Straphanger

In this thoughtful work aimed at changing our perceptions of public transportation as a second-class way of getting around, Grescoe (Bottomfeeder: How To Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood) analyzes historical and current transportation developments in 12 world cities and offers thoughts about their prospects for the future. Woven through these city profiles is the story of our love affair with the automobile and how its promise of freedom gripped Americans for most of the 20th century. Now environmental and economic forces are causing us to rethink this position; Grescoe urges readers to (re)discover the potential for a different type of love affair—one with our communities—as we recommit to cities and reinvest in infrastructure such as rail, bus, and metro transit services. Grescoe recognizes the economic, political, and cultural impediments to improving urban transit, particularly in the United States, but he compellingly argues for making cities more livable by encouraging people to forgo the smog, gridlock, and solipsism of car culture and become straphangers (transit riders).