Before the current administration came into office, (actually 10 years ago) was the first time someone confronted me with the idea that highways can be racist.
I thought this an unusual concept because after all, American highway and tollways are open to all comers, rich, poor, native and non-native, how can a highway have a preference?
After doing some research and reading a few books on highway planning in the post WW2 era, I began to see where the concept of "racist highways" had come from.
Some books discussed the idea that many highway planners intentionally chose the planned ROW's to go through certain neighborhoods, which just happened to be either very poor, or very black.
So the authors asked why?
Was this intentional? By design? Or just a consequence of rational road planning?
The answer I found was "it depends".
When doing highway planning in the 1950's it was standard routine to look at urban renewal opportunities. It was also considered optimal to plan highways using the least expensive real estate.
These opportunities presented themselves in the most poor of neighborhoods, which were quite healthy for the residents, but perhaps looked blighted for those not used to it, or to local leaders.
So planners would route highways through these neighborhoods with the effect of either tearing them apart, splitting them in two by dividing them up or building large walls that essentially cut the view (and noise).
Were any of the planners and engineers outright racists?
Many of that generation are no longer alive, so its hard to say (or interview them) to see if they had ill intent in their work. (or if they would even admit to it)
I have asked people familiar with urban planning to show me some examples of where road planning, or even zoning to promote new roads was discriminatory in some way.
Some of them were compelling, some of them were speculative, some of them were just plain over thinking it. (IMHO)
In the post war period of road building the NEPA process was nothing close to what it is today. Many variables and impacts are measured and taken into consideration when planning a highway.
But even then many plans for highways still had committees and reviews with various public agencies, could someone or something with an agenda get a nefarious road plan through?
I looked at a few examples where some were successful and where some weren't to see if there were any common threads.
One was in Portland Oregon, where in the "master plan" they had an expressway (I think it was called the Fremont Expressway) going through what at the time was considered lesser economic areas east of the downtown. It was considered a benefit as part of urban renewal. (it was not built)
The other was Jacksonville Florida. The then JEA (Jacksonville Expressway Authority) had exclusive rights to build expressways in metro Jacksonville. What is now I-95 from Golfair Road south to the terminus with the future I-10 went through the middle of a large black community called Lavilla. (it was built).
I also looked at the Eisenhower ( also called the Congress Expressway) in Chicago, especially when it passed through Garfield Park. For a period of time it used to end at Central, but when it was built through Garfield Park, it created a major disruption in the local neighborhoods which still resonate today.
Also looked at was the gap in I-49 in Shreveport north of I-20 and through 12 Mile Bayou.
I am sure there are other examples or ideas that these issues were at play.
But were they intentional or directed at a certain community?
In the Chicago example, the then Mayor Daley (Sr.) had some very clear objectives when it came to using the new federal dollars to build expressways. But was he targeting anyone?
Hopefully this will be a constructive dialog and not get into the cellar with accusations and recriminations, but get a better idea of how roads were planned in the post-war buildout and was there any efforts (intentional of otherwise) to push out people of lesser economic value or by culture or skin color.
It's a very compelling topic that has (unfortunately) been heavily politicized. I was hoping that fellow highway enthusiasts could share feedback.
Quote from: edwaleni on April 27, 2022, 09:02:18 AM
One was in Portland Oregon, where in the "master plan" they had an expressway (I think it was called the Fremont Expressway) going through what at the time was considered lesser economic areas east of the downtown. It was considered a benefit as part of urban renewal. (it was not built)
The other was Jacksonville Florida. The then JEA (Jacksonville Expressway Authority) had exclusive rights to build expressways in metro Jacksonville. What is now I-95 from Golfair Road south to the terminus with the future I-10 went through the middle of a large black community called Lavilla. (it was built).
A couple of points using these examples:
First, I think there was a misguided notion that freeways would be a positive part of urban renewal. They were largely wrong when such freeways tore through existing neighborhood of every color. However since freeways were relatively new at that point, I would chalk this up to a well intentioned theory that has since been proven wrong.
Second, my guess is that the people who were making these decisions had little knowledge of these neighborhoods outside of their assessed value. They were largely male and white. Were some of these people making "racist" decisions? Likely. Were some making "white savior" decisions on the mistaken theory that highways were a positive force of urban renewal? Also likely. Were some making decisions based on either ignorance or not really caring? Definitely.
So I think asking "can a highway be racist" is too limiting a question. I think race was part of the motivation where to put these highways, even if it was well intentioned.
