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Car Country: An Environmental History
Car Country: An Environmental History
A N E N V I R O N M E N TA L H I S T O RY
christopher w. wells
Foreword by
william cronon
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Christopher W. Wells
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CAR COUNTRY
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For Marianne
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CONTENTS
PART II
2 Automotive Pioneers37
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PART I
4 Motor-Age Geography125
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PART III
PART IV
7 Suburban Nation253
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FOREWORD
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the 1920s would characterize one of Fords most successful competitors, General Motors. But that lay in the future. By the end of World
War I, half the cars in the United States were Model Ts.
That is why my students would not be entirely wrong if they
guessed that Henry Ford invented the automobile, for that error
hides a deeper truth. Although we tend to think of a car as a single
objectthat is, after all, the way we purchase itit actually consists
of myriad different parts, each of which has behind it a complex history of invention, development, and use. The internal combustion
engine has quite a different history than the petroleum distillates
that power it, the generator providing the sparks to ignite that fuel,
the drive shaft that conveys rotational energy to the wheels, or the
rubber with which the tires on those wheels are madeand this
list only scratches the surface of all the different pieces that must be
brought together if a car is ever to make it out of the garage and onto
the road. Fords genius was to figure out a way to assemble these parts
in the cheapest possible way, which in turn enabled him to sell more
than fifteen million Model Ts by 1927.
But the car itself is hardly the end of the story. If most of us take
utterly for granted the complex inner mechanisms beneath the hoods
of our automobiles, the same is no less true of complex features of the
highways and street systems on which we operate these vehicles and
the landscapes through which we drive. Although a passing familiarity with the history of transportation technologies quickly leads one
to conclude that the twentieth century was the age of the automobile
just as the nineteenth century had been the age of the railroad, most
of us rarely stop to think about what that actually means. In truth,
the rise in the United States of a culture in which mass ownership
of automobiles became typical constituted one of the most sweeping cultural and environmental revolutions in human history. What
Ford and his fellow automobile manufacturers helped inventwith
help from countless otherswas essentially a technological ecosystem, an intricate set of interconnected inventions, institutions, and
behaviors that by mid-century more or less defined the American
way of life.
This is the great insight that organizes Christopher W. Wellss
superb new book, Car Country: An Environmental History. Wells
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goings far easier than would otherwise have been the case. Then he
went off to a small liberal arts college without a car and found to his
surprise that he rarely missed itexcept when he returned home to
Atlanta and found himself in need of a vehicle to do almost anything.
During extended travels in Europe, he again found himself missing
his car almost not at alluntil he came home to Atlanta and again
felt his mobility and lifestyle severely cramped, because neither his
bicycle nor the available mass transit options were sufficient to get him
safely to where he needed to go. With such poor options for getting
around, he remembers, I felt incapacitated without a car. Then he
went off to graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin, where the university and its student neighborhoods are compactly laid out on an isthmus between two lakes, and suddenly the car again became as much an
inconvenience as a benefit.
From this small autobiographical sketch, Wells draws a large and
important conclusion. Once one recognizes that the automobile is
not just a machine but a single element in a vast technical ecosystem in which every part is connected to every other and all human
behaviors and institutions are shaped by its presence or absence, one
is forced to recognize that any changes in this car-dependent landscape are almost inevitably trickier and more complicated than they
first appear. Its not just that Americans love their automobiles; its
that the landscape we have created for them makes no other options
available to us. We have no choice but to love them. John Muir once
famously said of the natural world that when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
The same is equally true of the human world, for reasons that have
as much to do with history and culture as they do with nature. It
has taken more than a century to create the complex interconnections that have made Car Country second nature to us. The scale
of our resulting dependence on the automobile is so vastranging
fractally from the largest public works project in history (the interstate highway system) all the way to what we do when we feel the
impulse to drink a well-made cup of coffeethat unwinding these
dependencies is hard even to imagine. And yet we may have no
choice in the matter, since some of the elements on which the system
dependscheap liquid fuel most of allmay prove less sustainable
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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When I first began to work on what ultimately became this book, now
nearly a dozen years ago, I had little inkling of just how much its completion would rely on the stunning generosity, support, insight, and
assistance of others. I can never hope to repay the debts that I have
accrued, but I am more than happy to name names.
I owe particular thanks to my mentors at the University of WisconsinMadison, Bill Cronon and the late Paul Boyer, whose extraordinarily high standards for scholarship, teaching, advising, and engaging
with a scholarly community were exceeded only by the understated
grace and modesty with which they both modeled those standards.
I am more grateful than I can say for their advice, rigor, generosity,
and friendship. James Baughman, Rudy Koshar, Eric Schatzberg, and
Stanley Schultz also lent their critical eyes and ears to my research in
its early phase, improving it in ways large and small. Chuck Cohen,
Linda Gordon, Bill Reese, Anne Firor Scott, and Joel Wolfe had nothing directly to do with this project, but all are fine scholars and teachers who went out of their way to help me learn what it means to be a
historian.
At the University of Washington Press, acquiring editor Marianne
Keddington-Lang provided constant advice, encouragement, and
support through the long process of transforming my research into
a book. Together with Bill Cronon, she has helped make the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books series at the University of Washington
Press into a real community of authors, not just a list of books. Were I
to have tried to dream up a better editor, I would have fallen well short
of the mark that Marianne establishes. I am indebted as well to Julie
Van Pelt, who read the final manuscript with an incredible combination of precision and artistic sensibility.
Many others have read drafts, offered advice, and helped me with
the process of transforming crude ideas into a more polished form.
Peter Norton and one anonymous reviewer read the entire manuscript
with critical eyes, offering suggestions and insights that measurably
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improved the final product. Ellen Arnold and Tom Robertson read
and critiqued most of the manuscript, much of it in prose so raw that
none but true friends would willingly subject themselves to the task.
Greg Bond, David Hertzberg, Hiroshi Kitamura, and Michael Rawson
all read and commented on the lions share of my dissertation, and Jeff
Allred, Thomas Andrews, Will Barnett, Katie Benton-Cohen, Tracey
Deutsch, Jim Feldman, Jeff Filipiak, and Alexander Shashko also read,
commented on, and improved various portions of the book. Thanks
as well to J. Brooks Flippen, Mathieu Flonneau, Libbie Freed, Jordan
Kleiman, Timothy Lecain, Tom McCarthy, Clay McShane, Martin
Melosi, Federico Paolini, Pamela Pennock, Paul Sutter, and Thomas
Zeller, and the audiences of panels at various conferences where I presented pieces of the research in this book. Thanks for their help and
insights to Brian Black, Ed Linenthal, Karen Merrill, Ty Priest, and the
anonymous readers at the Journal of American History; Pamela Laird,
John Staudenmaier, and the anonymous readers at Technology and Culture; and Claire Strom at Agricultural History. And finally, a heartfelt
thanks to the students in several iterations of the research seminar
that I have taught on the subject of this book at Macalester College,
Davidson College, and Northland College. In addition to giving me a
platform to think out loud about its subjects and issues, these students
contributed their own perceptive ideas and provided a critical audience, helping me weed out some of my less useful approaches to the
material.
Before I could write a word, I benefited from the labors of what
feels like a countless number of librarians, reference specialists, and
archivists, who helped me navigate collections and track down elusive
materials while offering the sort of moral support that keeps isolated
researchers going even when they encounter an inevitable rough patch.
At The Henry Ford, where I spent four months in the archives, thanks
to Judith Endelman, Mark Greene, Cathy Latendresse, Andy Schornick, and Linda Skolarus. I also owe a substantial debt to the staff of
the Library of Congress, who filled my steady stream of book orders
and shared their magnificent reading room, which served as my daily
office for six months. Jeffrey Stine and Roger White at the Smithsonian showed me their collections, answered my questions, and helped
make my time in Washington a pleasant experience. I would also
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Andy Rieser, Mark Rose, Honor Sachs, Jim Schlender, Zach Schrag,
Matt Semanoff, David Sheffler, Tony Shugaar, Deb Smith, Kendra
Smith-Howard, Chris Taylor, Trish Tilburg, Dan Trudeau, George
Vrtis, and Kristen Walton.
Generous financial support also helped bring this book to fruition.
At the University of WisconsinMadison, various grants and travel
fellowships helped launch the early stages of research. A Henry Austin
Clark Fellowship from The Henry Ford made possible my extended
time in Dearborn. Several awards from the Mellon-funded Three Rivers Center at Macalester helped extend my sabbatical, buying muchneeded time to dedicate myself to full-time writing. I am particularly
grateful for the investments that Macalester College makes in its
junior faculty. Without its generous junior sabbatical and family leave
policies, completing this book would have been a very differentand
much more difficultprocess.
