Fotsch, Paul Mason. Watching the Traffic Go By: Transportation and Isolation in Urban America.

Kelly, Eric Damian

Fotsch, Paul Mason.

Watching the Traffic Go By: Transportation and Isolation in Urban America.

Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2007. 254 pp.

ISBN: 0292714262.

This is a cross-disciplinary examination of the automobile's influence on both planning and culture in the United States. Author Paul Fotsch provides a concise but contextual history of the growth of both automobiles and highways in the U.S. Unlike many such histories, he does not start with the Interstate highways system but goes back to Lewis Mumford and regional planning advocate Benton MacKaye and their interest in "townless highways." (It is worth noting that MacKaye was also interested in the "highwayless town," but that is a divergence from the story). Fotsch's treatment provides a reminder that these well-regarded pioneers of planning--and, in Mumford's case, also a pioneer of urbanism--arguably laid much of the conceptual foundation for the modern expressway. Fotsch also discusses the significance of Norman Bel Geddes' "Futurama" exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Although the General Motors exhibit is relatively well-known, it was interesting to learn that the genesis of the exhibit began a couple of years earlier, when the ad agency J. Walter Thompson hired Bel Geddes to design a concept that could be used as part of an advertising campaign for Shell Oil; the World's Fair exhibit would be a much larger-scale version of Geddes' original design. Fotsch quotes contemporary media as well as published commentaries by visitors to illustrate the influence of the General Motors exhibit on popular culture, stating that "the popularity of Geddes' exhibit foreshadowed the consensus that formed around the construction of an interstate highway system in the 1950s" (p. 82).

From this historic context, Fotsch takes the story to Los Angeles and Hollywood, There, according to Fotsch, proposals to build urban highways were opposed by immigrant German philosophers who were presciently concerned about the social and cultural impact of highways on the city. To illustrate the concerns, Fotsch (whose field is communications, not planning) examines two Billy Wilder films--Double Indemnity (1944) and Sunset Boulevard (1950), which he says tie the philosophers' concerns to a particular place (Los Angeles) and, "by doing this, link depravity of modern culture to the automobile and its reconstruction of the city" (p. 93).

The third part of the book examines "Fears of Urban Gridlock." In seemingly unrelated chapters, Fotsch examines the social failure of mass transit in large American cities under the heading "stories of the MTA," and then examines "urban freeway stories." Here the reason for the book's title becomes clear, as Fotsch reflects on the isolating and segregating effect of urban freeways, leaving urban dwellers "watching the traffic go by."

I found the book extremely valuable in providing me with a broader context to consider issues that I have long addressed in my own professional work and writing. As a result of reading the book, I ordered DVDs of Sunset Boulevard (which I have not seen) and Double Indemnity (which I had)--and a copy of Motorways, Geddes' book placing his Futurama exhibit in context. For those whose interest in the relationships among urban form, highways and land-use goes beyond practical, day-to-day concerns and to the historical and social context of the issues, this book is a fascinating one.

Eric Damian Kelly

Professor of Urban Planning

Ball State University and

Past President of the American Planning Association.