People before Highways

"The author's original oral histories and extensive archival research make a major contribution of knowledge about a fascinating coalition of grassroots groups and radical professionals that stopped a major highway and helped institute a more participatory and democratic form of urban planning."—Tamar Carroll, author of Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Anti-Poverty, and Feminist Activism

"[A] tightly woven tale that reminds us of the strength of people to make change, and the collaborative nature of what it means to build a city."—Boston Globe

"People before Highways offers insight into the changing social and political values of the era and underscores the cumulative impact of the many small, community-based efforts that shaped today's city."—The New England Quarterly

"It is Crockett's deep research in dispersed archives, damp basements, and oral history interviews that have brought these little-known stories to light . . . Her account shows the power of the diverse community-based movements of the 1970s as drivers of social, economic, and environmental change and as an effective challenge to the elite-led, technocratic system of urban planning."—Historical Journal of Massachusetts

"People before Highways is well written, and its argument is supported by archival ducuments and personal interviews . . . Historians will find [it] to be a valuable addition to the literature on citizen revolts of the 1960s and especially so because it connects the era's antihighway campaigns to the community and black power movements."—Journal of American History