Plank Road Fever in Antebellum America

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 38 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Plank Road Fever in Antebellum America by : Daniel B. Klein

Download or read book Plank Road Fever in Antebellum America written by Daniel B. Klein and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Street Smart

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351487892
Total Pages : 675 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Street Smart by : Gabriel Roth

Download or read book Street Smart written by Gabriel Roth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poor health of today's roads--a subject close to the hearts of motorists, taxpayers, and government treasurers around the world--has resulted from faulty incentives that misdirect government decision-makers, according to the contributors to Street Smart. During the 1990s, bad government decision-making resulted in the U.S. Interstate Highway System growing by only one seventh the rate of traffic growth. The poor maintenance of existing roads is another concern. In cities around the world, highly political and wasteful government decision-making has led to excessive traffic congestion that has created long commutes, reduced safety, and caused loss of leisure time.Street Smart examines the privatization of roads in theory and in practice. The authors see at least four possible roles for private companies, beyond the well-known one of working under contract to design, build, or maintain governmentally provided roads. These include testing and licensing vehicles and drivers; management of government-owned facilities; franchising; and outright private ownership. Two chapters describe the history of private roads in the United Kingdom and the United States. Contemporary examples are provided of road pricing, privatizing, and contracting out are evident in environs as diverse as Singapore, Southern California, and Scandinavia, and cities as different as Bergen, Norway, and London, England. Finally, several chapters examine strategies for implementing privatization. The principles governing providing scarce resources in free societies are well known. We apply them to such necessities as energy, food, and water so why not to "road space"? The main obstacle to private, or semi-private, ownership of roads is likely to remain the reluctance of the political class to give up a lucrative source of power and influence.Those who want decisions about road services to be controlled by the interplay of consumers and suppliers in free markets, rat

Promoters and Investors in Antebellum America

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 44 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Promoters and Investors in Antebellum America by : Daniel Klein

Download or read book Promoters and Investors in Antebellum America written by Daniel Klein and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents the history of plank road fever in the U.S. during the mid-nineteenth century. It began in New York when George Geddes and other promoters highly exaggerated the durability of wooden surfacing. In a few years Americans built hundreds of plank roads across the country. This event illustrates how promoters spread false information in an era when there were few watchdogs against such claims. The report also provides insight into the motivations of promoters, who sought rewards other than monetary.

The Road Ahead

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Publisher : Strategic Book Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1612045324
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Road Ahead by : Philip Tarnoff

Download or read book The Road Ahead written by Philip Tarnoff and published by Strategic Book Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's future depends on a vibrant highway system capable of supporting industry and the travel needs of its citizens. The country's highway system can trace its roots to the movements of major armies in colonial times, such as British General Braddock using George Washington's assistance in a disastrous attack of French forces defending Ft. Duquesne. These early roads developed into the engineering marvels of today's modern highway system. But this system is in serious trouble. Inadequate funding and poor management are responsible for its gradual deterioration, and along with it, the U.S. economy. A broad range of solutions can solve this problem, some of which involve transforming public transportation agencies into privately operated utilities. Many of these exciting solutions also offer the potential to solve America's funding problems. This book is must-reading for anyone concerned with America's future, as it shows us The Road Ahead... About the Author: Philip Tarnoff received an electrical engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a master's degree from New York University. He is retired from his most recent full-time job as director of a research center at the University of Maryland. Tarnoff was the president of a major transportation systems integrator and is currently working part-time as a consultant. He is also chairman of the board of a start-up company that produces devices for measuring traffic flow. He lives in Rockville, Maryland http: //SBPRA.com/PhilipTarnoff

Highway Heist

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Publisher : Independent Institute
ISBN 13 : 1598133462
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Highway Heist by : James T. Bennett

Download or read book Highway Heist written by James T. Bennett and published by Independent Institute. This book was released on 2022-10-03 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this eye-opening book, Professor James Bennett guides readers through centuries of one of the most underrated yet widely used aspects of American life—roads. Relying on history and economic data—and with a humorous and oftentimes sharp tongue—Bennett explains how important America's highways and byways have been to everything from policymaking to everyday life. Crafting America's roads took persuasion, planning—and more taxes than any politician could have dreamed of. And far too often their realization, thanks, in Bennett's view, to flawed interpretations of the power of eminent domain, required destruction, sometimes on a massive scale, of long-established neighborhoods and important cityscapes. Likewise, the upkeep of America's highways has been the center of many a policy battle, waged by Republicans and Democrats alike. Yes, we all want roads in good working condition—but just how and who will pay for them remain contentious questions. Bennett argues persuasively that the road forward just might be a second, but more serious, sustained look at, and local experimentation with, private roads and toll roads. Agree or disagree with him, Bennett has written a significant contribution to America's ongoing debate about how her citizens should traverse, from "sea to shining sea," its fruited plain.

The Wisdom of Crowds

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Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307275051
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Wisdom of Crowds by : James Surowiecki

Download or read book The Wisdom of Crowds written by James Surowiecki and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2005-08-16 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.

