Ok so I have yet to extensively read about the two incoming multi-hundred billion dollar Biden Bills coming in that could be a great start at addressing the climate crisis but I did hear about a $20 billion allocation to addressing how Eisenhauer’s (yes that’s the original German spelling; settler governments have settler Presidents) Interstate Highways act disproportionately impacted low-income and Black neighborhoods across the country through demolishing large parts of them via eminent domain.
The unprecedented infrastructure stimulus cemented the USA’s dependence on automobile transportation at both the indirect and direct expense of people of color, particularly Black people, who statistically at the time and to this day have less wealth per household and earn less per capita than white people and so a car is a much greater expense to a larger percent of the Black population than the white population, and the Act gave them the disservice of having their neighborhoods plowed over. The highway system had the (arguably intended) effect of expediting white flight out of inner cities, catalyzing the single-use consumerist economy, and ushering in sprawl and consolidated big box stores at a pace never seen before.
@ segregation_by_design is an instagram account that is doing incredible research to bring to light how the highway placements in every major city in the country line up with the redlining districts set up across the early 1900′s (redlining often being determined by racist banking and real estate agents to prevent investment in predominantly Black, Jewish, and immigrant neighborhoods).
However, when you try to search “Biden 20 billion infrastructure plan” the first page is site after site of bre*tb*rt-adjacent infotainment news, incredulous that the President is calling highways racist. “How can pavement be racist!?” In my city alone it is easy to see why the ring of highway surrounding the metro area (it was built largely on cornfields, and is now surrounded within and without by subdivision homes and strip malls) follows the path it does: the parts that weren’t through farmland had to but up or go through existing suburbs or satellites of the city, and the suburbs with money could afford to redirect the highway around them while those communities without it (that statistic I mentioned earlier comes into play) endured their main streets being stripped away. The legislation not only disproportionately affected people of color through existing systems but created new avenues of inequality, indirectly subsidizing white flight and white capital into self-segregated communities, so it can be called “racist”.
The historic center of the Black community in my city, where independent Black businesses generated and kept wealth in Black pockets who looked out for their neighbors, was ripped apart by the highways. Most infamously in New Orleans, the Act proved that even if you had money that could bribe the traffic engineers to reconsider their routes, if you were Black you could not defend your community from disruption. Neighborhood lines were redrawn in many areas, and walkability throughout a previously navigable area was hindered by gaping wounds in the map. Not to mention the noise pollution! Within the same 20 years of the highway act (which took that long to be completely brought about and paralleled the desegregation of public schools in the USA), existing public transportation systems (like the electric trolleys in my city) were defunded, dismantled, and Amtrack was axed. Consumer choice was limited, not expanded, and if you didn’t have or want a car your mobility was restricted. At the same time, where you could shop, have fun, worship, exist was becoming harder to find as local stores were forced to close, unable to compete with W-lmarts and the fast food franchises proliferating along the highways especially in the suburbs after the highway system was completed. All of these events individually impacted low-income and marginalized groups, and together had an impact on sustainable Black community. They were racist whether or not the Act was signed by a Klansman. How to address this, is a question many people have endeavored to answer and so there are many possible paths to take and I have hope that just bringing the issue to national attention will bring those studies to light and start the conversations and agitations needed to see justice done.
