Paying the Toll
Paying the Toll

Author: Louise Nelson Dyble

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-10-11

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0812206886

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Since its opening in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge has become an icon for the beauty and prosperity of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as a symbol of engineering achievement. Constructing the bridge posed political and financial challenges that were at least as difficult as those faced by the project's builders. To meet these challenges, northern California boosters created a new kind of agency: an autonomous, self-financing special district. The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District developed into a powerful organization that shaped the politics and government of the Bay Area as much as the bridge shaped its physical development. From the moment of the bridge district's incorporation in 1928, its managers pursued their own agenda. They used all the resources at their disposal to preserve their control over the bridge, cultivating political allies, influencing regional policy, and developing an ambitious public relations program. Undaunted by charges of mismanagement and persistent efforts to turn the bridge (as well as its lucrative tolls) over to the state, the bridge district expanded into mass transportation, taking on ferry and bus operations to ensure its survival to this day. Drawing on previously unavailable archives, Paying the Toll gives us an inside view of the world of high-stakes development, cronyism, and bureaucratic power politics that have surrounded the Golden Gate Bridge since its inception.

The Bonds of Inequality
The Bonds of Inequality

Author: Destin Jenkins

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2022-05-02

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0226819981

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"Cities require infrastructure as they grow and persist; infrastructure requires funding, typically from the bond market. But the bond market is not a neutral player. In this groundbreaking book, Destin Jenkins suggests that questions of urban infrastructure are inherently also questions of justice because infrastructure requires financial mechanisms to come into being. Moreover, these mechanisms abstract cities into investments controlled from afar, which exacerbates local inequalities of race, wealth, and power. Ultimately, Jenkins opens up far larger questions, such as why it is that American social welfare is predicated on the demands of finance capitalism in the first place"--

Golden Dreams
Golden Dreams

Author: Kevin Starr

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-09-09

Total Pages: 601

ISBN-13: 0199924309

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A narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose, Kevin Starr's acclaimed multi-volume Americans and the California Dream is an unparalleled work of cultural history. In this volume, Starr covers the crucial postwar period--1950 to 1963--when the California we know today first burst into prominence. Starr brilliantly illuminates the dominant economic, social, and cultural forces in California in these pivotal years. In a powerful blend of telling events, colorful personalities, and insightful analyses, Starr examines such issues as the overnight creation of the postwar California suburb, the rise of Los Angeles as Super City, the reluctant emergence of San Diego as one of the largest cities in the nation, and the decline of political centrism. He explores the Silent Generation and the emergent Boomer youth cult, the Beats and the Hollywood "Rat Pack," the pervasive influence of Zen Buddhism and other Asian traditions in art and design, the rise of the University of California and the emergence of California itself as a utopia of higher education, the cooling of West Coast jazz, freeway and water projects of heroic magnitude, outdoor life and the beginnings of the environmental movement. More broadly, he shows how California not only became the most populous state in the Union, but in fact evolved into a mega-state en route to becoming the global commonwealth it is today. Golden Dreams continues an epic series that has been widely recognized for its signal contribution to the history of American culture in California. It is a book that transcends its stated subject to offer a wealth of insight into the growth of the Sun Belt and the West and indeed the dramatic transformation of America itself in these pivotal years following the Second World War.

Hearings
Hearings

Author: United States. Congress. Joint Committee ...

Publisher:

Published: 1960

Total Pages: 1392

ISBN-13:

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