A Kick In The Teeth! Podcast E13: Yes, Roads ARE Racist (Patreon)

We’ve spoken about open racial terrorism and violence that destroyed places like Rosewood and Tulsa, but what about the state-sanctioned violence of ‘urban renewal’ and ‘city planning’ projects that actively destroyed bustling Black communities for highways, roads, parks, lakes, dams, bridges and underpasses? You destroy, dismantle, and disinvest in public transit/public transportation so people HAVE to drive cars; you build highways through Black neighborhoods to enable white flight out into the suburbs; you destroy thriving Black communities with public works initiatives for ‘urban planning' and 'urban renewal' projects (a precursor to today's gentrification); you deliberately put those displaced communities in remote and less desirable areas near highways and pollution (also making them more susceptible to sickness and climate change) and then redline them; you also cut them off from resources via highways and other public works, leading to systemic disenfranchisement and crumbling, dangerous neighborhoods and infrastructure (creating 'wrong side of the tracks' syndrome).

And then one hundred years later, you look up and say 'roads being racist is ridiculous!' 

From infamous city planner Robert Moses' Wikipedia: 'In Moses's urban planning of New York, he bulldozed primarily Black and Latino homes to make way for parks, chose the middle of minority neighborhoods as the location for highways, and deliberately designed bridges on the parkways connecting New York City to beaches in Long Island to be too low for buses from the inner city to access the beaches... Moses's critics charge that he preferred automobiles over people. They point out that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City, destroying traditional neighborhoods by building multiple expressways through them.

'[Robert] Caro's The Power Broker accused Moses of building the bridges across his parkways low in order to "restrict the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families," who did not own cars and would arrive by bus, and of discouraging blacks, in particular, from visiting Jones Beach, the centerpiece of the Long Island state park system, by such measures as making it difficult for black groups to get permits to park buses even if they came anyway (by other roads); assigning black lifeguards to "distant, less developed beaches" instead; and keeping the water temperature in the pool low, in the belief that black people were less tolerant of cold water.'

#AKITT

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Links:

'And this is why it’s useful to talk about historical examples of institutionalized racism:' https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/08/this-is-why-its-useful-talk-about-historic-examples-institutionalized-racism/

'Buttigieg Says U.S. Will Use Infrastructure Bill to Address Racist Highway Design:' https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-08/buttigieg-targets-racist-road-design-with-public-works-bill

'How the U.S. Government Destroyed Black Neighborhoods:' https://catalyst.independent.org/2020/04/02/how-the-u-s-government-destroyed-black-neighborhoods/

'What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways:' https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-urban-highways-infrastructure-racism/

'In Open Letter, City Planning Agencies Acknowledge Their Racist History and Pledge to Do Better:' https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/entry/open-letter-city-planning-agencies-racist-history-and-pledge-better

'How to Decimate a City:' https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/416892/

'ROBERT MOSES' LOW PARKWAY BRIDGES:' https://www.nycurbanism.com/blog/2020/7/28/robert-moses-low-parkway-bridges

''The Wrong Complexion For Protection.' How Race Shaped America's Roadways And Cities:' https://www.npr.org/2020/07/05/887386869/how-transportation-racism-shaped-america

'When Discussing Racist Monuments, Don't Forget Urban Freeways:' https://www.planetizen.com/news/2020/06/109744-when-discussing-racist-monuments-dont-forget-urban-freeways

'Interstate Highways Might Be Our Worst Example of Systemic Racism:' https://medium.com/politically-speaking/interstate-highways-might-be-our-worst-example-of-systemic-racism-d77ee9c37f84

'Stranded: How America's Failing Public Transportation Increases Inequality:' https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/stranded-how-americas-failing-public-transportation-increases-inequality/393419/

'Roads to nowhere: how infrastructure built on American inequality:' https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/21/roads-nowhere-infrastructure-american-inequality

'Freeways Without Futures 2021:' https://www.cnu.org/highways-boulevards/freeways-without-futures/2021

'The Freeway as Neighborhood Decimator:' https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2017/03/the-freeway-as-neighborhood-decimator/

'Advocates Rally to Tear Down Highways That Bulldozed Black Neighborhoods:' https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/07/28/advocates-rally-to-tear-down-highways-that-bulldozed-black-neighborhoods

'Highways that destroyed Black neighborhoods are crumbling. Some want to undo that legacy:' https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/27/cars/buttigieg-highway-removals/index.html

'A Brief History Of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways:' https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-how-racism-shaped-interstate-highways