BOOK REVIEW | JUSTICE AND THE INTERSTATES: The Racist Truth About Urban Highways

BOOK EDITORS/ RYAN REFT, AMANDA PHILLIPS DE LUCAS, REBECCA RETZLAFF

Book Review by HELEN KLASS-WARCH

HELEN KLASS-WARCH is a master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. Currently, she supports research in freight equity with Dr. Allie Thomas and is part of Dr. Miyuki Hino’s Flood Lab working with the Climate Resilience Center Hazard Mitigation team. Born and raised in Saint Paul, MN, Helen graduated with a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 2018. Before graduate school, she worked at a global public affairs firm in NYC, as a line cook in Boston, and for Oxfam America.

The Rondo neighborhood in Saint Paul, MN lies less than a mile north of my childhood home. It was once the heart of the Black community in Saint Paul, home to 85% of the city’s African American residents and a thriving cultural hub. But, between 1985 and 1968 it was severed in half by the Interstate 94 (I-94) construction. The choice to build directly through the neighborhood, rather than a less disruptive northern route, destroyed over 700 homes, 300 businesses, and numerous community institutions. The story of Rondo mirrors a quintessentially American tale; The Federal Highway Act of 1956 spurred the construction of the U.S. Interstate system, and many of those highways were intentionally routed and rerouted through Black, Brown, and immigrant communities across the United States. Between 1957 and 1977, over 1 million people were displaced by Interstate construction and the repercussions from that period continue to reverberate in communities across the country.

Edited by Ryan Reft, Amanda Phillips de Lucas, and Rebecca Retzlaff —each of whom authored chapters — Justice and the Interstates delves into the impact of the U.S. Interstate Highway System’s construction had on vulnerable communities over the past 70 years. Posing the overarching question, “How can a highway be racist?”, the book’s chapters intricately unravel this query by revisiting historical injustices, exploring the urban renewal period, delving into the civil rights era, and demystifying neoliberal analysis of the federal highway system’s intended and unintended effects.

The collection unfolds as a historical constellation organized in three sections, with each chapter written by a different expert on the case’s historical relationship with the interstate highway system and their racial, social, and political contexts. In Mythologies, the opening of Piece 1, Sarah Jo Peterson gives a historic uncovering of the myth that many of us have taken as a belief system. This played out in Montgomery, AL where the racist rerouting of I-85 destroyed African American communities and the homes of many significant civil rights leaders and organizations. Shifting focus, Ryan Reft writes of the racial and class politics of environmentalism, historic preservation, and the highway construction that dominated the 1950s and 60s. He focuses on Overton Park in Memphis, a pivotal case marking the inception of the environmental movement’s legal victories against the anti-freeway movement. The movement and its successes exposed discriminatory practices embedded in highway route design and construction, drawing connections to similar cases in San Antonio, TX and Nashville, TN.

Methods, Part 2, explores how transportation laws and agency rules and policies directly led to the racial impacts of the highway system and its deliberate segregationist practices. Ruben L. Anthony Jr. and Joseph Rodriquez document highway opponent and proponent groups and the power of collective action in Milwaukee, WI. Amanda Phillips de Lucas examines the potential and the limits of participatory practices and techniques in Baltimore, MD, while Kyle Shelton explores how Houston, TX makes the case for not collecting constituents’ input on roadways and their impacts but incorporating them into the designs so community members can see their needs reflected in their streets. He calls for adaptability in the face of a durable, and often impenetrable, infrastructure planning pipeline. Methods concludes with a study of Greater East Los Angeles by Gilbert Estrada and Jerry Gonzalez. They showcase how the arrival of the freeway resulted in massive displacement for the Mexican and Hispanic communities living there and contributed to the suburban geographic expansion of Latino Los Angeles.

Momentum, Part 3, offers a window into how to address past wrongs and provide reparative justice for communities. Tierra Bills writes about the Rondo neighborhood within Saint Paul, MN and the success of ReConnect Rondo, a community-based nonprofit initiative in advancing the revitalization of a “vibrant African American culture enterprise district in Saint Paul.” Since its formation in 2009, ReConnect Rondo has focused on remediation efforts to address the destruction caused by the I-94 construction. The group has recently embarked on its most ambitious reconnection project: a Land bridge to literally and physically reconnect the community with amenities and opportunities they are cut off from by I-94. This aims to address housing disparity that has persisted since the highway’s construction. Lastly, Amy Stelly uses a mix of experimental prose and her experience working as an advocate in New Orleans, LA to describe a public awareness and tactical urbanism campaign called Paradise Lost | Paradise Found. This group designed and displayed posters focusing on the realities and perils of working and living near urban highways under the Claiborne Expressway overpass (part of I-10). The group’s efforts ignited a frenzy of the media and national attention that has begun to turn political tides and the advance the removal of the expressway.

Its concise format makes for a digestible read that should be a prerequisite for any city planning, particularly transportation planning students and professionals. While the book’s final section, “Momentum,” is somewhat less robust compared to the preceding sections, it does impart a sense of hope. It suggests that communities can employ creative solutions to restore connectivity and forge a path toward reformation, although I yearned for a more extensive exploration of this theme. This potential shortfall may underscore the challenging realities confronting those in the planning profession: the scarcity of major, successful revitalization stories for communities that have borne the severe impacts of interstate highway construction.

Justice and the Interstates is a call to action and an honest reevaluation of history. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking examination of the history and reconciliation of transit practices and the many agencies and policies responsible for the harm that has persisted. It implores engineers, urban planners, transportation professionals, and policymakers to account for, acknowledge, and repair the damages done by these past and present practices. To work towards a better future, we must first recognize the realities in which we work. This process begins with what the book calls “truth-telling,” bringing these hidden histories of displaced peoples and communities to light. Steven Higashide concludes the book with suggestions for a path forward and how to learn from reparation movements, writing: “we must recognize that our failure to grapple with the racist harms associated with highway construction has left us with laws and political structures that doom the United States to replace them” (p.176).

All transportation infrastructure projects have tradeoffs; winners and losers; affected communities, and those that are spared. This book asks us to evaluate, as a moral test, how we have treated and continue to treat those who are forced to sacrifice. Justice and the Interstates starts this crucial discussion and encourages its readers to take it forward into their studies and practice.