Impact of Interstate Highway System

Impact of Interstate Highway System As the largest public works project in American history, the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways not only changed transportation methods in the United States, but systematically affected certain cultural landscapes across different regions of the country. When the act was signed into federal law in 1956, both the public and officials were unaware of the potential negative and positive influence of highways over urbanism and cityscape issues such as the creation of the idealized American Suburbia, the reduction of urban downtowns, and the destruction of scenic and tourist locations in the United States. These major highway-influenced landscape changes can be categorized into a term called roadscapes. In order to research adequately on what these roadscapes are, the history of the Interstate system must be examined in order to understand how it influences certain cultural and urban landscapes. Although invented years prior, the automobile was introduced into the American mainstream market in the early 1900s, mostly influenced by the invention of the mass production assembly line. As a direct byproduct of the use of automobiles, safer roadways became a concern for public officials across the United States, as most cities and rural infrastructures were still only suitable for horses and carriages. Most of these routes, which were generally unpaved, were created as a result of how the population moved within and between cities, with oftentimes major roads connecting nodal points in downtown districts. When the automobile became the primary use of transportation among most of these unpaved roadways, travel became dangerous due to inconsistent quality measures. During the 1920s, there were no uniform construction methods over these trails, leading to what Dan McNichol stated in his book, The Roads That Built America, chaos reigned over the road (Reid 3). From the 1920s until the mid 1950s, there were multiple factors that convinced public officials and engineers in establishing and constructing a federally controlled highway system that stretches from coast-to-coast America. During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower moved his armies easily along routes in Nazi Germany, on expressways known as the autobahns. As his signature legislation when elected into office, Eisenhower decided that the United States was in need for a public highway infrastructure similar to that of Germany (Reid 4). Although the superhighways of America were marketed as a public use to boost automobile transportation, Congresss decision during the Eisenhower Administration to enact the law was driven by the ability to move convoys and infantry units much faster across the country than ever before. Another factor that played into the creation of the highway system were alarming anxieties about the Cold War, with the public fearing that Americans needed to q uickly be able to evacuate large cities under threat of nuclear attacks. These major possibilities allowed the highway system to be pushed as a defensive measure in Congress, as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (Blas 128). Within the first few years after the construction of the Interstate in some parts of the country, immediate impact on economic growth allowed certain industrial and manufacturing markets to grow, such as farming (Blas 129). However, the highway system led to long-term negative impacts on not only the natural landscape it is built upon, but the cultural and urban landscapes of the already existing cities and communities it connects, or does not connect, in some cases. Despite having numerous effects, the three significant changes further analyzed as part of the roadscape phenomena are the reductions of the importance of urban downtowns, the creation of idealized suburbia, and the lack of access to scenic routes and rural towns along previously existing Federal Routes. The first major roadscape is the Interstates general disregard for existing urban downtowns. Urban downtowns are generated by concentrated populations and also the connections within major points of such city. The determining factors of most urban downtowns and the growth of cities in America are credited to the location of rivers and railroads (Voss 33). However, population changes in most American cities followed the creation of the Interstate System, affecting the importance of urban downtowns. When the Federal Highway Act was being countered in Congress during the early 1950s, traffic was of major concern. One of the primary opposition to the Highway Act was that it should focus more on improving the conditions of the existing Federal Route system, which already generally connected cities and their urban areas. However, Eisenhower believed that with the rise of the automobile, about 5 million sold annually during the 1950s, the network of newly created superhighways should connect cities, but not into their downtown regions, to prevent escalation of traffic problems (Reid 4). Financially, though, the decision to not place the Interstate within highly concentrated urban areas were largely based upon the amount of buying out civilian properties to replace with the Interstate. Both rural areas and lower income districts surrounding downtown areas, which consisted of weaker opposition