interstate highway system through the central cities:

  If building roads was difficult in the countryside and suburbs, it was almost impossible in America's central cities. Building an interstate in cities such Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Detroit where people lived closely together on narrow streets was like trying to jam a basketball through a chain-link fence.
"You name pretty much any older city in the country and there was some serious clear-cutting of the human forest that made this possible," Swift says.
Although America's interstate system split some communities apart during its construction, the author argues that ultimately it tied urban areas together and made it possible for people on opposite sides of the country to see each other in record time.
Given the obstacles that stood in the way of creating the interstate highway system — the social costs of relocating citizens, the engineering feats, the routing and naming debates, and the politics of funding — Swift says it's amazing that the interstate system exists at all.
"I don't think there's any way in a million years we could build it today," he says. "No, this just wouldn't fly."

This definitely sounds like a book I'll be looking for when the paperback edition comes out next year.