ANTH case study winter

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2100

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Anthropology

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Dec 6, 2023

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Oluwapelumi Boshoro HOW RACISM SHAPED INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS AP/ANTH2100 A - Global Capitalism, Culture, and Conflict

“Take any major American city and you’re likely to find a historically Black neighborhood demolished, gashed in two, or cut off from the rest of the city by a highway. This legacy of racist federal transportation policies continues to define the landscapes of urban spaces.” (Dottle, Bliss, Robles 2021) This quote serves as an introduction to my analysis of the effects of the Federal aid highway act of 1956 and related legislature on African American communities. Through extensive analysis, a disturbing realisation has come to light. Across the United States in 1950/60s, city planners would “[route] some highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through Black and brown communities.” (King 2021) The American government is believed to have targeted specific thriving and struggling African American communities in major cities when deciding where to build highways. These legislatures were coming at the end of the Jim Crow era where populations in inner city areas were divided by racial zoning. Sometimes panners would build highways along lines where the now illegal racial zoning system once stood, at the behest of community members who would ask for demarcations between theirs and African American communities. A prevalent example are the actions of a prominent New York public official, Robert Moses. He instructed highway engineers to build bridges with a lower clearance on certain parkways than others, where he knew buses coming from New York City would be unable to pass under as the clearance was too low. “… he believed Black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers would most likely use buses to access the beach. As a result, bus trips to the beach would have to be made on local roads, making the trips “discouragingly long and arduous.”.” (Archer 2020) Another such instance can be found in Detroit, Michigan. The M-102 is a highway that runs along the infamous “8-mile road.” This highway divides along Detroit’s northern border. In 1942 the predominantly black 8-mile neighbourhood was located adjacent to a valuable and empty piece of land that is now known as Oakland. Developers were unable to get necessary funding to convert this area into prime real estate due to fears of racial integration. To this effect, developers cordoned off this soon to be developed neighbourhood with 5ft tall wall. This sort of discriminatory urban development was rampant during this period. Practices such as “redlining” were prevalent as well, where infrastructural development is withheld from certain communities that are deemed a hazardous investment. Any community unfortunate to be redline was destined for ruin. The reasoning behind the development of these highways through these communities was not necessarily always racially motivated, “but also because of how race influenced the nation’s housing and economic policy at the time.” (Dillion, Poston 2021) The urban development plans aimed to replace substandard housing areas with new infrastructure. The issue with this reasoning, however, is that majority of the “substandard” or cheap housing were occupied by majorly black and Latina communities that had built around formal racist zonal laws. These communities were replaced with infrastructure to aid commuting to more “valuable” and predominantly white suburbia. The development of these highways permanently affected the “physical, social, and economic characteristics of urban communities” (Archer 2020). These communities had already been plagued by racial strife, inadequate education, and infrastructure. Displacement resulting from the construction of highways, forced African American families deeper into already overcrowded inner-city ghettos born from an inadequate housing market. After abruptly displacing these families, the government offered little to no compensation. Whatever compensation did come was usually long after eviction orders had been given, further frustrating homeowners who wished to sell their homes. Above all, the destruction of these communities to build highways reduced value of homes in these now fragmented communities, reducing quality of life, fostering homelessness, and raising crime rates.

As African American homeowners were displaced from their homes in the city, white homeowners found quality housing in the rising development of suburbs that was facilitated by newly developed and extremely convenient highways. African American families would attempt to move to the suburbs after being displaced from their homes but, “the federal government denied home loans to Black people looking to live in white suburban communities.” (Archer 2020) These practices aimed to financially cripple the African American inner-city population and ensure they lacked the means and funds to move or change their quality of life. These economic malpractices included several thriving black owned businesses that were uprooted due to the highway act, further crippling economic activity in these communities. The resultant influx of people moving to the suburbs took with it jobs from the city centre as employers were able to find cheaper labour and production costs. This movement of human capital resulted in disinvestment in the inner city as skilled labour migrated away from these areas. “In many cities, the highway blocked pedestrian movement and cut off social interactions More than just homes were lost. Churches, schools, businesses, and parks were demolished to make room for the highways, tearing through the social fabric of these once- vibrant communities and robbing them of their sense of community and connection” (Archer 2020) In conclusion, the United States government purposely destroyed decades of African American culture and wealth by ripping apart communities in the name of urban development using inter state highways. These practices were used to disenfranchise the African American inner-city population and control home value within the inner city. The effects of these project can be felt today in the lack of infrastructure and high crime rates across the United States biggest metropolitan areas.

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REFERENCES Dottle Rachael, Laura Bliss, and Pablo Robles. “What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, July 28, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-urban-highways-infrastructure-racism/. King, Noel. “A Brief History of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways.” NPR. NPR, April 7, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-how-racism- shaped-interstate-highways. Dillion, Liam, and Ben Poston. “The Racist History of America's Interstate Highway Boom.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-11-11/the-racist-history-of- americas-interstate-highway-boom. Miller, Johnny. “Roads to Nowhere: How Infrastructure Built on American Inequality.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, February 21, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/21/roads-nowhere-infrastructure- american-inequality. Archer, Deborah N. “'White Men's Roads through Black Men's Homes': Advancing Racial Equity Through Highway Reconstruction.” SSRN, March 10, 2020. https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php? ID=4790041000260750050920291121151260900560690850800280270230750220810 9000600709707910500404202605705100711711510008210711500907804504705604 8048067031087125107090092023046012017069109079113072002085098110114066 122109004124123127117026023020118127103094&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE.

ANTH case study winter

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