{"id":2047,"date":"2005-12-19T19:59:11","date_gmt":"2005-12-20T00:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/import-placeholder-for-174\/"},"modified":"2023-12-06T16:24:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T21:24:37","slug":"transport-of-delight","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/transport-of-delight\/","title":{"rendered":"Transport of Delight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transport of Delight<\/i>\u00a0is a true interdisciplinary work, and includes a thorough analytical assessment of the Los Angeles rail program, with a focus on the Long Beach Blue Line light rail\u2014the first of the new projects to go ahead. En route, it shows that ridership forecasting for this project was not only biased and statistically invalid, but in fact done to justify decisions made on other grounds.<\/p>\n

This unusual book develops a novel theory of myth to explain the construction of rail passenger transit in Los Angeles when it had little to offer the needs of a dispersed autopolis, whose urgent but dispersed public transportation needs could have been better served by developing the regional bus system. The author conducted interviews and performed the detective work necessary to reveal an unlikely logic that held together a network of symbols, images, and metaphors that together present powerful mythical beliefs in the guise of truth.<\/p>\n

A political analysis shows how consensus was reached to proceed with the light rail to Long Beach, but political explanations are ultimately found lacking, because they cannot explain why decision-makers would want to put the rail in place. It is only when provocative metaphors\u2014of the need to connect communities and to restore a mythical balance to a dysfunctional transportation system\u2014and symbols\u2014of escape from the pressure cooker of poverty, of urban success, power and, indeed sexual acumen\u2014are surfaced, that we realize that Los Angeles’\u00a0Transport of Delight<\/i>\u00a0is the result of the very human need to transcend complexity by providing mythical creations that appear to offer easy answers to society’s deepest problems.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

About the author<\/h3>\n
\n

Jonathan Richmond<\/h4>\n

A London School of Economics undergraduate, Jonathan Richmond continued as a Fulbright Scholar to MIT’s Center for Transportation Studies, earning masters and doctoral degrees. He is currently researching developing country transportation problems and preparing and teaching new coursework for developing country transportation professionals at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. His first book,\u00a0The Private Provision of Public Transport<\/i>, was written while a fellow at Harvard University’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mythical Conception of Rail Transit in Los Angeles<\/h4>\n

by Jonathan Richmond<\/h3>\n

Pages: 492; Size: 6″ x 9″
\nSeries: Technology and the Environment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3419,"template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[86270],"product_tag":[97639,97643],"class_list":{"0":"post-2047","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-technology-and-the-environment","7":"product_tag-los-angeles","8":"product_tag-rail","10":"first","11":"instock","12":"shipping-taxable","13":"product-type-simple"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/2047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}