"Concrete Leviathan: The Interstate Highway System and Infrastructural " by Teal Arcadi
 

Concrete Leviathan: The Interstate Highway System and Infrastructural Inequality in the Age of Liberalism

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-21-2023

Abstract

This article explores how the construction of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways prompted litigation that altered the course of administrative law and governance from the 1960s onward. By that time, the construction of the interstate system had become synonymous with the destruction of neighborhoods and parks bulldozed to make way for the concrete monsters, as some came to call the interstates. Ensuing protests - freeway revolts - pressed for altered construction practices and participatory roles for citizens and communities in the state building process underway. This article explores the legal consequences of interstate highway protest, and advances two arguments. First, freeway revolts brought distinctive reforms to the practices of modern American state building, particularly when they produced the canonical Supreme Court case Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe (1971). Second, despite the reformist inclinations present in Overton Park, the case created an unequal legal and physical landscape of state building. Contrasting Overton Park with Nashville I-40 Steering Committee v. Ellington (1967), a case dealing with racial discrimination and community destruction, reveals the mechanics of a legal regime that cemented racial and class hierarchies in place across long horizons of space and time via the interstate system's durable, nation-spanning asphalt limbs.

Identifier

85163773653 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Law and History Review

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248023000044

e-ISSN

19399022

ISSN

07382480

First Page

145

Last Page

169

Issue

1

Volume

41

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