Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway (review)

Dellinger's book, outlining the longrunning, often tempestuous history of Interstate 69 (I-69), weaves a narrative of personal stories with political intrigue and transportation history. It paints a picture not only of the politicians, but also the real people and the real places, whether for or against the construction of what has been dubbed, the "NAFTA Highway." While sometimes repetitive and perhaps a little too heavy on experiences from the perspective of Indiana, the book is an interesting read for geographers, planners, and historians alike.

Dellinger divides the book into five sections, beginning with a general history on the project, exploring places along the proposed I-69 corridor, including Indiana, the South, and Texas, and concluding with a section on recent events in the project ranging from public-private finance partnerships to anarchist protests. Each section contains a series of subsections telling individual stories of people and places affected by I-69, presenting the argument both for and against the project.

Section I presents readers with a brief history of the I-69 project, from its conception as a line on the map to the formation of the Mid-Continent Highway Coalition that lobbied to bring this highway that would eventually connect Laredo, Texas to Port Huron, Michigan. As it stands today, I-69 runs from Port Huron to the suburbs of Indianapolis, where it stops. The rest of the route is a collection of unconnected highway projects and "future route" signs that hang in anticipation of the day that I-69 finally comes through the countryside. Dellinger delves into issues of highway funding and environmental regulations that make highway building much more complicated than it was when the Eisenhower Interstate Act was passed in 1955. He questions whether highways are an outdated mode of transportation that should be abandoned in favor of light rail and mass transit projects. Mixed within the vignettes of people and places is a timeline of the events that have shaped the history of an unfinished highway.

Section II focuses on Indiana's experiences with the continuation of I-69 from where it currently terminates north of Indianapolis. Here the reader is first introduced to the naysayers of I-69, after having been exposed to anecdotes about boosters in the first section. What Dillinger does not touch on is the demographics or socioeconomics of the people who oppose I-69 in Indiana. Nor does he explore the possibility that many of the people who support the project are simply hoping to create any kind of economic development they can in a region left behind by globalism. This is a minor shortcoming of the book. Another is that, while interesting, the second section is little more than a rehashing of issues already discussed in the first section, albeit from a slightly different perspective.

Section III moves further south along the proposed route, collecting and dissecting the stories of people and towns from Kentucky to Mississippi. Here Dellinger describes how the battle in the South over I-69 has been less about environmental concerns and more about who gets the economic advantages the road can provide. As in prior sections, Dellinger talks extensively about issues of brain drain, but also in this section, he also discusses New Urbanism and how it alternately clashes and coalesces, with highway planning. This section of the book is less about the people and more about the places that would be impacted by I-69. It presents an interesting companion to the section about Indiana, which focused much more on the people.

In Section IV, Dellinger comes to the other end of the proposed I-69 project and delves into issues surrounding highway construction in Texas. As Dellinger points out, the situation in Texas is very different from any other state along the proposed route; it is the only state among them to have experienced sustained population growth over the last 20 years. Dellinger devotes much...