Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Inside Technology)

In 1939 motordom's work culminated in one of the most monumental works of promotional showmanship in the history of technology: the Futuramamodel depicting the motorized city of 1960, displayed in General Motors' "Highways and Horizons" pavilion at the New York World's Fair. It was a motor age dream city, entirely dependent on automobiles

In the city street of 1920 the automobile was a nuisance, even an intruder. Automobiles were extravagant in their use of scarce space, they were dangerous (especially to non-motorists), they had to be parked, and they served only a small minority of city people.

efficiency.

Walking, however, was obviously necessary, and pedestrians were virtually incapable of causing accidental injury to others.

Success in such historical investigations requires not merely looking back from where we stand today at the actors of times past, but getting back to them, so we can stand next to them and adopt their perspective.

rhetorical closure, problems

As long as automobiles were "pleasure cars" there were few grounds for tolerating the injury and death they caused.

persist, but promotional language is used to assert the success of the new way,

In the 1920s, automotive interests (or motordom, as they were sometimes called)