{"product_id":"easy-on-easy-off-jack-williams-9780813938868","title":"Easy On, Easy Off: The Urban Pathology of America's Small Towns","description":"\u003cp\u003eLife outside our nation's big cities comprises a remarkably rich aspect of America--culturally, historically, and physically. Because of the way we move through the country, however--on roads built for maximum expediency--most of us are rarely if ever exposed to these small communities, a trend that is moving these towns dangerously far off the maps of commerce and public consciousness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eEasy On, Easy Off, \u003c\/i\u003e Jack Williams takes to the roads of the interstate highway system to explore America's small towns, bringing back diverse examples of both beautiful and neglected places that illustrate how shifts in modern transportation have influenced urban form. Most of these communities are little known beyond their discrete regions, yet their struggles to prosper are universal. Mill towns, county-seat court squares, villages of the Great Plains, mining towns, and California's forgotten Chinese settlements all share similar fates--overshadowed by interstate off-ramp towns and bypassed by high-speed traffic.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEmploying more than 150 historic maps and images, unique drawings, and contemporary photographs, Williams convincingly argues that irreversible changes have overtaken the landscapes of small-town America, with each community's economic and social vitality slowly shifting away to other commercial places that attach to our highway interchanges and extrude into strip malls. A tale of success perhaps for the highway system, the more urgent story relayed in \u003ci\u003eEasy On, Easy Off\u003c\/i\u003e is of the loss of the complex fabric of thousands of small towns that once defined this nation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePreparation of this volume has been supported by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jack Williams\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0813938864\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780813938868\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Virginia Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/26\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 320\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 2.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 10.40h x 8.90w x 0.90d","brand":"Jack Williams","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46571041947903,"sku":"9780813938868","price":40.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_b0fd193b-20f2-4288-879a-54fad5a0d284.jpg?v=1738807074","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/easy-on-easy-off-jack-williams-9780813938868","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}