Through it was only a footpath, MacKaye characterized the proposal [The Appalachian Trail] as a "transportation project," because by its placement, the trail inverted the conventional hierarchy of transportation and development infrastructure.
An infrastructure of land or "super national" forest & a network of compact communities & industries would crystallize around the footpath to replace the suburbs. “The interstate geological formation of the Appalachian ridge would function as a kind of public utility or reservoir of natural resources, organizing transportation and hydroelectric networks while locating industry and community”
- Keller Easterling, Organization Space: Landscape, Highways, and Houses in America