from the community, were cheaper locations to construct the highway. Therefore, constructing what is known as beltways around cities such as Houston and Washington D.C. led to the first major roadscape phenomena: the fall of urban downtowns and the rise of economy around these once previous rural locations, creating pseudo-urban forms. Houston is a primary example of having major Interstate routes existing as physical belts around the downtown district. Originally designed as a port city connecting to the Gulf of Mexico through the Houston Ship Channel, the downtown area faced economic downfall as the primary modes of industrial transportation shifted to the Interstate, located in the surrounding suburbs. This led to the rise of major pseudo-downtown business districts directly connected to the Interstate such as Southwest Houston and the Energy Corridor. While the beltway concept is used in demonstrating negative roadscapes around cities, two other city interstate systems were generally also constructed: the loop and the spur. The loop system, for ex ample, used in Philadelphia, is similar to a beltway; however, a loop is constructed to bypass the city entirely primarily for traffic concerns. Loops affect downtown areas in the same way beltways do. A spur, which is less common than all three, is constructed as a highway entering from a beltway into a downtown area and terminates into a standard roadway. While all three types of techniques yields different results, the introduction of the Interstate in these cities changed how the urban downtown functions and interacts with the rest of the city proper. Therefore, pseudo-downtowns are part of the roadscape phenomena. The second major roadscape analyzed is the role of the Interstate in the idealized American Suburbia. The notion of suburbia indirectly correlates to the rise of economic activity outside of the urbanized form. However, the idea of suburbs can be traced back to the 1920s, as a result of rapidly growing cities. Generally, civilians of inner-city areas did not move out to the suburbs because of the lack of ease of transport, even with the automobile. Suburbs were being slowly developed around World War I, but it was the introduction of the Interstate that greatly increased the suburbanization process, in relationship to the rise of automobile production. As the beltways around congested cities were constructed, businesses and job opportunities grew away from the inner-city (Blas 130). The idealized American Suburbia was then born, an area that was not densely populated, consisted rows of picturesque houses, and did not suffer congested physical conditions of the urban landscape. The major factor introduced in separating the ideal American Suburbs from the contextual meaning of 1920s suburb is the ability to access the interstate easily and travel to and from urban areas, which became locations not for living and culture but for working and business ventures. The interstate eventually would lead to the demise of the city as the center of life and culture (Cioc 676). Most Federal freeways are located in small-scale to medium-scale residential zones, which ties directly to suburban locations in larger cities. In fact, in most of the urban metropolitan areas in the United States, the interstate only accounts for 3% of all roadways within the urban landscape, yet they yield 40% of daily traffic (Brown 174). Highways also promoted the creation of entirely new suburban locations in the United States. In the early 1970’s, the interstate allowed people to move from older-created urban cities in the north and northeast states, such as Philadelphia and Boston, to generally newer states in the â€Å"Sunbelt† region, where climates were favored, such as Miami and Phoenix (Blas 130). Before the Interstate, migrating from Megalopolis to newer urban cities such as those in California were too costly and too timely. While the American Suburb is a unique type of roadscape, it can be seen as a direct correlation to the demise of urban downtowns and creation of pseudo-downtowns, as previously analyzed. However, the final and vastly different major roadscape phenomena involves the relationship of the Interstate and the once used scenic and tourist routes. Predating the creation of the Interstate Act in 1956, one chief proposal envisioned by Thomas MacDonald, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, was that the US Route roadways, built in the mid 1920’s, should simply be repaved and improved with modern construction, in order to handle the ever increasing load of vehicular traffic. However, headed mostly by engineers, the proposal to build superhighways across the landscape and connect urban areas without increasing traffic on currently existing roadways, such as the US Route system, was eventually favored by the Eisenhower administration (Reid 3). However, since the 1920’s, the US Route system connected not only existing urban landscapes, but spurred scenic and tourist growth in rural towns and locations alongside these routes. When the Interstate paved way for the ability to drive over rivers and through mountains, some cities grew, but even more places declined economically as traffic passed further away (Blas 131). There are numerous cases in which cities became ghost towns due to the realignment of traffic due to the Interstate system, such as Route 66 and Highway 