(Download) "Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles" by Paul Haddad # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details
- Title: Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles
- Author : Paul Haddad
- Release Date : January 05, 2021
- Genre: United States,Books,History,Professional & Technical,Engineering,Civil Engineering,Nonfiction,Social Science,Transportation,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : KB
Description
Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles explores how social, economic, political, and cultural demands created the web of expressways whose very formâfuturistic, majestic, and progressiveâperfectly exemplifies the City of Angels.
From the Arroyo Seco, which began construction during the Great Depression, to the Simi Valley and Century Freeways, which were completed in 1993, author Paul Haddad provides an entertaining and engaging history of the 527 miles of road that comprise the Los Angeles freeway system.
Each of Los Angelesâs twelve freeways receives its own chapter, and these are supplemented by âOff-Rampsââsidebars that dish out pithy factoids about Bottsâ Dots, SigAlerts, and all matter of freeway lexicon, such as why Southern Californians are the only people in the country who place the word âtheâ in front of their interstates, as in âthe 5,â or âthe 101.â
Freewaytopia also explores those routes that never saw the light of day. Imagine superhighways burrowing through Laurel Canyon, tunneling under the Hollywood Sign, or spanning the waters of Santa Monica Bay. With a few more legislative strokes of the pen, you wouldnât have to imagine themâtheyâd already exist.
Haddad notably gives voice to those individuals whose lives were inextricably connectedâfor better or worseâto the cityâs freeways: The hundreds of thousands of mostly minority and lower-class residents who protested against their displacement as a result of eminent domain. Women engineers who excelled in a manâs field. Elected officials who helped further freeways . . . or stop them dead in their tracks. And he pays tribute to the corps of civic and state highway employees whose collective vision, expertise, and dedication created not just the most famous freeway network in the world, but feats of engineering that, at their best, achieve architectural poetry.
Finally, letâs not forget the beauty queensâno freeway in Los Angeles ever opened without their royal presence.