Last, but certainly not least, I owe a tremendous personal debt to
the members of my family. Their love, support, and unstinting belief
in the path I have chosen mean more to me than I can put into words.
My wife, Marianne Milligan, has talked through every idea and read
every word in this bookand then some. Only she knows just how
much it has taken to write this book, particularly after Jack, Annie,
and Meg joined our family. I dedicate this book to her.
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PROLOGUE
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Like many of my friends, I was ecstatic when the long vigil leading up
to my sixteenth birthday ended, and I finallyfinally!got my drivers license. Driving opened a new world of freedom and mobility, particularly after my father bought a new car and gave me his old one: a
yellow 1977 Toyota long-bed pickup truck. Despite its flashy white racing stripe, my new truck was in sad shape. Parts of the bed were rusting through, torn bits of foam protruded from gaping holes in its vinyl
seats, and the passenger-side door, which was crumpled from a previous accident, could only be opened by observing a careful sequence
of steps that flummoxed all but a select group of initiates. I was utterly
blind to its problems: the truck was a piece of junk, but it was my piece
of junk.
My truck made everything about high-school life easier. Now that
I was finally free of the complicated process of arranging rides home
after my various practices and after-school activities, it also became
infinitely easier to get to friends houses, to soccer games and debate
tournaments, and to movies and parties. Best of all, the costs of my
newfound mobility were negligible: I had only to make an occasional
emergency run to the grocery store for my mother, to give my younger
sister a ride when she needed one, and to use my own money to keep
the trucks tank full.2 My previously well-used bicycle went into storage, and for the rest of high school came out only for recreational rides
with friends.
When I left home for college in the mountains of western Massachusetts, first-year students were barred from owning vehiclesa
policy designed to prevent the towns picturesque streets from becoming a parking lot. Full of regret, I left my truck behind. I still vividly
remember the phone call, several months later, when I asked about
my truck and got silence in return. After some prodding, my parents
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making driving the only practical way to get around. Both in Switzerland and in two very different college towns, however, not having a car
proved at worst a minor inconvenience. Because most of what I needed
in a normal day was located in easy walking or bicycling distance from
where I lived, having a car was more a convenience than a necessity.
To put it another way, the physical arrangement of the built environment, in which housing, retail, and businesses intermingled in relatively close quartersa condition that planners refer to as mixed-use
landscapesmeant that my opportunities per square mile in all three
places were much higher than in Atlanta. Significantly, the prevailing patterns of land use limited my options for conducting my everyday affairs as much or more than the quality of public transportation,
which varied from excellent in Switzerland to nonexistent in western
Massachusetts. How I felt about cars had little bearing on whether or
not I needed one.7 I did not want a car so much as I wanted to be able to
do things quickly and easily: get groceries, get to work, see my friends.8
In Atlanta I needed a car; in the other places I have lived since I left
home for college, having a car did not factor as much into the equation.
As I thought through these relationships, it became increasingly clear that most public discourse about the role of automobiles
in American life erects a false boundary between how Americans feel
about transportation technologies and why Americans drive so much
more than people elsewhere in the world. In endlessly debating the
merits of particular technologiesPriuses versus SUVs, buses versus light railwe lose sight of the social and environmental context
in which those technologies operate. This oversight has implications
both for how we live our lives and for the environmental effects of the
technologies we use. The language of the love affair, and the often
moralistic approach of critics who condemn the automobile, privileges
a tight focus on the relative vices and virtues of individual behaviors
and technologies at the expense of coming to grips with either the
genuine advantages and freedoms that cars create or the social and
environmental costs of the nearly universal automobile use that cardependent landscapes foster.9
Focusing on feelings about transportation technologies rather
than the conditions in which they operate can have nefarious consequences, as the case of Atlantas transit system illustrates. The systems
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have a stronger affinity for trains or, alternatively, that Europeans just
do not love cars as much as Americans. Paying attention to land-use
patterns, however, suggests that transit prospers in places where stops
grant access to many opportunities per square mile and are within
easy walking distance of housing. The relationship is not hard to
grasp: if just about anyone can leave home and take a short walk to a
transit stop, and if nearly every stop along the line offers a diverse mix
of incentives to exit and spend time and money in nearby businesses,
then people are likely to use the system heavilyeven if they own
cars. When transit conveniently connects housing to the innumerable
opportunities of dense, mixed-use landscapes, transit seems to thrive.