301. Route 66 was colloquially known as the Main Street of America, which connected Chicago, ran through Missouri and Arizona, and into Santa Monica, California. During the Dust Bowl, Route 66 grew in popularity as people migrated west. Most of the Scenic Route designations alongside Route 66 were located in New Mexico and Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert. However, when the Interstate was established, most of these towns, which were economically supported by gas, declined and eventually a few of these towns were deserted, such as Montoya, New Mexico, and Canyon Diablo, Arizona. Route 66 usually took two weeks during its heyday, whereas the trip from Chicago to Santa Monica on the Interstate can be completed in 29 hours. Another example is Highway 301, which caused similar fates in cities along the route, such as Starke, Florida. However, when the Interstate expanded even further away years after the traffic declined on Highway 301, Starke city officials did not object to the new proposal. They foresaw that despite lower traffic numbers, the economy of Starke would still strive on the charm of Highway 301, a scenic attraction (Blas 131). By the late 1970’s, it was clear that the accessibility of the Interstate system was greatly favored over scenic routes, causing Starke to essentially turn into a ghost town. This leads to the obvious difference that scenic highways, which were hampered by the lack of advanced civil engineering techniques during its construction in the 1920’s, are contoured by the landscape it sits on, whereas Interstates were simply tunneled through mountains and bridged over rivers and valleys where deemed necessary for shortage of travel time. As the third major phen omena, abandoned scenic routes and the disregard to small rural towns can be considered another type of roadscape. During the research of the Interstate system the United States, it became evident that even though it is one of the most, if not, the most innovative application of technology and systematic networking in the United States, it led to a different and new phenomena known as roadscapes. These roadscapes were changes in cultural and urban landscapes directly influenced by the establishment of the Federal Highway system, whether positive or negative. However, while it generated numerous ghost towns along scenic routes and toppled the organizational strategies of urban cities, it allowed the United States economy to succeed under the modern way of life, including the automobile and fast travel. References Blas, Elisheva. The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways: The Road to Success? The History Teacher 44.1 (2010): 127-42. Ebscohost. Web. 5 Feb. 2015. Brown, Jeffery, Eric Morris, and Brian Taylor. Planning for Cars in Cities. Journel of the American Planning Association 75.2 (2009): 161-71. Ebscohost. Web. 5 Feb. 2015. Cioc, Mark. The Culture of Highways. Environmental History 10.4 (2005): 675-76. JSTOR. Web. 5 Feb. 2015. Reid, Robert. Paving America From Coast to Coast. Special Report: Civil Engineering (2015): 1-9. Ebscohost. Web. 5 Feb. 2015. Voss, Paul R., and Guangqing Chi. Highways and Population Change. Rural Sociology 71.1 (2006): 33-58. Print.

International Policing

International policing is a form of cooperation among many countries with the main aim being to safeguard the security interests of the various partner countries. International policing has been implemented fro many years especially after individual countries realized that it was somewhat difficult to manage all their borders solely. This paper looks at boundaries of international policing, to what extent it is applicable and how it can be applied an organizational setting (Daniel. 2001).International policing plays a key role in the prevention and control of international crimes like drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal immigration, incidents of terrorism and other crimes that take place across borders. International policing has thus been justified by the dire need to control the overwhelming cases of crime in the international arena (Hilary. 2005). There are three main forms of international policing that are widely recognized and implemented the world over.The first one i s where societies organize themselves in such manner that goes beyond the local boundaries of the country. This usually comes about as a result of influence from economical and political changes. The second form of international policing is whereby police officers in their capacity as police officers while on duty in transnational activities. It could be on an intelligence or investigative duty. The third category is institutions of police officers in various countries collaborate with officers from another country.These collaborations bring about unions which may be permanent or temporary depending on the purpose of their formation (Mathieu. 