The Death Row of Urban Highways

Even in the early years of America's highway construction craze, a few people recognized the folly of placing major roads through the hearts of cities. In her 1970 book Superhighways - Superhoax, Helen Leavitt famously wrote that Dwight Eisenhower, the president who signed the Interstate Highway Act into law, didn't realize these roads would run through downtown districts until he saw construction of Interstate 95 in Washington, D.C. Officials looked into relocating the system's urban highways, but by then it was too late.

Apocryphal or not, the story offers little solace to current city residents. In cities across the country, highway-placement decisions of yesterday continue to impact life today. The ghosts of the interstate era still linger in New Haven's Route 34 Connector, for instance, which has bifurcated the downtown district for more than half a century. Just a few days ago, Matt Yglesias examined the difference between Paris, a city with no downtown highway obstructions, and Minneapolis, one with several. In the case of the latter, highways beget corruption of the city core: they make it less pleasant to live downtown, at the very same time they make it easier to live farther away.