Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility [Paperback]

Robert D. Bullard (Editor), Glenn Johnson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1997

From Harlem to Los Angeles and the cities in between, this book reveals the distribution of transportation benefits to the wealthy and educated to be disproportionately high compared to people of colour and those at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. Essays by a wide range of environmental and transportation activists, lawyers, and scholars trace the historical roots of transportation struggles in US civil rights history from Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders to modern-day unjust transportation equity are examined, as well as the impact of transportation policy on inner city environments.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086571357X
• ISBN-13: 978-0865713574
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #945,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars magnificent in parts, April 24, 2001

By 

Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility (Paperback)

This book points out an all too often ignored point: that arguments over sprawl and transportation are really arguments about race and class, because when government provides roads to accelerate suburban sprawl but does not create transit to reach highway-created suburbs, it essentially freezes the carless poor, elderly and disabled out of employment and civic life.

Some of the essays in this book are a bit dull and bureaucratic--but the best make it worth reading. I especially recommend David Oedel's essay on Macon, where after desegregation the city wrecked its small bus system by investing heavily in suburban areas without bus service. The result: in a city where 14% of the households (mostly African-Americans) don't have cars, bus service stops running at 6ish. After reading this I couldn't help wondering: "have they [the governing elites in places like Macon] no shame?"