2010). Looking at the concept of international policing through the years, it has been observed that police officers prefer working on their own on a unilateral basis without having to collaborate with other officers from foreign countries. This means that transnational policing still remains the most popular form of international policing in t he police force.It has also been noted that collaboration among police officers at the international level is quite limited and is only used when need arises. Thirdly is that any time police officers in different countries engage in collaborative measures no permanent forces are formed. Instead communication and exchange of information among the various organizations of police are done through headquarters and use of technology to relay information from one center to another (Beth. 2009).Some of the key issues that make international policing effective is the development of a society in terms of organizational policing and making crime a matter of international interest. International policing can also be applied in an organizational context. For example one department of an organization say, the finance department can collaborate with the procurement of the organization for the harmonious and smooth running of the organization. Similarly one department of an organization can collab orate with another department of another organization for the best interest of both organizations (Daniel.2001). Despite the various challenges that international policing has faced over the years, it is slowly emerging to be one of the best ways of ensuring security across border. Various countries have to come to accept that it is difficult to be self sufficient when it comes security especially at the borders (Mathieu. 2010). It is only through international policing that crimes like drug trafficking, trafficking of human beings, acts of terrorism and cases of illegal immigration can come to an end.All countries must therefore embrace international policing as it is the only way out in combating transnational crimes. References Beth, Greener. (2009). The New International Policing, Global Issues, Palgrave Macmillan. Daniel J. et al (2001). International Police Cooperation: A World Perspective, Lexington Books. Hilary. Charles worth & C. M. Chinkin. (2005). The boundaries of inter national law: a feminist analysis. New York: Sunny Press. Mathieu. Deflem. (2010). Policing world society: historical foundations of international police. New York: SAGE

Non-Verbal Behaviour and Gestures in “A Streetcar Names Desire” Essay

Task: Tennessee Williams uses very specific and detailed stage directions to indicate the emotions, thoughts and actions of his characters. Select a character from the play and discuss how his/her gestures and non-verbal behaviour serves to further reveal his/her personality traits. You might also add how his/her behaviour relates to the surroundings and cultural setting. The essay is based on Scenes 1 and 2. Word limit: 800 Tennessee Williams uses very specific and detailed stage directions to indicate the emotions, thoughts and actions of his characters in his famous play â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire†. We communicate with much more than words. Most of the messages we send other people are nonverbal, these include our facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, posture, and tone of voice. The ability to portrait nonverbal communication in a play, or body language, is a powerful tool which can be utilized by any author to enhance the reading experience and give the play, even though it is just on paper in words and not enacted a deeper setting and a more natural interaction with the character. It acts like an unconscious language that broadcasts the character’s true feelings and intentions at any given moment. Blanche DuBois is no different in this respect to the extent that her actions speak more for her than she does verbally, considering her being a very talkative person. In the first Scene Blanche arrives at Elysian Fields to visit her Sister Stella, here the first sign of non-verbal behaviour can be observed. Blanche gives Eunice, the co-owner of Stella’s house and up-stair neighbour, a peculiar look as she enters the house, which she first doubted to believe was in fact her Sister’s due to its weathered grey and raffish appearance. This immediately causes a reaction on Eunice’ part resulting in a defensive tone of voice. â€Å"EUNICE [defensively, noticing BLANCHE’S look]: It’s sort of messed up right now but when it’s clean it’s real sweet.† – pg. 4 The defensive tone and the knowledge of Blanche’s â€Å"look† reveals that Blanche is used to living in a clean home, perhaps a bigger one with no neighbour on the second floor. It gives the reader the impression that she feels she has entered a house not up to her standards. This awareness directly influences the way the reader reads the next line, Blanche’s reply. â€Å"BLANCHE: Is it?† – pg. 4 Even though the author has not indicated a particular tone, the reader automatically may jump to a sarcastic one, developing the reader’s first impression of Blanche further solely due to the non-verbal message sent by Eunice through her tone of voice. The next instance is fully described by Tennessee Williams in one of his many stage directions right after Eunice leaves to hustle up Stella and tell her that her Sister Blanche has arrived. Alone in the house now, â€Å"Blanche sits in a chair very stiffly and her shoulders slightly hunched and her legs pressed close together and her hands tightly clutching her purse as if she were quite cold.