Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars

[Read by Don Hagen]

In December 1973 a section of New York's West Side Highway collapsed under the weight of a truck full of asphalt. The road was closed, which ought to have produced traffic chaos, but it didn't. The cars simply vanished. It was a moment of revelation: the highway had induced the demand for car travel. Samuel Schwartz was inspired by the lesson. He started to reimagine cities freed from their obligation to cars. Eventually, he found, he was not alone. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a surreptitious revolution has taken place: every year Americans are driving fewer miles. Schwartz's Street Smart is an affectionate history of American cities and an inspiring off-road map to a more vibrant, active, and vigorous urban future.

Samuel I. Schwartz, a.k.a. ''Gridlock Sam,'' is one of the leading transportation experts in the United States today. He served as New York City's traffic commissioner and the New York City Department of Transportation's chief engineer. Schwartz currently runs Sam Schwartz Engineering and is a columnist at the New York Daily News. He has been profiled by the New Yorker, New York Times, and many other national publications. Schwartz lives in New York City.