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From Rails to Trails
- The Making of America's Active Transportation Network
- Narrated by: Mark Sando
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
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From Rails to Trails
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Publisher's summary
If, as Wallace Stegner said, the national park is “the best idea we ever had,” the rail-trail is certainly a close runner-up. Part transportation corridor, part park, the rail-trail has revolutionized the way America creates high-quality, car-free pathways for bicyclists, runners, walkers, equestrians, and more.
It was only a few decades after railroad barons had run roughshod over America’s economy and politics that they began to shed nearly one hundred thousand miles of unneeded railroad corridor. At the same time, bicyclists were being so thoroughly pushed off ever-more-intimidating roadways they came close to extinction. Through political organizing and lawyerly grit, an unlikely, formerly marginalized advocacy arose, seized on seemingly worthless strips of land, and created a resource that is treasured by millions of Americans today for recreation, purposeful travel, tourism, conservation, and historical interpretation.
From Rails to Trails is the fascinating tale of the rails-to-trails movement as well as a consideration of what the continued creation of rail-trails means for the future of Americans’ health, nonmotorized transportation networks, and communities across the country.
The book is published by University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"Will be a reference for trail designers and builders for generations to come." (Dirt)
“A spellbinding tale of the history of the rails-to trails movement.” (Charles N. Marshall, former officer of Conrail and Genesee & Wyoming railroads)
“Peter Harnik captures the history of a movement that has provided so many pathways for people to commute, recreate, and enjoy nature.” (Sally Jewell, former U.S. secretary of the interior)
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 147
From author Earl Swift comes the surprising history of the U.S. interstate system, a fascinating route through the dreams, discoveries, and protests that shaped these mighty roads.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lessons from The Big Roads
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Earl Swift
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Sun, Sin, Suburbia
- The History of Modern Las Vegas Revised and Expanded
- By: Geoff Schumacher
- Narrated by: Douglas R. Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Las Vegas is gambling's mecca - Sin City the Entertainment Capital of the World with 40 million visitors a year. But that's just part of the story. This carefully documented history tracks the rise of Las Vegas from its vital role in World War II, of the Rat Pack era of the 50s, the explosive growth of the 90s, and it's colossal collapse in the post 2008 real-estate crash. It offers a history of the iconic Strip, but also profiles the neighborhoods where over 2 million people live.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good History of Vegas - old, modern and mundane
- By Amazon Customer on 06-13-14
By: Geoff Schumacher
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The Road Taken
- The History and Future of America's Infrastructure
- By: Henry Petroski
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly 65,000 bridges in the United States as 'structurally deficient'. This crisis - and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis - shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well put
- By Lawrence on 08-10-17
By: Henry Petroski
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Street Smart
- The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars
- By: Samuel I. Schwartz, William Rosen - contributor
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
With wit and sharp insight, former Traffic Commissioner of New York City, Sam Schwartz a.k.a. "Gridlock Sam", one of the most respected transportation engineers in the world and consummate insider in NYC political circles, uncovers how American cities became so beholden to cars and why the current shift away from that trend will forever alter America's urban landscapes, marking nothing short of a revolution in how we get from place to place.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, thought provoking, and hopeful
- By JKuster on 03-07-20
By: Samuel I. Schwartz, and others
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Electric City
- The Lost History of Ford and Edison's American Utopia
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
During the Roaring Twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be 10 times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pretty good
- By David Mitchell on 06-10-21
By: Thomas Hager
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Walkable City
- How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
- By: Jeff Speck
- Narrated by: Jeff Speck
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 973
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 855
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 846
Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting topic and thoughtful insight, subpar recording.
- By Andrew Nicks on 05-12-18
By: Jeff Speck
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How the Post Office Created America
- A History
- By: Winifred Gallagher
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
The founders established the Post Office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time it was the US government's largest and most important endeavor - indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind 13 quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen - a radical idea that appalled Europe's great powers.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Super interesting. I'm so disappointed.
- By william kearns on 07-21-16
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Crabgrass Frontier
- The Suburbanization of the United States
- By: Kenneth T. Jackson
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
This first full-scale history of the development of the American suburb examines how "the good life" in America came to be equated with the a home of one's own surrounded by a grassy yard and located far from the urban workplace. Integrating social history with economic and architectural analysis, and taking into account such factors as the availability of cheap land, inexpensive building methods, and rapid transportation, Kenneth Jackson chronicles the phenomenal growth of the American suburb from the middle of the 19th century to the present day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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There is so much to think about here.
- By Richard McKown on 06-25-23
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The Source
- How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers
- By: Martin Doyle
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment - over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development. Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the US Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of Engineers, the discovery of gold in 1848, and the construction of the Hoover Dam and the TVA during the New Deal, to the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great historical read without compare.
- By Thomas P Dore on 04-10-18
By: Martin Doyle
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Soul City
- Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia
- By: Thomas Healy
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Author Thomas Healy resurrects a forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality in this fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”.
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5 out of 5 stars
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awesome narrator
- By Arthur F. Jackson on 06-23-21
By: Thomas Healy
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Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 202
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Story4 out of 5 stars 170
Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
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A Brief History of Motion
- From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Tom Standage's fleet-footed and surprising global histories have delighted fans and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Now, he returns with a provocative account of an overlooked form of technology - personal transportation - and explores how it has shaped societies and cultures over millennia. Beginning around 3,500 BCE with the wheel - a device that didn't catch on until a couple thousand years after its invention - Standage zips through the eras of horsepower, trains, and bicycles, revealing how each successive mode of transit embedded itself in the world we live in.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen
- By CKerb on 11-09-21
By: Tom Standage
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The 99% Invisible City
- A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design
- By: Kurt Kohlstedt, Roman Mars
- Narrated by: Roman Mars
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 591
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 488
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 488
99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The 99% Invisible City
- By Louise Schraa on 01-09-21
By: Kurt Kohlstedt, and others
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Water to the Angels
- William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 177
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 178
The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created - William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct - a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Water challenges never end
- By John Matel on 04-10-15
By: Les Standiford
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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 557
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 472
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 472
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
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Colossus
- Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 118
As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America's greatest achievements. The story of its conception, design, and construction is the story of the United States at a unique moment in history: when facing both a global economic crisis and the implacable elements of nature, we prevailed.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Political Biography of the Dam
- By Roy on 02-20-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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Drive!
- Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age
- By: Lawrence Goldstone
- Narrated by: Christopher Price
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
From the acclaimed author of Birdmen comes a revelatory new history of the birth of the automobile - an illuminating and entertaining true tale of invention, competition, and the visionaries, hustlers, and swindlers who came together to transform the world. With a narrative as propulsive as its subject, Drive! plunges us headlong into a time unlike any in history, when manic innovation and consumerist zeal coalesced to forever change the way people got from one place to another.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Ford Detractor.
- By Eric Johnston on 08-15-22