Also does the motivation of these people a couple generations ago even matter? What's more important now is trying to fix the mistakes that were made and to make sure they don't repeat themselves in the future.
I will note that nonwhite communities can form after all this happened. Lawrence MA is a good example. It's mostly Hispanic, but this only started after WWII and gradually became the case over decades. I-495 clips the edge and I-93 bypasses it; neither goes through downtown Lawrence, nor does the freeway MA 213. I believe these freeways were built in the 1960s, but I'm not that good with historical road information.
Quote from: edwaleni on April 27, 2022, 09:02:18 AM
I am sure there are other examples or ideas that these issues were at play.
But were they intentional or directed at a certain community?
I think the short answer is that yes, that may have been the case in the past, but not at present, and likely not in the future either. Approval processes are so much more rigorous, eminent domain is so much rarer, and the country is so much more diverse now than it was 60-70 years ago, that it's almost impossible to envision a situation where this is a major issue in the near future like it was in the past.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on April 27, 2022, 09:14:24 AM
What's more important now is trying to fix the mistakes that were made and to make sure they don't repeat themselves in the future.
Concur, although again, it's much easier to make sure these types of issues don't repeat when there's more stringent project requirements and a lot less new road construction and new infrastructure in general.
Failure to complete a freeway project may also play a huge factor in the issue. I-170 in Baltimore is one such project; it was built from downtown to US 1, but the rest was unbuilt mainly due to the cancellation of I-70 which was to go through a nearby park. Despite this, the neighborhoods around it began to deteriorate almost to the point of no return, and the Red Line light rail wouldn't have made a difference anyway.
Conversely, Atlanta has been able to escape these ills, and it even built the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library where two of the cancelled freeways (I-675 and I-485, with I-420 being the third) were supposed to have met. That city has gotten along just fine without them, no matter how bad traffic on the existing ones may get.
No. The people who built the highway can be racist, but not the highway itself.
Religion isn't the same things as race, of course, but...
(https://dontstopliving.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/P1920098.jpg)
Quote from: kphoger on April 27, 2022, 11:39:11 AM
Religion isn't the same things as race, of course, but...
(https://dontstopliving.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/P1920098.jpg)
Very interesting. Never seen this before.
From what I've read, they've removed the 'Muslims only' part from some signs leading to the Prophet's mosque in Medina–which I'm guessing just reinforces the belief among Saudis that their nation is now a liberal country–but I'm pretty sure they remain on the signs leading to Mecca.
There's a pretty clear direct line between the practice of redlining and where urban freeways were routed.
As to whether transportation officials decided to purposefully route freeways through black neighborhoods or whether they chose the least expensive path due to budgetary reasons and ended up going through black neighborhoods due to the decisions of others, is a motive that may not be able to be assigned.
Some may say that naming highways after certain folks who were part of American History can make references to racism.
To me personally a freeway grade or even a gravel road isn't a living being to make an opinion so nothing inanimate can be racist.
Black Pavement Matters!
Concrete Pride Worldwide!
Quote from: cabiness42 on April 27, 2022, 11:56:08 AM
There's a pretty clear direct line between the practice of redlining and where urban freeways were routed.
As to whether transportation officials decided to purposefully route freeways through black neighborhoods or whether they chose the least expensive path due to budgetary reasons and ended up going through black neighborhoods due to the decisions of others, is a motive that may not be able to be assigned.
Considering the Dan Ryan was originally going to be routed through Bridgeport (Daley's home turf, and a predominately Irish neighborhood), and Daley made damn sure that didn't happen, I don't even know that it cleaves neatly along racial lines so much as who had political power and who didn't.
And it's also important to remember that, when these expressways were being built, "white" meant "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" and everyone else was not white.
Quote from: hbelkins on April 27, 2022, 12:38:07 PM
Black Pavement Matters!
Concrete Pride Worldwide!
Just don't call it cement. :-/
Quote from: SEWIGuy on April 27, 2022, 09:14:24 AM
What's more important now is trying to fix the mistakes that were made ...
Could shunpiking become a form of virtue signaling? :hmmm:
Scanning this thread for the name "Robert Moses" and surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. :-D
A highway itself can't have any feelings whatsoever.
But it can be designed and planned with the intent to harm people of a certain socioeconomic background, of which one factor is race. Denying that there were racist highway planners at the dawn of the Interstate era is akin to denying a lot of historical wrongs.
