Entre el método y la teoría: el debate disciplinar por la definición de las autopistas urbanas en Estados Unidos

Abstract

In the middle of the twentieth century, the American city debated its future between the pragmatism of a method and the utopia of a theory. This article explores the debate over the validity of disciplinary tools that emerged between engineers and urban planners from the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the United States, more specifically, in the heart of the American city. The years between 1956 and 1962 marked a radical change in the shape of the American city, but more importantly, these years would mark the reaffirmation of the professional structures behind its construction. Three conferences, Hartford (1957), Sagamore (1958) and Hershey (1962) would be the stage of a ferocious disciplinary debate, and an attempt by the discipline of urban planning to recover lost territory, even while the new builders of the city were already occupying their places.