"The Roads Must Roll" is a 1940 science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. In the late 1960s, it was awarded a retrospective Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964 in 1970.
The story is set in the near future, when "roadtowns" (wide rapidly moving passenger platforms similar to moving sidewalks, but reaching speeds of 100 mph) have replaced highways and railways as the dominant transportation method in the United States.
Heinlein's themes are technological change and social cohesion. The fictional social movement he calls functionalism, (which is unrelated to the real-life sociological theory of the same name), advances the idea that one's status and level of material reward in a society must and should depend on the functions one performs for that society.
Read more about The Roads Must Roll: Plot Summary, Themes, Adaptation
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