† – pg. 5 Her posture exposes her inner feeling towards the situation and new environment she currently is in. She feels awkward in this estranged, messy house; her hunched shoulders and pressed legs expression anxiety and uneasy adaptation to the location. Her clutching her purse, valuable belongings, may also display intimidation or mistrust to a certain extent, but this is not directly hinted by the author. Perhaps it is her next action that plays a crucial part in understanding Blanche or having a better idea of the kind of person she really is. â€Å"†¦she begins to slowly look around. (†¦) Suddenly she notices something in a half-opened closet. She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whisky bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whisky and tosses it down. She carefully replaces the bottle and washes the tumbler at the sink. Then she resumes her seat in front of the table.† – pg. 5 This short action tells us a number of different things about Blanche; she is a secretive and cautious person, she washes the glass and replaces the bottle to its original place as if nothing had happened. She does not feel guilty of using the situation to her advantage, she enjoys it. And last but not least, the reader is hinted at that she is not the person she may seem to be from the perspectives of the other characters; she is the secret alcoholic, addict without a strong se nse of self control. Later on in Scene two Blanche reveals another facet to her character – she flirts with Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski and later even tells her about it. But that is verbal; the non-verbal component to this is in the stage directions: â€Å"[She sprays herself with her atomizer; then playfully sprays him (Stanley) with it. He seizes the atomizer and slams it down on the dresser. She throws back her head and laughs.]† I am not sure whether one would describe â€Å"playfully spraying† as a gesture, but either way it is non-verbal and leads to the direct assumption that Blanch is in fact flirting with her Sister’s husband, quite openly. It is something that usually people simply don’t do; it tells the reader that she is a character with a weak moral stem and an interest for men which outweighs her social values and family relationships. Her body language as she â€Å"throws back her head† also points towards feeling comfortable and not intimidated under Stanley’s presence and insinuates a further relation with him that may come out later on in the play. The significance of this is not yet known at the end of Scene 2, but it leads the reader to believe she may have an eye out for her Sister’s husband. The non-verbal behaviour and gestures throughout the first two Scenes of this play are more important than one may imagine. They give depth to every characters personality traits and have a direct impact on the way the reader categorizes them and in turns the tone the reader then reads their lines in.

Illegal Immigration and the Federalist System Essay

Illegal Immigration and the Federalist System The influx of illegal immigrants into the United States affects every level of government in a significant way. Although the actual effects of illegal immigration are hotly debated, it remains the governments difficult duty to balance the massive amounts of data and diversity of public opinion in order to best accommodate the overall will of its people. In recent times we have witnessed a vast disconnect between what constituents want for their state versus what the nation as a whole considers Constitutionally justifiable. And therefore the necessity of a federal system, wherein the national government is playing a virtual tug-of-war with its states, comes to light. Using the issue of†¦show more content†¦418). The REAL ID Act in its influence of immigration policy would in theory make it much more difficult for illegal aliens--more specifically terrorists--to obtain official identification or abuse asylum (NCLS REAL ID, Calvo ). The passage of both acts represents a clear interest to further protect the American borders and the security of U.S. citizens by the federal government. More recently the issue of immigration regulation seems to be a legislative priority solely based on the frequency of related proposals. In first session of 2011s 112th Congress, legislators have proposed many immigration legislations. One example is a proposal by House Representative Marsha Blackburn (TN) that would amend the preexisting Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 essentially enhancing federal assistance to the state and local efforts in reducing illegal border crossings (112th Congress, H.R. 100). Taking a more drastic and roundabout approach to immigration law, a Constitutional Amendment was proposed in a joint resolution by Senator David Vitter of Louisiana on January 25th, 2011 that would change the parameters defining a U.S. citizen thereby making citizenship ultimately more difficult to attain (112th Congress, S.J. Res. 2). The issue of illegal immigrat ion is sure to be a focal point for many congressional sessions to come . In addition to federal regulations, the states areShow MoreRelatedThe Battle Of The Alamo1410 Words   |  6 PagesMexican government transformed from a federalist system to a strong centralist government (Hardin, 1994). The Mexican government stopped Anglo-American immigration into Texas, combined the territories of Coahuila and Texas (Coahuila y Tejas) into a single state with reduced legislative representation, and severely restricted trade from the territory. 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