American Environmental History

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231512384
Total Pages : 505 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis American Environmental History by : Carolyn Merchant

Download or read book American Environmental History written by Carolyn Merchant and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-31 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By studying the many ways diverse peoples have changed, shaped, and conserved the natural world over time, environmental historians provide insight into humanity's unique relationship with nature and, more importantly, are better able to understand the origins of our current environmental crisis. Beginning with the precolonial land-use practice of Native Americans and concluding with our twenty-first century concerns over our global ecological crisis, American Environmental History addresses contentious issues such as the preservation of the wilderness, the expulsion of native peoples from national parks, and population growth, and considers the formative forces of gender, race, and class. Entries address a range of topics, from the impact of rice cultivation, slavery, and the growth of the automobile suburb to the effects of the Russian sea otter trade, Columbia River salmon fisheries, the environmental justice movement, and globalization. This illustrated reference is an essential companion for students interested in the ongoing transformation of the American landscape and the conflicts over its resources and conservation. It makes rich use of the tools and resources (climatic and geological data, court records, archaeological digs, and the writings of naturalists) that environmental historians rely on to conduct their research. The volume also includes a compendium of significant people, concepts, events, agencies, and legislation, and an extensive bibliography of critical films, books, and Web sites.

Post Roads & Iron Horses

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Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
ISBN 13 : 0819571733
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Post Roads & Iron Horses by : Richard DeLuca

Download or read book Post Roads & Iron Horses written by Richard DeLuca and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating history of turnpikes, steamboats, canals, railroads, and trolleys in Connecticut Post Roads & Iron Horses is the first book to look in detail at the turnpikes, steamboats, canals, railroads, and trolleys (street railroads) that helped define Connecticut and shape New England. Advances in transportation technology during the nineteenth century transformed the Constitution State from a rough network of colonial towns to an industrial powerhouse of the Gilded Age. From the race to build the Farmington Canal to the shift from water to rail transport, historian and transportation engineer Richard DeLuca gives us engaging stories and traces the significant themes that emerge as American innovators and financiers, lawyers and legislators, struggle to control the movement of passengers and goods in southern New England. The book contains over fifty historical images and maps, and provides an excellent point of view from which to interpret the history of New England as a whole. This is an indispensable reference book for those interested in Connecticut history and a great gift for transportation buffs of all kinds.

The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231505841
Total Pages : 469 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History by : Carolyn Merchant

Download or read book The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History written by Carolyn Merchant and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-14 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why have Americans living at particular times and places used and transformed their environment? How have political systems dealt with conflicts over resources and conservation? This is the only major reference work to explore all the major themes and debates of the burgeoning field of environmental history. Humanity ́s relationship with the natural world is one of the oldest and newest topics in human history. The issue emerged as a distinct field of scholarship in the early 1970s and has been growing steadily ever since. The discipline ́s territory and sources are rich and varied and include climactic and geological data, court records, archaeological digs, and the writings of naturalists, as well as federal and state economic and resource development and conservation policy. Environmental historians investigate how and why natural and human-created surroundings affect a society ́s development. Merchant provides a context-setting overview of American environmental history from the beginning of the millennium; an encyclopedia of important concepts, people, agencies, and laws; a chronology of major events; and an extensive bibliography including films, videos, CD-Roms, and websites. This concise "first stop" reference for students and general readers contains an accessible overview of environmental history; a mini-encyclopedia of ideas, people, legislation, and agencies; a chronology of events and their significance; and a bibliography of books, magazines, and journals as well as films, videos, CD-ROMs, and online resources. In addition to providing a wealth of factual information, The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History explores contentious issues in this much-debated field, from the idea of wilderness to global warming. How and why have Americans living at particular times and places used and transformed their environment? How have political systems dealt with conflicts over resources and conservation? This is the only major reference work to explore all the major themes and debates in the burgeoning field of environmental history. Humanity's relationship with the natural world is one of the oldest and newest topics in human history. The issue emerged as a distinct field of scholarship in the early 1970s and has been growing steadily ever since. The discipline's territory and sources are rich and varied and include climatic and geological data, court records, archaeological digs, and the writings of naturalists, as well as federal and state economic and resource development and conservation policy. Environmental historians investigate how and why natural and human-created surroundings affect a society's development. Merchant provides a context-setting overview of American environmental history from the precolonial land-use practice of Native Americans and concluding with twenty-first concerns over global warming. The book also includes a glossary of important concepts, people, agencies, and legislation; a chronology of major events; and an extensive bibliography including films, videos, CD-ROMs, and websites. This concise reference for students and general readers contains an accessible overview of American environmental history; a mini-encyclopedia of ideas, people, legislation, and agencies; a chronology of events and their significance; and a bibliography of books, magazines, and journals as well as films, videos, CD-ROMs, and online resources. In addition to providing a wealth of factual information, The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History explores contentious issues in this much-debated field, from the idea of wilderness to global warming.

Walking Seasonal Roads

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Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 0815651740
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Walking Seasonal Roads by : Mary A. Hood

Download or read book Walking Seasonal Roads written by Mary A. Hood and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-18 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seasonal roads are defined as one-lane dirt roads not maintained during the winter. They function as connectors linking farmers to their fields, neighbors to neighbors, or two more well-traveled roads to each other. Some access hunting lands and recreational areas. Some pass by cemeteries, allowing people to visit and honor their dead. They can be abandoned as people move and towns fade. In every incarnation, the seasonal road touches the land in a gentler way than do other roads. Having traveled nearly every seasonal road in Steuben County, New York, Hood finds they provide the ideal vantage to contemplate the meaning of place, offering intimate contact with plant and wildlife and the beauty of a rural landscape. Each road reveals how our land is used, how our land is protected, and how environmental factors have impacted the land. As a literary naturalist, Hood reflects on endangered species and invasive species, as well as on issues of conservation and sustainability. From state forests to potato fields, from development along Keuka Lake to vineyards, from old family cemeteries to logging sites, Walking Seasonal Roads is a celebration and an honoring of the rural and the regionalism of place, illustrating the ways we connect to our home and to each other.