Customer Reviews

The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro (Creating the North American Landscape)

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The author obviously spent a great deal of time doing research in preparation for writing this volume. It not only covers the history of the capitol's subway system, but the social and economic factors leading up to its construction. A very throught provoking history of a unique transportation system.

This book was recently loaned to me by a retired urban planner who has lived in DC through his whole career. As a regional urban planner, transportation planner, and history buff, I thought this book was an extremely informative and well-written story of:

- the planning and construction of one of the most significant public works projects in American history;
- the social, political, and economic history of Post-WWII DC metro area;
- the interface between urban land use and transportation planning, and one of the major success stories of public transit in the modern era;
- the battle between Congress and the community over self-government in post WWII DC;
- the challenges of funding and operating public transit, even when the construction of the project is heavily subsidized by the federal government.

This book should be required reading for any graduate student in urban planning or transportation planning, and is a great read for anyone who is interested in the modern history of our nation's capital.

I moved to DC in 1981 and watched the colorful branches progress from hash marks to solids. There are quirks in the system; this book answered many of my questions. Particularly interesting are the failed attempts in the 1960's to carve expressways throughout the district and later, the design evolution of the glorious system to replace the road plan.

As evidenced by the numerous references, the author has been quite thorough in his research. However, the amount of detail bogs down the story, and it is quite easy to lose the greater picture. It would have served the story better to footnote most of the names and organizations. Of special note, however, are the drawings and photos from the period.

Overall, this book is a good complement to others regarding the history of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, such as "The Pentagon: A History", "Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington D.C.", and especially, "Freedom Rising:Washington in the Civil War."

In addition to the main subject, the book touches on themes addressed in other books regarding urban development, such as the "City Beautiful" movement that was popularized after the Chicago World Expo of the 1890's, "urban planning", immiment domain, "smart growth", and the boundaries between public and private interests in influencing the development of a metropolitan area. Other books that touch on these themes include Janet Jacobs' seminal work "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", as well as "Edge City, Life on the New Frontier", which devotes a large section to the evolution of the Tysons Corner area, and even "The Levittowners", a 1961 work which takes a sociological view of families migrating to Levittown, PA, a small surburban enclave of Philadelphia that was a developed by one of the nation's largest builders at the time, akin to today's Toll Brothers, perhaps.

Lastly, if you would like to explore the idea of completely planned communities, such as Greenbelt, MD, which was a product of the New Deal era, consider reading works dating back to the Utopian movement of the late 1800s, such as Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward", and the ideas of Robert Owen, who created an experimental enclave in Scotland, and attempted to establish one in the U.S. as well.

In the end, as I read these diverse works it helped me shape my own ideas regarding the public/private balance over land use and development. It's an interesting journey that enhanced my understanding of the issues, but yet I still feel overwhelmed by magnitude of the issue. Perhaps we will indeed evolve to the types of cities imagined by Isaac Asimov in his "Foundation Series" of books.

...if you are a dc metro foamer...or just interested...this is the book for you. Meaty with information on planning and execution...nicely, but not lavishly illustrated, you'll have to get your photo jolly's from another source. Great book, though!

That question, posed in slightly different form by Mid-City activists in Washington, DC during the construction of the Metro, is posed near the end of this fine history of "America's Subway." Jonathan Schrag spends the 376 pages preceding it demonstrating that urban transportation is about more than moving people from point A to point B by chronicling the people and passions that shaped the most successful of the Second Subway Era systems. As the book's title suggests, the Washington Metro is also the product of a singular era in American politics, when the liberal idea that government could be a force for building a better society reached its zenith, but it is also the product of a worldview that reinforces the importance of the dense city as a desirable human habitat. Urban freeway building undermined that worldview, and Washington was almost unique in reasserting it in the face of powerful forces arrayed against it, including members of Congress in whose hands the fate of the national capital as a city rested. Even though the moment for grand projects like the Washington Metro has long since passed, lovers of cities can take as much inspiration from this well-written story as lovers of trains can, for it shows what is possible when the planets align just right.

This is very good book about an important piece of infrastructure in the Washington, DC area. The work covers every aspect of every neighborhood and also the politics behind the metro better than anything currently available. I wish there were books about other transport systems worthy of this one.

This is a wonderful history of the DC Metro System. This subway has provided the underground infrastructure to relieve mis-guided highway construction that threatened the District. Metro has provided the impetus for development in the Dupont Circle, 7th Street, and New York Avenue corridors. When the new basebal stadium is constructed, it will be served by 2 Metro stations and new development will occur there.

This was a present for my dad. It doesn't have a lot of pictures, but I think it will be a wonderful book. Very informative.

This is a timely book about Washington D.C.'s Metro, given the current controversy about its management, efficiency and reliability. This book answers many of the questions a typical rider of the Metro would ask. However, the writer provides far too much detail about all of the decisions that went into the zoning, planning and building of the Metro. It is very easy to get distracted and lost in each chapter.