ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the history behind the tram renaissance and focuses primarily on Europe. It examines the revival from a long-term perspective, and argues a new narrative of the transport models and regimes that western countries experienced during the past two centuries. The chapter focuses on the reasons behind the revival of light rail, discusses the factors that played a role in its resurgence, and address how such a constellation of elements changed, mutated, and found new legitimating elements during the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the aforementioned analysis, the chapter examines how in the 1960s and 1970s tramways were not obsolete technological dinosaurs of an earlier age, but rather a solid and successful means for moving millions of inhabitants on a daily basis in many European urban areas. In Europe, however, public transport networks were very often, if not exclusively, run by municipal entities.
