Especially before 2015, people wouldn’t talk politics, and weather wasn’t normally an issue; sports talk among guys is not nearly as common in Los Angeles as the rest of the country. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about movies and other forms of entertainment. But we do obsess over the freeways. Saturday Night Live’s The Californians was an exaggeration, but not as much as might be imagined; your average Angeleno was far more incensed at some of the infelicities in the freeway progression as listed by the characters (ask any Angeleno about any driving scene purporting to be in Los Angeles from any movie and you’ll get an earful).

And so Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles (galley indeed received as part of early review program) is just catnip for Angelenos: the history of our common obsession!

The author cleverly begins and concludes the work with “begin freeway” and “end freeway,” just like freeways themselves do. He chronicles the development of most of the freeways of Los Angeles in somewhat chronological order (complicated by how many were being developed at the same time). It all begins with the Arroyo Seco (now CA 110); continues with the Hollywood Freeway (CA-134, US 101); and then expands with the Golden State Freeway (I-5), the Ventura Freeway (US 101), the Foothill Freeway (CA-210 and I-210), the Harbor Freeway (I-110), the San Diego Freeway (I-405), the Glendale Freeway (CA-2), the Marina Freeway (CA-90), the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10), and finally, and very much lastly, the Century Freeway (I-105). The Santa Ana Freeway (I-5), the San Bernardino Freeway (I-10), the Long Beach Freeway (I-705), the Pomona Freeway (CA-60), and the San Gabriel Freeway (I-605) are either tangentially discussed or otherwise omitted.

The author describes the plans for the freeways, the complications which arose in development, how many were displaced, and notable incidents which have come to define the various freeways. The overall story is heard many times: the optimistic, starry-eyed promise of freeways in the early days, the freeway mania of the middle of the 20th century, and then the disillusionment and rise in discontent with further freeway development in the latter part of the 20th century. Thus we learn of many suggested freeways which never got off the ground; we also see how many freeways as they are today are only a fraction of the original plan.

The author does well at trying to keep the narrative as light and fun as possible while recognizing the darker realities behind how the freeways were developed and the kind of people who were generally displaced in their construction.

If you’re interested at all in the story of Los Angeles and its freeways, this is a great resource for you.