Freewaytopia

How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles

By: Paul Haddad, Patt Morrison - foreword

Narrated by: Paul Haddad

Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles explores how social, economic, political, and cultural demands created the web of freeways whose very form—futuristic, majestic, and progressive—perfectly exemplifies the City of Angels.

From the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which began construction during the Great Depression, to the Century Freeway, completed in 1993, author Paul Haddad provides an entertaining and thought-provoking history of the 527 miles of roadways that comprise the Los Angeles freeway system.

Each of Los Angeles’s twelve freeways receives its own chapter, and these are supplemented by “Off-Ramps”—sidebars that dish out pithy factoids about Botts’ Dots, SigAlerts, and all matter of freeway lexicon, such as why Southern Californians are the only people in the country who place the word “the” in front of their interstates, as in “the 5,” or “the 101.”

Freewaytopia also explores those routes that never saw the light of day. Imagine superhighways burrowing through Laurel Canyon, tunneling under the Hollywood Sign, or spanning the waters of Santa Monica Bay. With a few more legislative strokes of the pen, you wouldn’t have to imagine them—they’d already exist.

Haddad notably gives voice to those individuals whose lives were inextricably connected—for better or worse—to the city’s freeways: The hundreds of thousands of mostly minority and low-income residents who protested against their displacement as a result of eminent domain. Women engineers who excelled in a man’s field. Elected officials who helped further freeways . . . or stop them dead in their tracks. He pays tribute to the corps of civic and state highway employees whose collective vision, expertise, and dedication created not just the most famous freeway network in the world, but feats of engineering that, at their best, achieve architectural poetry. And let’s not forget the beauty queens—no freeway in Los Angeles ever opened without their royal presence.

Freewaytopia is part colorful lore, part civic and historical critique, and part homage to the most famous freeways in the world.

©2021 Paul Haddad and Patt Morrison (P)2022 Santa Monica Press

Critic reviews

“Freewaytopia deftly connects dreams, politics, new suburbs, and white privilege to tell the stories of L.A.’s freeways. Hostile to communities of color when they were built and loathed today by gridlocked drivers, the freeways still reveal a rough grandeur in their overpasses and interchanges. When the road ahead is unexpectedly open, L.A.'s freeways can be poetic. Paul Haddad has caught their vital rhythm.”—D. J. Waldie, author of Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place

“Los Angeles freeways often get a bad rap, but author Paul Haddad finds the beauty in them. . . . The author’s affection is reflected in his knack for unearthing fascinating facts about people and cultural events related to the creation of highways across the Southland.”—AAA Westways

“Paul Haddad’s Freewaytopia is a marvelous civic history of 12 essential routes that belt the urban expanse, all creations of the bikini and slide rule era. . . . Haddad writes with the love and skepticism of a native Angeleno, mining the archives for the distinctive news items that function as collective folklore. . . . [Freewaytopia] delivers exactly what it promises: a lively and fact-driven history of 12 freeways that adds up to a Los Angeles realist canvas. . . . Haddad’s prose shines. . . . Freewaytopia is an easy read that packs a factual wallop.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

A fun and thought-provoking history!

Having grown up in the LA area, the massive freeways there are, as the book says, both a blessing and a curse. This witty and insightful history of freeways in LA was written by someone who has lived with them his whole life. The deep research done on them really gives the details about how they were planned, built, used, improved, enjoyed, and hated. The reading by the author is excellent, and keeps you riding along with the story without any traffic jams. If you've ever been in Los Angeles my guess is that you'll find this book enjoyable. If you haven't been in LA, but have an interest in highways and how profoundly they shape our lives, I think you'll really learn some things from this book.