Righting those wrongs requires some sacrifices that upend the status quo, which of course will create backlash and anger despite having no long-term ill effects if managed properly. Fighting these little steps to mend decades of hurt and damage will make you seem like an aggressor, because you are (either knowingly or not) helping perpetuate it.
Some of these highways have got to go by the way of the wrecking ball. Rip it out and try to recover what's left of the communities that were destroyed decades ago (or even today, in the case of Shreveport).
Planners back in the day knew exactly what they were doing. They can claim it was for reasons of cost, but I guarantee you some similar sentence was uttered inside a closed door meeting in every major American city to: "Let's just punch it through the colored neighborhood!"
Planners absolutely used the 110 to physically divided the black neighborhood from the more white neighborhoods to the west on LA's south side.
Planners in Tulsa purposefully slammed I-244 through the Rosewood neighborhood to twist the knife in the wake of the race riot.
The Crosstown Commons on I-35W exists because planners purposefully shifted the freeway east a dozen blocks to take out the black neighborhood on Minneapolis's south side.
I look at Milwaukee where planners wanted a freeway angling into downtown from the northwest to plow through the black neighborhood, but there was no symmetrical proposal for a freeway coming in from the southwest to downtown. I'm sure the fact that those southside neighborhoods were mostly white is just a coincidence and there was some hand-waving about how a freeway in that direction wasn't needed.
One can fairly accurately map out the minority neighborhoods in American cities c.1950 by simply looking at where the freeways exist today.
It's divide and conquer, man.
I just wish we had a 'control group' for the mid-20th Century urban renewal craze. Some cities where we did not punch freeways through very heart of the city and instead just had a loop with a few spurs poking in. Sort of like Baltimore, but better planned and not the result of aborted projects. There are no true examples of this in the United States. Closest allegory is Vancouver, but that's not a 1:1 comparison because as similar as Canada is the the US, it is not the US; especially 60 years ago.
One of the more interesting aspects about the California HSR in Fresno is where it is being aligned through. The majority of the neighborhoods were (most are razed already) along the heavily poverty strewn Golden State Boulevard corridor and Chinese District in downtown. Given how aggressive Fresno was with getting the HSR and the corridor selected, it isn't hard to see it as modern slum clearance.
I'm not saying racism is at hand, the parcels involved are certainly the lowest cost in Fresno. All the same it is interesting to see the HSR line swing way out from the central core of cities like Madera, Hanford and Visalia. I do find it interesting that everyone seems oblivious to the parallels with 1950s era freeway development.
Yes. (http://www.google.com/maps/@28.2286399,-81.5407366,3a,15y,348.7h,91.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sv5g1FJC294vuB9klO4n1Cg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
Quote from: triplemultiplex on April 27, 2022, 05:03:52 PM
I just wish we had a 'control group' for the mid-20th Century urban renewal craze. Some cities where we did not punch freeways through very heart of the city and instead just had a loop with a few spurs poking in. Sort of like Baltimore, but better planned and not the result of aborted projects. There are no true examples of this in the United States. Closest allegory is Vancouver, but that's not a 1:1 comparison because as similar as Canada is the the US, it is not the US; especially 60 years ago.
Columbia SC? Raleigh NC?
Quote from: triplemultiplex on April 27, 2022, 05:03:52 PMI just wish we had a 'control group' for the mid-20th Century urban renewal craze. Some cities where we did not punch freeways through very heart of the city and instead just had a loop with a few spurs poking in. Sort of like Baltimore, but better planned and not the result of aborted projects. There are no true examples of this in the United States. Closest allegory is Vancouver, but that's not a 1:1 comparison because as similar as Canada is the the US, it is not the US; especially 60 years ago.
Toronto?
Quote from: triplemultiplex on April 27, 2022, 05:03:52 PM
Planners back in the day knew exactly what they were doing. They can claim it was for reasons of cost, but I guarantee you some similar sentence was uttered inside a closed door meeting in every major American city to: "Let's just punch it through the colored neighborhood!"
Planners absolutely used the 110 to physically divided the black neighborhood from the more white neighborhoods to the west on LA's south side.
Planners in Tulsa purposefully slammed I-244 through the Rosewood neighborhood to twist the knife in the wake of the race riot.
The Crosstown Commons on I-35W exists because planners purposefully shifted the freeway east a dozen blocks to take out the black neighborhood on Minneapolis's south side.
I look at Milwaukee where planners wanted a freeway angling into downtown from the northwest to plow through the black neighborhood, but there was no symmetrical proposal for a freeway coming in from the southwest to downtown. I'm sure the fact that those southside neighborhoods were mostly white is just a coincidence and there was some hand-waving about how a freeway in that direction wasn't needed.
