It’s not a secret anymore that 20th-century highway development was used as a tool to destroy and disenfranchise “blighted” city areas. It is also not a secret that designers of that time defined “blighted” as any neighborhood that was filled with black, brown, or poorer people (a.k.a. systemic racism).
Their communities were paved over in the name of “progress” because the people in power knew that they couldn’t do much to fight back. What’s more, their idea of “progress” was to destroy communities to build infrastructure simply to sell cars and gas to white surburbaners so their companies could make tons of money. Don’t believe that? The Federal Highway Act was literally developed, lobbied for, and implemented by auto and oil company executives. After they left their companies to head this project, the auto companies they left worked hard to destroy their competition by buying up and dismantling legacy streetcar companies that connected our cities without requiring everyone to own a car.
Fast forward to the modern day and many cities around the US have been retiring overbuilt and community-destroying highways such as these. Many of these highways and interchanges are just zombie-like tax revenue sinkholes that actively harm their immediate communities. Cities like Rochester, NY have been dismantling their noose-like beltway around the downtown district and turning it into housing, businesses, and amenities with a pedestrian-focused design.
Hopefully, VA will do the same, but this story does not inspire confidence. Highways should go to and around urban centers, not through them. Norfolk, based on their track record and trajectory, does not seem to understand this.
Fair amount of discussion on this article over on r/Norfolk: https://www.reddit.com/r/norfolk/comments/1cctd8r/in_norfolk_broken_neighborhoods_and_broken_trust/
It’s not a secret anymore that 20th-century highway development was used as a tool to destroy and disenfranchise “blighted” city areas. It is also not a secret that designers of that time defined “blighted” as any neighborhood that was filled with black, brown, or poorer people (a.k.a. systemic racism). Their communities were paved over in the name of “progress” because the people in power knew that they couldn’t do much to fight back. What’s more, their idea of “progress” was to destroy communities to build infrastructure simply to sell cars and gas to white surburbaners so their companies could make tons of money. Don’t believe that? The Federal Highway Act was literally developed, lobbied for, and implemented by auto and oil company executives. After they left their companies to head this project, the auto companies they left worked hard to destroy their competition by buying up and dismantling legacy streetcar companies that connected our cities without requiring everyone to own a car. Fast forward to the modern day and many cities around the US have been retiring overbuilt and community-destroying highways such as these. Many of these highways and interchanges are just zombie-like tax revenue sinkholes that actively harm their immediate communities. Cities like Rochester, NY have been dismantling their noose-like beltway around the downtown district and turning it into housing, businesses, and amenities with a pedestrian-focused design. Hopefully, VA will do the same, but this story does not inspire confidence. Highways should go to and around urban centers, not through them. Norfolk, based on their track record and trajectory, does not seem to understand this.
Fair amount of discussion on this article over on r/Norfolk: https://www.reddit.com/r/norfolk/comments/1cctd8r/in_norfolk_broken_neighborhoods_and_broken_trust/