Interstate Highway System

Rather than condemning the planning and development of the Interstate Highway System, J. Gerlach’s Simple History Series continues to objectively look at the historical events, military concerns, and governmental priorities that led to its development. Gerlach investigates the opportunity costs and the citizen groups who fought construction and changes to their neighborhoods throughout the last one hundred years. Given the interstates’ ability to divide neighborhoods, make poor citizens poorer, and induce demand—the more highways you build, the more people use them, and the slower everyone moves—Gerlach also embraces the American romanticism with driving on the Interstates and how it relates to his own history.