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The Roots of Sprawl: Highway Building


While the Interstate Highway System has had a multitude of impacts, many positive, it has also led to dispersal of growth and development.

Images from the Pennsyvlania Turnpike The Pennsylvania Turnpike, America's first superhighway, opened to the public on October 1, 1940. Financed largely by the federal Public Works Administration and Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the 160-mile long Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg was constructed in just 23 months. It served as a model for the first generation of limited access highways.

For overviews of the origins of the interstate highway system, see:

  • Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: Creating the Interstate System, by Richard F. Weingroff

  • President Eisenhower looks back at the origins of the interstate highway system, observing that: "More than any single action by the government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America."

  • Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, by Tom Lewis. A very well-written and interesting history of the U.S. federal highway program.

    Highway interchange in Nashville, TN, metro area
    Interstates have contributed to the explosion in size of metropolitan areas. Photo by Gary Layda. Reprinted with permission of the Metropolitan Planning Department of Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee.