Paving the way
Subtitle: New York road building and the American state, 1880-1956
By: Michael R. Fein.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Lawrence
Language: eng
Number of pages: 316
ISBN-13: 9780700615629
Subjects: Roads -- New York (State) -- History; Roads -- Political aspects -- New York (State) -- History; State-local relations -- New York (State) -- History; Central-local government relations -- New York (State) -- History; Roads -- Political aspects -- United States -- History; Central-local government relations -- United States -- History
Other titles: New York road building and the American state, 1880-1956
Description: "Most historians have credited New Deal initiatives in economic regulation and social welfare policy with bringing about the modern American state. Michael Fein now reveals the surprising story of how road building paved the way to the modern state during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how public works policy emerged as a third critical pillar in support of state building." "Fein charts five distinct road-building policy regimes to explain how a basic function of governance - providing public ways - evolved from 1880 to 1956. He also explores the contested nature of these regime changes, as cycling and automobile clubs, construction and real estate interests, hard-nosed agrarians, urban bosses, and professional engineers sought to shape highway policy to their advantage."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [285]-303) and index.
Table of contents: title: Old ways: the local road-building regime in late-nineteenth-century New York; title: New ways: the emergence of a subfederal road-building regime, 1898-1919; title: Highways: state-centered bureaucracy and the elevation of engineer-administrators, 1919-1931; title: Clearing the way: depression, war, and the nationalization of the bureaucratic regime, 1931-1945; title: Authority: the Thruway and the consolidation of the bureaucratic regime, 1945-1956; title: Conclusion: Warning signs : weak points in the bureaucratic regime.