Freeway nation: Traffic on the 110 freeway near downtown Los Angeles, California, US, on Saturday, April 12, 2025.
Photographer: Alex Welsh/BloombergCan Americans Just Stop Building New Highways?
A new book argues that the expansion of the US roadway network has exacted social and environmental costs that far outweigh the benefits.
“The Interstate Highway Act literally brought Americans closer together,” President Bill Clinton said in 1996, referencing the bill that launched the 47,000-mile federal highway network. “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.”
In his new book, Overbuilt , Erick Guerra, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, offers a markedly less rosy assessment of the US highway system. By blasting their way through cities, Guerra argues, interstate designers sacrificed urban wealth and quality of life, particularly within low-income neighborhoods.