Brian Potter's detailed history of how America built 48,000 miles of highway in 35 years - the planning, politics, engineering, and what it cost.
“The best explanation I've read of how large infrastructure projects actually happen. Spoiler: it wasn't just 'political will' - there were specific institutional innovations that made it possible.”
2 comments
Join OpenLinq to join the discussion
The part about the Bureau of Public Roads creating standardized design specs that every state had to follow is fascinating. Central standards + distributed execution. There's a pattern there for modern infrastructure too.
What strikes me is the timeline. They planned it in 1944, authorized it in 1956, and mostly finished by 1980. Today we can't even agree to start. The planning-to-execution gap has grown enormously.