Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future by Pete Buttigieg

Many Americans are confronted with the prospect of having to “work around” their hometown’s infrastructure to get home in an efficient, convenient, and cost-effective way. It is a problem that is exacerbated by our transportation system, which often fails to provide robust investments in mass transit, ridesharing, biking, and walking infrastructure to, in turn, efficiently move people to the places they need to go.

In his book, ‘Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future,’ Pete Buttigieg—the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana—provides insight on facing these issues of infrastructure challenges head-on and offers a plan for addressing transportation challenges across the country.

Taking the reader “inside the mind of a mayor in action,” Buttigieg reflects on the challenges that mayors and local governments face in making the infrastructure changes needed to create a more flourishing and equitable community. He illustrates his approach to meeting those challenges through the challenges he faced as mayor of South Bend, a Rust Belt city of about 100,000 people. As mayor, he recognized that the city had to make investments in roads, bike lanes, and public transportation options, as well as in technology and education for digital literacy, before it could step out of the long shadow cast by the industrial past and create a vibrant, modern economy.

Buttigieg emphasizes how, in his view, investment in infrastructure isn’t a matter of “big government” massive spending, but “a matter of common sense.” To illustrate his point, he shares stories of citizens and ‘everyday’ initiatives he implemented in South Bend to ensure everyone has a safe and convenient way home. He believes that solutions can be found outside of traditional government solutions; they can also be rooted in the independent community-driven projects that empower people to make their own changes. For instance, he highlights ”The South Bend People Project,” which is an open-source platform funded by local businesses and donations to make sure everyone in South Bend can get to where they need to go safely.

In addition to ways to better meet the transportation needs of real people, Buttigieg also provides local mayors and leaders a toolkit for solving their own transportation-related challenges. He shows how the success in South Bend can be replicated through investment in technology, upgraded infrastructure and digital literacy, as well as improved bike and pedestrian networks and developing “Mobility Hubs” that provide critical information and resources to local businesses seeking to grow their customer base.

Buttigieg stresses that planning for a well-connected and vibrant city isn’t just a job for mayors and other local leaders, but a broader responsibility that all citizens share. To ensure everyone has access to their shortest way home, Buttigieg offers a plan to lay the groundwork for building the smartest, most efficient, and most equitable transportation system possible—one that will serve as a model for the entire country.