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In the 1950s, the US automobile industry was lobbying hard to get more funding for roads and highways. Part of this effort included propaganda targeted to the general public.
In this video, I look back at one of these automobile industry propaganda videos, "Give Yourself the Green Light" by General Motors, and show what was promised versus what the reality is today for American cities. The automobile industry got everything they wanted, but the problems they were trying to solve only got worse.
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Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/notjustbikes
Mastodon: @notjustbikes@notjustbikes.com
NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9v57F4xz46KaDsvWfCv8yw
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References & Further Reading
If you'd like to watch the whole film, you can watch my cleaned-up/upscaled version here:
https://youtu.be/eXQayNKrj_Y
Or watch the original on archive.org:
Give Yourself the Green Light
General Motors Corporation, Department of Public Relations
https://archive.org/details/0542_Give_Yourself_the_Green_Light_05_01_03_28
To learn more about Strong Towns, visit https://strongtowns.org or watch my Strong Towns series of videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa
https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-the-truth-about-american-cities-strong-towns-st01
https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-how-suburban-development-makes-american-cities-poorer-st02
https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-why-american-cities-are-broke-the-growth-ponzi-scheme-st03
https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-how-bankrupt-american-cities-stay-alive-debt-st04
https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-the-ugly-dangerous-and-inefficient-stroads-found-all-over-the-us-canada-st05
https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-the-wrong-way-to-set-speed-limits-st06
https://nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-suburbia-is-subsidized-heres-the-math-st07
Segregation by Design:
https://www.segregationbydesign.com/
https://www.instagram.com/segregation_by_design/
https://twitter.com/SegByDesign
State Motor Vehicle Registrations, by years, 1900
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/summary95/mv200.pdf
The gas tax chart was sourced from this classic article by Strong Towns:
Some Perspective on the Gas Tax
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/7/24/some-perspective-on-the-gas-tax.html
This video contains content licensed from Getty Images