Road, River, & Ol' Boy Politics: A Texas County's Path from Farm to Supersuburb
by Scarbrough, Linda
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- As New in As New dust jacket
- ISBN 10
- 0876112025
- ISBN 13
- 9780876112021
- Seller
-
Georgetown, Texas, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Austin: Texas State Historical Association. As New in As New dust jacket. 2005. First Edition. Hardcover. Full number line 5 4 3 2 1. Map of Williamson county on endpapers. . 404 pages. In 1946, Williamson County, Texas, was profoundly rural. Reflecting the Democratic Party represented in Congress by Lyndon Baines Johnson, the county was based on an isolated agricultural economy and contained a rich brew of ethnic groups and cultures. Half a century later, Williamson County was one of the five fastest growing counties in the United States, a staunchly Republican homogeneous supersuburb north of Austin whose economy depended on the global market for computers and other high-technology products. How did this radical transformation occur? It came about largely through the machinations of a handful of local political and economic "bosses" who brought to Williamson County two great federal public works projects: Interstate Highway 35 and a dam on the tiny San Gabriel River. Those projects swept away the farmers and ranchers whose way of life had defined the county for 100 years and triggered explosive population growth. In "Road, River, and Ol' Boy Politics", Linda Scarbrough tells a cautionary tale about the difficulties of anticipating ripple effects from large-scale public works "solutions" and of adequately planning for their environmental, economic, and cultural consequences. It is a central Texas tale that is pertinent in all of America's "oasis" cities across the dry Sun Belt, a repeating story that has come to define American patterns of suburban development. In her examination of the roots of the transformation of traditional agricultural land in an American county into modern suburbia, Scarbrough identifies three essential ingredients that are necessary for dynamic growth: the promise of a new source of water, the promise of a new major highway, and a politically skillful and determined local leader. Without these three key ingredients, the kind of growth that has occurred outside Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, and Salt Lake City is not likely to happen. This book analyzes the spectacular growth and radical transformation of one American county in the last half of the twentieth century in the same way that Robert Caro's "The Power Broker" parsed the development of New York City and Long Island, New York, by looking at the public works projects of Robert Moses and how they set the stage for New York's economic domination over the eastern United States. The chief difference is that in Williamson County, Texas, no Robert Moses existed; instead, there were several "little Moses" characters who profoundly altered this agricultural outpost outside Austin through the public works they brought to fruition. .
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Storbeck's (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 608178
- Title
- Road, River, & Ol' Boy Politics: A Texas County's Path from Farm to Supersuburb
- Author
- Scarbrough, Linda
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- New As New in As New dust jacket
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0876112025
- ISBN 13
- 9780876112021
- Publisher
- Texas State Historical Association
- Place of Publication
- Austin
- Date Published
- 2005
- Keywords
- HISTORY, UNITED STATES, STATE LOCAL, SOUTHWEST (AZ, NM, OK, TX)
Terms of Sale
Storbeck's
Storbeck's accepts payment by Mastercard, Visa, American Excpress, Discover, PayPal, check or moneyorder. 8.25% sales tax on orders shipped to Texas.
About the Seller
Storbeck's
Biblio member since 2003
Georgetown, Texas
About Storbeck's
Storbeck's has a wide selection of genealogy books, maps and supplies for the family historian or genealogist researching in the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles and Canada.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Number Line
- A series of numbers appearing on the copyright page of a book, where the lowest number generally indicates the printing of that...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...