Car Country: An Environmental History - Rilegato

Wells, Christopher W.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0295992158 ISBN 13: 9780295992150

Casa editrice: Univ of Washington Pr, 2013

Riassunto

For most people in the United States, going almost anywhere begins with reaching for the car keys. This is true, Christopher Wells argues, because the United States is Car Country—a nation dominated by landscapes that are difficult, inconvenient, and often unsafe to navigate by those who are not sitting behind the wheel of a car.

The prevalence of car-dependent landscapes seems perfectly natural to us today, but it is, in fact, a relatively new historical development. In Car Country, Wells rejects the idea that the nation's automotive status quo can be explained as a simple byproduct of an ardent love affair with the automobile. Instead, he takes readers on a tour of the evolving American landscape, charting the ways that transportation policies and land-use practices have combined to reshape nearly every element of the built environment around the easy movement of automobiles. Wells untangles the complicated relationships between automobiles and the environment, allowing readers to see the everyday world in a completely new way. The result is a history that is essential for understanding American transportation and land-use issues today.

Watch the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48LTKOxxrXQ

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Christopher W. Wells is associate professor of environmental history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Product Description:

For most residents of the United States, getting almost anywhere begins with reaching for the car keys. This is true, Christopher Wells argues, because the United States is car country: a nation whose landscapes are so completely oriented around personal vehicles that other forms of transportation tend to be inconvenient at best and nearly impossible at worst. Car-dependent landscapes seem perfectly natural to us today, but they are a relatively new historical development. In Car Country, Wells explains how, over the course of just a few decades, entrepreneurs demonstrated the profitability, practicality, and political attractiveness of remaking the nation around the easy movement of automobiles. He also shows how government policies, from the federal to the local, created a dense thicket of new regulations, incentives, and practices surrounding both transportation and land use, which together redefined "development" as "car-oriented development." With these changes, the United States became Car Country. From the dawn of the motor age to the establishment of the interstate highway system and the rise of the suburbs, Wells untangles the complicated relationships between automobiles and the environment, charting a history essential for understanding American transportation and land-use issues today. Christopher Wells is associate professor of environmental history at Macalester College.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Univ of Washington Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0295992158
• ISBN 13: 9780295992150
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 427