Highways Gutted American Cities. So Why Did They Build Them?

There was once a time when most Americans took streetcars to work every day. Nowadays, 85 percent of workers drive.

And although a few different factors fueled this transition, the biggest one may have been a $425 billion investment over half a century in the world's most advanced network of highways: the Interstate Highway System.

The 48,000 miles of interstate highway that would be paved across the country during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s were a godsend for many rural communities. But those highways also gutted many cities, with whole neighborhoods torn down or isolated by huge interchanges and wide ribbons of asphalt. Wealthier residents fled to the suburbs, using the highways to commute back in by car. That drained the cities' tax bases and hastened their decline.

Read the rest of the story here.