1 Nick Santucci Assignment 8 Effect of Highways on Cities As America developed throughout the 1950s-1960s, the need for better and improved transportation emerged as a sore thumb. Expanding suburbs and outlying communities demanded Susan Demo 2023-04-16 The 03:12:35 swift and concrete action to connect commuters’ homes and downtown workplaces. “rat race” was developing as well: commuters would ride in from -------------------------------------------Check definition of "rat race." Sounds their suburbanmohomes on main re like traffic jams? arteries of roads in the morning, then in the evening would ride back—all together at the same time each and every day. The current road situation in America pre-Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 was deplorable: few paved roads, bumpy, pot-holed, unmaintained, and overall just terrible. In 1944, the First Federal Aid Highway Act was passed “that described a ‘National System of Interstate Highways’ limited to 40,000 miles” (TxDOT). This 1944 act, though, did not provide any funding and just outlined what had to happen soon. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (in 1956) passed the Federal Aid Highway Act which provided funding of $25 billion to create the national highway system we enjoy today. The construction of the American National Interstate System ran from 1957-1968. It was a huge effort involving hundreds of thousands of workers and maintenance teams. The effect of the construction of the highways sometimes goes unnoticed and untalked about. People either do not seem to care or are ignorant of what happened. There are two sides to what people agree or disagree on with this issue: either the highway system was what this country needed, or the highway system radically changed—and therefore permanently destroyed— America as we knew it. 2 This issue is extremely important to the United States as a whole (and her individual citizens) because “approximately 4% of the total U.S. population lives within 150 meters of a major highway” (Boehmer). Above that, nearly every one of us has used an interstate highway within the past 7 days. On said highways, we pass by tens—if not hundreds—of houses on our way to our various destinations. There is one family within each house, and each family has a story to tell of what the highway system means to them (and what it has done to them). The author of this article—Farrell Evans—lays out the historical and societal impacts of the interstate highway system in a clear and straightforward way. His two main arguments are as follows: firstly, that construction of the interstate highway system decimated Black communities and other towns, and secondly, that the interstate highway system helped to reinforce segregation and “white flight” from towns and cities. Firstly, he lays out the facts of multiple black communities being torn apart by the construction of a major highway through them. For example: “after the passage of the 1956 highway bill, the expansion of I-95 through Miami led to the destruction of 87 acres of housing and commercial property in the community” (Evans). This is one of the examples Evans lists throughout his first phase of argument. He then goes on to describe the effect of said destruction upon the black communities: “only 8,000 of an estimated population of 40,000 remained in Overtown after the highway expansion. Blocked from moving into white neighborhoods, displaced residents were forced to crowd into nearby sections of the city already struggling with poverty and urban decay” (Evans). This shows the true extent of highway construction devastation. Secondly, Evans lays out the effect of reinforcing segregation and “white flight” from cities that experienced major highway construction. The term “white flight” refers to the mass migration of whites from cities to the suburbs because of economic, social, and/or political reasons. He lays it 3 out as thus: “In Atlanta, according to Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse, I-20 was designed to serve as a boundary between the Black and white communities. According to Kruse, roughly 60,000 whites left Atlanta for the suburbs in the 1960s and another 100,000 in the 1970s” (Evans). That’s a lot of white people fleeing one city—Atlanta—for a new life elsewhere because of the whole mess that highway construction forced upon their city. Highways were constructed so that they could run right through Black slums (considered the bad parts of any city). Federal aid was increased to any state that ran this policy of building interstates through bad parts of cities so that they might be gotten rid of. Unfortunately, many Southern cities adopted this policy, and many Black businesses and homes were forced out. This author’s position is very strong, as it has historical and social roots that stem from government legislation from the 1940s-1960s. Evans lays out his evidence very thoroughly, drawing from well-respected sources, such as Princeton University, and summarizing it well together to create a convincing argument. I believe his strongest method of argument is his drawing from historical records and sources. This segregation and decimation of black communities caused by highway construction really did happen, and he forces the other side— that highway construction was all good—to face the facts. Evans’s one weakness/limitation may be that he doesn’t draw much from the other perspective— namely, that highway construction was needed and benefited the United States at all. His view is very negative towards highway construction. Maybe incorporating the other side’s arguments would strengthen his position even further. My resulting developing perspective on this issue is incomplete, but I am starting to come to Evans’s way of thinking. I can see how the interstate system has uprooted decades of black communities’ developments of thriving cities and towns. Many people suffered from the result of 4 the highway construction boom of the 1960s-1970s. Businesses, homes, and corporations were forced from their original locations, either to be relocated or simply gone from existence to make way for shiny new pavement. Yet, our country needed highway construction in order to advance into the 21st century. Our original road system was deplorable and in need of obvious improvement. There were already well-established communities, but the highways had to go somewhere. In addition, the whole “rat race” affair of commuters to cities and vice versa was already well under-way. There was no stopping progress, and the demands of being a world superpower demanded a well-run distributing network of interstates the likes of which America had never seen. In conclusion, my perspective is incomplete. I will need more information from both sides to come to a satisfactory conclusion. But, I am leaning more towards the side that interstates were needed and benefited our country more than harmed it. My position, though, is starting to incorporate many facts from Evan’s point of view. My hope is that people will start to realize the extent to which our country was radically changed from the construction of our Eisenhower Five-Star Interstate Highway System: both to revere it and to investigate it. 5 Works Cited TxDOT. “Interstate and U.S. Highway Facts.” Interstate and U.S. Highway Facts, TxDOT, Oct. 1997, https://www.dot.state.tx.us/tpp/hwy/ihhwyfacts.htm. Evans, Farrell. “How Interstate Highways Gutted Communities—and Reinforced ... - History.” History.com, History.com, 21 Oct. 2021, https://www.history.com/news/interstatehighway-system-infrastructure-construction-segregation. Boehmer, Tegan K, et al. “Residential Proximity to Major Highways - United States, 2010.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6203a8.htm#:~:text=Approximately%2 011.3%20million%20persons%20%28or%203.7%25%20of%20the,in%20Maine%20to%2 05.6%25%20in%20New%20York%20%28Figure%29.
