Railroads

A streetcar in snow. Nothing unusual in any northern US town during the first half of the 20th Century. Is this a quaint Rockwell-style image to illustrate a Christmas shopping story?

Nope.

…they re-arranged the American landscape, creating suburbs, transforming manufacturing districts, robbing small towns of their vitality and linking formerly distinct cities in a series of metropolitan corridors…

The Antiplanner has posted on James J. Hill and the beginnings of the Great Northern Railway. Hill was surely proof the American Dream can be realized. Few are so gifted and so driven to achieve Hill’s level of riches. But remember, the dream is not about dollars and motorcars. It is to be allowed to attain according to capacity, without confinement to class or caste.