This appears to be particularly true when the opportunities near rail
stops are not limited to major attractions like ball fields and museums but also feature businesses that cater to more mundane everyday
needs, like drug stores, hardware stores, and supermarkets.11
Anecdotal evidence suggests that rail systems traversing landscapes that are rich in opportunities per square mile seem to appeal
as much to substantial numbers of Americans as to Europeans. For
example, consider American cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago, where subway and elevated train systems still attract heavy ridership. The transit stops in these places are frequently within walking
distance of residential areas and offer numerous attractive opportunities within a short walk. Consider also the attitudes of even resolutely
car-loving Americans who encounter robust rail-based transit systems
when traveling abroad. Many are pleasantly surprised to be able to get
around without a rental car and describe their experiences by saying
things like, Streetcar systems would never work in the United States
because Americans dont like public transportation, but the streetcars in Europe are very pleasant and convenient. In truth, streetcar
systems would stand little chance of succeeding in the United States
without radically different land-use patternsbut the point is that
land-use patterns, not attitudes toward rail, are the best determinant
of likely success or failure.
What is true of light rail is also true of cars: when we design landscapes that are easily navigated only by personal vehicles, people tend
to drive everywhere they need to go. In this book, I try to move past
the language of the love affair to focus on the built landscape. I do so
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how city planners in the last four decades or so have understood different kinds of roads, which they have sorted into clear hierarchical categories based on intended use. Planners divide roads into two broad
categorieshigh-speed highways and lower-speed roadsand then
make further distinctions within each category. In the lower-speed
road category, for example, planners distinguish between arterial
roads, collector roads, and residential streets and rely on each to serve
a different transportation purpose. Arterial roads are the most heavily
traveled of the three and typically connect important central locations
with one another and with the interstate. They tend to be zoned for
large developments like shopping centers, strip malls, office parks, and
townhouses rather than for single-family housing. In Eagan, as in most
interstate-oriented suburbs, the highways entrance and exit ramps are
located on a major arterial road. By comparison, suburban collector
roads have a lower capacity than arterials, and as their name implies
they are designed to collect traffic from adjacent subdivisions and
funnel it to arterials. The zoning regulations along collectors tend to
permit only a few small commercial and community-oriented developments; they are usually easy to identify by the many subdivision
entrances along their length. Residential streets, the final road type, are
contained entirely within individual subdivisionsthus discouraging through trafficand the land adjacent to them tends to be zoned
exclusively for residential land uses.
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I.3One-way distance,
in miles, from home to
nearest business.
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changes, Car Country put more people than ever before within an
easy drive of places where they could find ample greenery, recreational
opportunities, and a sense of reconnection with the natural world. In
short, Car Country refashioned, on a grand scale, both the basic patterns of interaction between people and the environment and the fundamental structure and composition of the nations ecosystems.
Almost from the beginning, these changes inspired a legion of
vociferous critics.16 By the time full-blown discontent with Americas
car culture and its destructive environmental effects finally percolated
up into national politics in the 1960s and 1970s, however, patterns of
sprawling, low-density development had already become thoroughly
ingrained in the American political economy. Moreover, Car Countrys critics too often focused on particular problemsfactory pollution, tailpipe emissions, roadside eyesores, suburban boxes made
of ticky tacky,17 the loss of public open space and pristine wildernesswithout understanding the broader, interconnected forces at
work that continued to roll out new car-dependent communities year
after year. Environmentalists secured new regulations that limited
some of low-density sprawls more damaging environmental effects,
but they failed to stop sprawl itself or the engines driving its expansion. The overwhelming tendency among critics, with a few important
exceptions, has been to focus on cars rather than roads and on the
behavior of drivers rather than the powerful forces shaping American
land-use patterns.18
Without effective criticsand with car-oriented facilities incorporated as a basic feature of the nations political, social, and economic
approach to both transportation and land-use practicescar-dependent landscapes have multiplied, older ways of moving around have
steadily disappeared as practical options for most Americans, and
more and more people have begun to drive longer and longer distances, whether they have wanted to or not. In Car Country, driving
and sprawl have become essential, interlocking components of American lives, landscapes, and relationships with the natural world.
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