One can fairly accurately map out the minority neighborhoods in American cities c.1950 by simply looking at where the freeways exist today.
It's divide and conquer, man.
I just wish we had a 'control group' for the mid-20th Century urban renewal craze. Some cities where we did not punch freeways through very heart of the city and instead just had a loop with a few spurs poking in. Sort of like Baltimore, but better planned and not the result of aborted projects. There are no true examples of this in the United States. Closest allegory is Vancouver, but that's not a 1:1 comparison because as similar as Canada is the the US, it is not the US; especially 60 years ago.
And isn't Vancouver's current system the result of cancelled projects?
The Lansing State Journal did a piece about this very topic 13 years ago in relation to the construction of I-496 (pp. 1 (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21789433/a-complicated-legacy/), 8 (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21789452/a-complicated-legacy-part-2/)). The interesting part of that story is that the Black community used the buyouts as an opportunity to integrate into other neighborhoods. Those efforts had a mixed result.
Another interesting detail is that the Olds Mansion was in the path of what is now named the Ransom E. Olds Freeway.
This shit again? Didn't we already have one of these threads?
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 27, 2022, 08:15:52 PM
This shit again? Didn't we already have one of these threads?
Except that, for now at least, the OP has gotten his wish:
Quote from: edwaleni on April 27, 2022, 09:02:18 AM
Hopefully this will be a constructive dialog and not get into the cellar with accusations and recriminations ...
Quote from: Bruce on April 27, 2022, 04:37:09 PM
A highway itself can't have any feelings whatsoever.
But it can be designed and planned with the intent to harm people of a certain socioeconomic background, of which one factor is race. Denying that there were racist highway planners at the dawn of the Interstate era is akin to denying a lot of historical wrongs.
Righting those wrongs requires some sacrifices that upend the status quo, which of course will create backlash and anger despite having no long-term ill effects if managed properly. Fighting these little steps to mend decades of hurt and damage will make you seem like an aggressor, because you are (either knowingly or not) helping perpetuate it.
Some of these highways have got to go by the way of the wrecking ball. Rip it out and try to recover what's left of the communities that were destroyed decades ago (or even today, in the case of Shreveport).
Removing freeways will not reconnect communities; they're already gone. What needs to happen is to keep what we have, and new communities will form slowly over decades, such as Lawrence MA as I described above and the Cambodian section of Lowell MA.
The more I think of it, the more I see a "guns don't kill people" deal. IOW, highways aren't racist, the people who build them are.
Quote from: Henry on April 28, 2022, 10:18:50 AM
The more I think of it, the more I see a "guns don't kill people" deal. IOW, highways aren't racist, the people who build them are.
Of course. But the question is,
Did the people's racism influence where and how highways were constructed–not whether they were in face racist people or not.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 10:21:36 AM
Quote from: Henry on April 28, 2022, 10:18:50 AM
The more I think of it, the more I see a "guns don't kill people" deal. IOW, highways aren't racist, the people who build them are.
Of course. But the question is, Did the people's racism influence where and how highways were constructed–not whether they were in face racist people or not.
My answer to that would be a little bit, but I think it was more about money. Building on cheap land and where residents were less likely to put up a fight, or even have the means to put up a fight.
Quote from: thspfc on April 28, 2022, 12:19:59 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 10:21:36 AM
Quote from: Henry on April 28, 2022, 10:18:50 AM
The more I think of it, the more I see a "guns don't kill people" deal. IOW, highways aren't racist, the people who build them are.
Of course. But the question is, Did the people's racism influence where and how highways were constructed–not whether they were in face racist people or not.
My answer to that would be a little bit, but I think it was more about money. Building on cheap land and where residents were less likely to put up a fight, or even have the means to put up a fight.
There could also be a middle-road answer–that racism did not
prompt people to construct highways in such a way and in such locations as to purposely and negatively affect minorities in favor of whites, but that racism did prevent them from
caring about such effects to the extent that they were known at the time.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:29:53 PM
Quote from: thspfc on April 28, 2022, 12:19:59 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 10:21:36 AM
Quote from: Henry on April 28, 2022, 10:18:50 AM
The more I think of it, the more I see a "guns don't kill people" deal. IOW, highways aren't racist, the people who build them are.
Of course. But the question is, Did the people's racism influence where and how highways were constructed–not whether they were in face racist people or not.
