The Motorization of American Cities by David J. St. Clair

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 169 The Motorization of American Cities. By David J. St. Clair. New York: Praeger, 1986. Pp. xi+192; tables, notes, appendix, index. $32.95. Popular understanding of the transformation of American life asso­ ciated with the coming of the automobile reflects what David Noble has called “technological Darwinism.” Despite the efforts of James Flink and many others to highlight the complex nature of motoriza­ tion, most Americans probably continue to view the rise of the pri­ vate car and the decline of mass transit as inevitable outcomes of a struggle between competing technologies. In The Motorization of American Cities, David J. St. Clair sets out to correct this misconception by focusing on the auto industry’s efforts to reshape cities to accommodate the industry’s major product. De­ troit, St. Clair argues, engaged in “social entrepreneurship,” using in­ fluence, lobbying, and sometimes raw power to work with other forces favoring cities shaped around personal transportation. St. Clair perceives a coherent auto industry policy toward high­ ways and mass transit that was in place by the end of the 1930s. Sim­ ply put, this policy sought to open a previously untapped urban market for auto sales through the construction of expressways and to remove the obstacles presented by existing mass transit through motorization, which would make mass transit compatible with autos and less competitive with them. If this sounds suspiciously like Bradford Snell’s Ground Transport (1973), with its charges of auto industry conspiracy, the resem­ blance is largely superficial. St. Clair sees, not conspiracy, but an in­ dustry acting in entrepreneurial fashion within the context of governmental policies that distorted entrepreneurship’s effects. Mass transit was, in most places, a regulated monopoly. This both weakened it and made it more vulnerable to manipulation by Detroit’s agents. Highways, really tools of social policy, were an ac­ knowledged governmental responsibility, legitimate subjects of lobby­ ing efforts by the auto industry and others. It was Detroit’s coherent strategy, rather than conspiracy per se, we are told, that made its efforts so effective. The outlines of this story are familiar to readers of Snell, Leavitt, and other standard works on the paving-over of America. What is new is the cogent exposition of the auto industry’s coherent high­ way and transit strategy, the detailed and effective treatment of the industry’s role in urbanizing the movement for interstate highways, and the plausibility of the author’s argument for the superiority of modern electric transit. The focus and brevity of this work inevitably create problems. Plan­ ners, highway engineers, and city officials had their own reasons for wanting urban expressways. These are touched on but remain pe­ ripheral to St. Clair’s focused narrative. One could debate endlessly how the real efficiency of a transit technology is to be measured 170 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE (St. Clair’s argument is from economic efficiency). The core issue in all urban transportation problems may be traffic segregation and con­ trol. If this is so, the motorization of surface transit in Los Angeles does not mean the same thing as does the motorization of surface transit in subway-oriented New York City. Such objections must not obscure the fact that The Motorization of American Cities makes a first-rate case for the author’s contention that “ . . . the marriage of entrepreneurship and public policy is a po­ tentially dangerous union” (p. 177). It shows as well how technologi­ cal change can be a function of political economy. This important, well-written book deserves an affordable paperback edition. Paul Barrett Dr. Barrett is associate professor of history at Illinois Institute of Technology. He has published a book on Chicago’s transition from mass to private transportation and is currently at work on the roles of public policy, corporate interests, and techno­ logical change in urban commercial airport planning and location. U.S. 40: A Roadscape of the American Experience. By Thomas J. Schlereth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Pp. viii-T 150; illustrations, bibliography. $27.50 (cloth); $13.95 (paper). This slim, well-written, lavishly illustrated volume is an excellent in­ troduction to the history of automobile road development in Amer...