Power Moves

Kyle Shelton is the director of strategic partnerships and a fellow at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. His writing on transportation and urban development has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Journal of Urban History, Nature, and CityLab.

• Introduction1. Building a Highway Metropolis: The Origins and Advent of Houston's Postwar Growth2. Whose Highways? Planning, Politics, and Consequences3. "Only You Can Prevent Another Freeway": The Harrisburg Freeway and the Struggle to Shape a Neighborhood4. Infrastructural Elections: Transit Referenda in the 1970s5. By Road or by Rail? The 1983 Transit Debate6. The Legacies and Limits of Infrastructural CitizenshipConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

As our nation struggles to find the will to repair and develop our failing infrastructure, Shelton's detailed and nuanced account is timely indeed. This is a book worth pondering, written about a city that continues to stumble towards sustainability, justice, and accessibility. (Southwestern Historical Quarterly) This book will be of value to regional policy-makers and activists, urban historians and planners, Houston history buffs, and historians of transportation, technology, and the environment. It was a pleasure to read Shelton's work. (Environmental History) A detailed look at how Houston's transportation infrastructure has shaped the planning and building of the city…While Houston appears to be a typical sun belt metropolis, dominated by automobiles and riven by class and race boundaries, Power Moves sheds light on how the city came to be and what unique Houston characteristics the nation is finally noticing. (Journal of American History) An important addition to the historiography of Houston…Power Moves is essential reading for students and scholars of Houston history and urban history. (Pacific Historical Review) [An] important book...impressively researched, the arguments being well-evidenced...It is difficult not to be discouraged about the prospects of infrastructure democracy because of very different conceptions of the public good (and because of climate change, a result in great part of our transportation choices). But Power Moves shows that democratically achieved positive outcomes, given the right conditions, can sometimes be the result. (Journal of Transport History) Shelton lays out this history of transportation politics in a factual and linear fashion...The book is well researched and outlines some specific outrages, but it is, at its heart, a history. (Texas Architect) [Power Moves] is an ambitious amalgamation of urban studies literature with strong roots in history, and offers important lessons for scholars, practitioners, and students...Shelton's emphasis on citizen participation to steer highway and transit debates sets Power Moves apart from most other texts on highway development and urban renewal...Power Moves makes a significant and timely contribution to the history of transportation infrastructure in modern American cities. The concept the book introduces around infrastructural citizenship provides a useful methodological tool for understanding how development decisions of the past continue to impact the present and future. (Planning Perspectives)