My answer to that would be a little bit, but I think it was more about money. Building on cheap land and where residents were less likely to put up a fight, or even have the means to put up a fight.
There could also be a middle-road answer–that racism did not prompt people to construct highways in such a way and in such locations as to purposely and negatively affect minorities in favor of whites, but that racism did prevent them from caring about such effects to the extent that they were known at the time.
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And, even on this forum, people have purported that those whose homes were demolished could have simply moved–presumably into non-slum/non-ghetto housing. It does seem commonsense to wonder why, if that had been true, they hadn't
already moved into better conditions...
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:40:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And, even on this forum, people have purported that those whose homes were demolished could have simply moved–presumably into non-slum/non-ghetto housing. It does seem commonsense to wonder why, if that had been true, they hadn't already moved into better conditions...
At the time it likely depended on numerous societal factors outside the domain of highway development. But all the same, in those California Division of Highways studies were largely concerned with the effects on local business or the flow of traffic on the older through roads. From how it reads it comes off as bureaucratic and narrowly focused, with very limited scope on the study of the effects on actual people. I definitely don't get racism out of it, but I do see new practices at play with then totally unknown long term effects.
But this is why I feel there needs to be some degree of caution with injecting modern views into past highway development practices. It is way too easy to make the leap of logic sometimes 5-6 decades on into highway development practices and assume past practices all to be something more than actually were.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:49:15 PM
But this is why I feel there needs to be some degree of caution with injecting modern views into past highway development practices. It is way too easy to make the leap of logic sometimes 5-6 decades on into highway development practices and assume past practices all to be something more than actually were.
There needs to be a large degree of caution when injecting modern views into past
anything. The inability or unwillingness of this generation to view past epochs through any worldview but that of its own modern time and place–this frustrates me often. The smugness with which this generation considers itself to be the pinnacle of liberal civilization, and with which it sneers at past society as ignorant or misguided or backward or even evil, while ignoring the obvious fact that future generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner–this irritates me to no end.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:49:15 PM
But this is why I feel there needs to be some degree of caution with injecting modern views into past highway development practices. It is way too easy to make the leap of logic sometimes 5-6 decades on into highway development practices and assume past practices all to be something more than actually were.
There needs to be a large degree of caution when injecting modern views into past anything. The inability or unwillingness of this generation to view past epochs through any worldview but that of its own modern time and place–this frustrates me often. The smugness with which this generation considers itself to be the pinnacle of liberal civilization, and with which it sneers at past society as ignorant or misguided or backward or even evil, while ignoring the obvious fact that future generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner–this irritates me to no end.
It is incredibly difficult for a great many people to understand anything immediately out of their small bubble in this world, much less past events. Rarely does anything historic come with an overt and simple explanation, especially the topic of this thread. This is why I almost universally dismiss the arguments made by the New Urbanism crowd towards highway removal. Rarely does that crowd try to actually view anything from a neutral and detached historical analysis in favor of modern assumptions.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:49:15 PM
But this is why I feel there needs to be some degree of caution with injecting modern views into past highway development practices. It is way too easy to make the leap of logic sometimes 5-6 decades on into highway development practices and assume past practices all to be something more than actually were.
There needs to be a large degree of caution when injecting modern views into past anything. The inability or unwillingness of this generation to view past epochs through any worldview but that of its own modern time and place–this frustrates me often. The smugness with which this generation considers itself to be the pinnacle of liberal civilization, and with which it sneers at past society as ignorant or misguided or backward or even evil, while ignoring the obvious fact that future generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner–this irritates me to no end.
I am not sure what generation you are talking about, but what you are describing is hardly new.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on April 28, 2022, 01:31:56 PM
I am not sure what generation you are talking about, but what you are describing is hardly new.
True. Maybe it's just because a lot of the older folks I know are highly literate, that by comparison the younger folks seem less able or willing to do otherwise than what I've been accusing them of.
C. S. Lewis lamented the same thing as I've been, several decades ago.
Quote from: C. S. Lewis – "On the Reading of Old Books" (introduction to Athaniasius' "On the Incarnation")
Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. [...] It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook–even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united–united with each other and against earlier and later ages–by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century–the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?" –lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.
In some aspects, building of highways was just another feature of "urban renewal", whatever that had come to mean. I was only a child in the 60's growing up in a total white bread neighborhood and school, and I'm still older than most people on this forum, so we really don't have a good understanding of the mindset back then. But there was some sentiment that, if we tear down the slums and build projects, "those people" will be better off. The fact that they were targeting "those" people might reflect on the racial mindset of the time.
