Urban Growth History

The foundation to all urban growth is its primary source of transportation.

Expansive urban growth in Western society began with trains in the mid-1800s. The history of America’s Old West is full of colorful pictures taming the wild. The more accurate analysis shows that the United States was built on the railroads as its primary source of transportation. The history of each metropolitan area shows that the US was established by the railroads with a transit-oriented urban growth land-use design (TOD).

Earlier growth of the US began with the first federally funded road road in 1802. This road, known as the Cumberland Road was built from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois. Now a portion of US Route 40. ( https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Road ) 

With the foundation to all urban growth being its primary source of transportation, this goes to directly to the area's land-use. The term land-use is completely different than land-use zoning which assigns government regulations to specific governmental jurisdictions. Land-use design is, again, what type of transportation serves the majority of its population.

There are four types of land-use: 

• Nature
• Agriculture
• Transit Oriented
• Automobile Centric

Of these four types of land-use design, automobile centric land-use design is wholly unsustainable.

For sustainable urban designs, TODs are far more sustainable than what the West separated itself from, which was TODs. Beginning in the 1920s, the transportation foundation of Western society changed from the transit oriented design to automobile-centric land-use design.

Downtown areas whose land-use had been built upon streetcars, changed to the automobile centric land-use design in their urban expansion. This rendered the entire downtown areas with dysfunctional land-use design.

In 1935, a political move lobbied for federal legislation and was passed as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. It rendered it illegal for a power company to also own and operate a transit system (i.e., a local trolley streetcar service). At that point in time, nearly every metropolitan area had a public streetcar system that was privately owned and operated, generally by the regional power companies.

Prior to 1935, every transit company was privately owned. Each of these private entities had acquired its rights-of-ways property, build the system, purchase rails and rail cars, build and maintain the line of its operations and maintenance, carry its own liabilities and make a profit to stay in business. Conversely, the automobile industry manufactures and sells a vehicle, does not have to provide rights-of-ways, is not required to provide any guarantees, carries no user liabilities for roadways, provides no fuel, and has no added maintenance expense. An automobile’s rights-of-way become the burden of its consumer via additional government taxation. The cost of where to operate the car manufacturer’s product became the burden at the cost of the general public.

Again, the automobile-centric land-use design in regard to public transportation is unsustainable economically. Moreover, government subsidizes to the bus industry continue to fail in serving as a viable form of efficient transportation to the general public.

Since the 1930’s, urban growth in the US has altered its original transit-oriented developmental planning design from train and streetcar orientation to what it is today: a conglomeration of unsustainable urban sprawl based on automobile-oriented development (sprawl).

As Western society was built, urban design was transit-oriented. Commerce cores were town centers. This type of design encouraged higher density and vertical urban growth. Today, the automobile-centric land-use growth has caused these original transit-oriented designs to lose functionality.

Revitalization efforts for downtown areas that include a mobility component (streetcars) designed to carry large numbers of people easily around the entire downtown area quickly, have served to reinstitute the function of their original transit-oriented designs. These revitalization efforts allow these downtowns to once again maintain positions as regional financial hubs of commerce. These reinstituted land-use designs revitalize the original transit-oriented growth patterns. 

Electric streetcars are no longer a new technology, but are much more sustainable as a mode of function to the intended land-use design pattern for transportation. There are, however, extremely efficient new technologies available for mass transit and have contemporary function. A cognizant and morally responsible government would seek out ways to implement this sustainable technology.

Significant links to US road history:

 Route 30 - https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=95580

 Lincoln Highway (aka: Route 30 which became Interstate 80) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway

 Route 66 - https://www.nps.gov/articles/before-1926-the-origins-of-route-66.htm

 US, Interstate Highway System (IHS) - https://www.army.mil/article/198095/dwight_d_eisenhower_and_the_birth_of_the_interstate_highway_system