“That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.”
-A.E Houseman
Roads have been the hallmark of transportation ever since the Mesopotamian of 4000 B.C. mostly of mixed stones, dirt or mud, they were the easy solution when it came to getting from point A to point B with the least amount of hassle. However, in a ever increasing modernized era, the same sturdy road that was used one before could no longer accommodate the ever increasing population of cities and towns, posing major traffic congestion and safety risks, and this had to change.
In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower presented America the solution to this conundrum, the creation of interstates and highways through the Federal-Aid Highway Act: the creation of the modern road. These highways and interstates aimed to connect the major cities of America and to “eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes and traffic jams that impede fast and safe cross-country travel”.
In ways, these modern roads caused the effective space of America to grow, but also to shrink. How is that possible? Well, let’s take a “Duncan Deep Dive” into the spatial design of the modern road, and how it shaped America for the better, and for the worse.
Same Place, Different Space
Before contrasting the different spatial designs of the old and new roads, we need to explain the presence of place vs space within a design context.
“Space is the ‘body language’ of an organization. Intentional or not, the form, functionality, and finish of the space reflect the culture, behaviors, and priorities of the people within it. Places serve as the ‘broad’ spatial types’ that share an overall purpose” -Make Space (p38-39)
With this context, we can describe the space as the overall visual rhetoric of the environment, where different elements persuade people to perform certain behaviors, such in our case the experience and feel of the road. while the place is the physical representation of this confined area, being the roads themselves.
Before the construction of Interstates and highways, most roads were nothing more than cobbled paths of dirt and mud, littered with bumps and divots. There were no set connections between towns and cities, street signs and little to no gas stations.
Under these circumstances, driving a motorcar was not simply a way to get from one place to another: It was an adventure. These attributes that the place provided gave the space a persuasion of a wild and carefree experience. People did not know were these roads could lead, or guarantee how safe they were. In most cases, they were there just for the joy of the ride.
However, with the introduction of the modern road, everything would soon change. Highways and Interstates now provided official and efficient connections between major cities and towns. Street signs plastered the roads, enforcing government mandated laws during driving. Roads were now asphalt, providing a number of benefits.
- Increased traction, providing a stable gripping of the road’s surface.
- Erosion resistance, the roads would stay in shape for much long periods of time.
- A smoother surface reducing awkward movement of the car and lowering overall unwanted noise.
Instead of being single lane roads, they were now multi lane titans of the cities. This new form of place, now provided with a generous surface area, a clean and uniform flooring, and signs prompting the driver their location, the road transformed into a safer and uniform experience. People started to flock towards these new interstates and highways, which led in turn to even more people joining, as between seeing a road which was more heavily populated and safe over a barren dusty road, they would more often or not join the crowd.
Even through the place was essentially the same, the modern roads shifted the space from being a wild and mysterious experience, to being more structured and civilized. They no longer held that charm they once had, now having the cultural attitude that the road was purely as getting from point A to point B in the most efficiently as possible.
“The Interstate Highway Act literally brought Americans closer together. We were connected city-to-city, town-to-town, family-to-family, as we had never been before. That law did more to bring Americans together than any other law this century ”
-Bill Clinton
Shrink and Growth of the "American Space"
Although the Freeway act did bring the American people together, it brought them closer both in positive and negative lights.
However, this shift in space would be a benefit overall for the country. Now that these modern roads provided a unanimous connection between all major cities of America, the public’s eyes were opened. No longer were people confined to their individual places, and could easily travel in and out of state. This commenced the growth of the American space, as the public were much more susceptible to meeting each other, no matter the distance. Now having to accommodate for the increase of traveling, The rise of hotels, drive by diners, and gas stations sore in number, increasing traffic and populations of these cities.
This wouldn’t be without its drawbacks. With the creation of the Federal highway act, Eisenhower did state that their aim was to “eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes and traffic jams that impede fast and safe cross-country travel”. Although In their eyes, these “unsafe roads” and “inefficient routes” were often the small towns and communities in America. This project’s action was to only connect the larger cities together, as they found the ideal “American space” in their eyes was the bustling business of the cities; For the people who could move the money around, or the places that had the wealth to sustain them. These roads were built either around these small towns, cutting down their traffic immensely, or cutting through them, destroying the community in the process.
- This was especially prevalent in communities of color, where they became segregated from the rest of the community though these freeways. The government didn’t see their space as something worthy enough to keep in their “Space”, often using negative connotations such as “Slums” or “Hoods” to give the attitude of the public to disfavor these sorts of places.
Most of these towns started to dwindle down due to the greatly decreased traffic, ruining most businesses present in the region. These people often were forced to move to bigger cities to thrive, and therefore shifted the American demographic, shrinking the American space from generally being throughout the country, now only truly residing into condensed spaces in the larger cities.
We can relate this shift in space to the analogy of the blog thumbnail. The interstates allowed distinct connections between the “stars” of America, forming a sort of constellation as the American space. However, whatever was outside this bubble didn’t shine, and was seen as nothing more then space dust.
- With the introduction of the interstate, the overall “Space” of the road shifted from a wild and carefree adventure, to a stagnant and civilized one. With Roads becoming much more safe and expected, they lost their charm they one held, and the public’s perception of the road shifted.
- While these interstates connected the prime cities of America together, Smaller and less favored communities were left behind, forced to leave and migrate into these larger cities to survive. This caused a overall demographic shift of America, and reinforced the idea that the ideal “American Space” was more for the middle-class white man.