Futurama 

As broader mobility developed across the nation, people hoped to center the American city of the future around the automobile. In 1939, the New York World’s Fair debuted the exhibit Futurama, a built-to-scale diorama sponsored by General Motors that depicted the beauty of a fully developed city free of slums and full of ramps and road systems to facilitate a consistent flow of traffic.  

Photograph of a General Motors pin handed out to visitors to the 1939 Futurama exhibit reading "I Have Seen the Future." Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.

Futurama showcased the innovation and aesthetic that highways and car dependence could bring to an urban area.[1] This concept of the future resonated for decades as pro-automobile legislature, infrastructure, and economics shaped roadway development.[2] This especially became the case in the wake of World War II. During the war, smaller, public roadways were neglected and city centers across the nation became congested with traffic.[3] To improve road conditions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Highway Act of 1944, which allocated funds to improve all types of roadways. This bill, and others like it, began to set national standards for travel.