Did you know that President
Eisenhower hated the urban interstate highways?
Did you know that President
Eisenhower hated the urban interstate highways?
In wartime, Eisenhower had watched Hitler speed men and munitions
efficiently over his broad, limited-access autobahns, which ran
between cities but used a narrower access road into urban areas.
Ike championed these superhighways as president, but his aides
cut a backroom deal with Congress that perverted the president's
plan. For city mayors had demanded in return for their support
that the interstates bulldoze into the heart of the city, to funnel
shoppers from outside into the central business district. Amazingly,
Ike learned of it only 3 years after the legislation passed and
tried valiantly, but unsuccessfully, to stop a plan that ended
up siphoning out to the suburbs the urban middle class.
