Fighting Traffic

By Peter D. Norton,

Book cover of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City

Book description

The fight for the future of the city street between pedestrians, street railways, and promoters of the automobile between 1915 and 1930.

Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Fighting Traffic as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that our streets have been designed through a process of simplification. I did not realize that this all started in the 1920s with the advent of the mass-produced automobile.

The first ‘traffic engineers’ came from water management, and because of that, our streets have become pipelines that should never be clogged! Mind = blown! All this made a lot of sense a hundred years ago, but does it still today? Or should we take this newfound freedom to create new languages to think about and design our streets?

Want books like Fighting Traffic?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 23 books like Fighting Traffic.

Browse books like Fighting Traffic

Book cover of Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Book cover of Thinking in Systems
Book cover of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,187

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in cars, London, and environmentalism?

Cars 16 books
London 862 books
Environmentalism 197 books