Download Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars AudioBook Free
With wit and sharp insight, past Traffic Commissioner of NEW YORK Sam Schwartz, a.k.a. "Gridlock Sam", one of the very most respected transportation technicians on the planet and consummate insider in NYC political circles, uncovers how American metropolitan areas became so beholden to cars. He also explains why the existing shift away from that development will forever alter America's urban landscapes, marking nothing less than a revolution in how exactly we get from spot to place. When Sam Schwartz was growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, his block belonged to his community: the youngsters who played out punchball and stickball and their parents, who'd regularly strolled to the local businesses of which they also proved helpful. He didn't realize it then, but Bensonhurst had been similar to a museum of the long-forgotten way-of-life when compared to a picture of America's future. General public transit journeyed over and under city avenues - New York's first subway lines opened in 1904 - however the streets themselves have been conquered by the internal combustion engine. America's dependency on the automobile started with the 1908 introduction of Henry Ford's car-for-everyone, the Model T. The "struggle for right-of-way" in the 1920s noticed the demise of streetcars and altered America's avenues from a multiuse tool for socializing, commerce, and public mobility into exclusive arteries for private automobiles. The subsequent devastation of urban transit systems and the post-World Conflict II suburbanization of America, empowered by the Interstate Highway System and the GI Bill, forever changed just how Americans commuted. But today, for the first time in history, and after 100 years of continuous increase, driving is in decline. Younger Us citizens increasingly prefer productive transportation options like walking or cycling and taking public transit, ride-shares, or taxis. This isn't a consequence of higher gas prices, or even the economical downturn, but rather a collective decision to be a lot less dependent on cars.