Still as someone mentioned, without urban renewal initiatives, many low-income people had no options. If the government would pay you to move out of the path of a freeway or a project, you had an option that you didn't have before when no one wanted the place you were living. And in hindsight we know how the projects didn't work out - they ended up trading one kind of slum for another.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:49:15 PM
But this is why I feel there needs to be some degree of caution with injecting modern views into past highway development practices. It is way too easy to make the leap of logic sometimes 5-6 decades on into highway development practices and assume past practices all to be something more than actually were.
There needs to be a large degree of caution when injecting modern views into past anything. The inability or unwillingness of this generation to view past epochs through any worldview but that of its own modern time and place–this frustrates me often. The smugness with which this generation considers itself to be the pinnacle of liberal civilization, and with which it sneers at past society as ignorant or misguided or backward or even evil, while ignoring the obvious fact that future generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner–this irritates me to no end.
All of that is true, but I don't know understand it irritates you. It's possible to look down upon certain things while recognizing that other things look down upon you.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PM
There needs to be a large degree of caution when injecting modern views into past anything. The inability or unwillingness of this generation to view past epochs through any worldview but that of its own modern time and place–this frustrates me often. The smugness with which this generation considers itself to be the pinnacle of liberal civilization, and with which it sneers at past society as ignorant or misguided or backward or even evil, while ignoring the obvious fact that future generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner–this irritates me to no end.
It can be seen as a feature and not a bug–such people are not afraid to stand up for what's right, even if the one they stand against is powerful or has entrenched interests. (After all, that worldview is fundamentally incompatible with "that's the way we've always done it".) Such a mindset can be a powerful force for good if applied in the right place at the right time.
Applied in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's just annoying, though.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PMfuture generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner
One would hope, particularly since we seem to be at a metaphorical precipice before the rights people have earned through decades of hard work are rolled back.
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 28, 2022, 04:55:06 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PM
future generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner
One would hope, particularly since we seem to be at a metaphorical precipice before the rights people have earned through decades of hard work are rolled back.
Perhaps you're missing my point. In the area of equality and rights and such, even today's progressives will certainly, seventy years from now, be found to have had quite unpalatable positions. We just don't know right now which positions those are. And seventy years from now, today's progressives will be called backward and biased and bigoted. One would hope that future generations will be able to view our current society with more gracious eyes than those through which we today tend to view generations past.
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 28, 2022, 04:55:06 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PMfuture generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner
One would hope, particularly since we seem to be at a metaphorical precipice before the rights people have earned through decades of hard work are rolled back.
Hasn't that been 10 years away for about 50 years now?
Quote from: thspfc on April 28, 2022, 05:09:11 PM
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 28, 2022, 04:55:06 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 01:03:39 PMfuture generations will likely sneer at ours in similar manner
One would hope, particularly since we seem to be at a metaphorical precipice before the rights people have earned through decades of hard work are rolled back.
Hasn't that been 10 years away for about 50 years now?
No, it hasn't. It's been the last few years only.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 05:01:07 PMOne would hope that future generations will be able to view our current society with more gracious eyes than those through which we today tend to view generations past.
(a) I'm really tired of being lectured on the need to show "grace" to the oppressors and not the oppressed
(b) There's a long list of things that were OK when I was my son's age and aren't OK now, and I don't look back on it and think "oh, that was OK then," because...it really wasn't.
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 28, 2022, 05:37:34 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 05:01:07 PMOne would hope that future generations will be able to view our current society with more gracious eyes than those through which we today tend to view generations past.
(a) I'm really tired of being lectured on the need to show "grace" to the oppressors and not the oppressed
(b) There's a long list of things that were OK when I was my son's age and aren't OK now, and I don't look back on it and think "oh, that was OK then," because...it really wasn't.
Just throwing this out there, but is that not a broad based assumption that most people past tense were the ones doing the oppressing? Certainly history is full of horrific villainous types who deserve scorn for their racist ideals and actions. That said, as jaded as I am towards humanity I can't bring to myself to really believe the majority of people were willfully malicious on mass by default.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 05:44:32 PM
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 28, 2022, 05:37:34 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 05:01:07 PMOne would hope that future generations will be able to view our current society with more gracious eyes than those through which we today tend to view generations past.
(a) I'm really tired of being lectured on the need to show "grace" to the oppressors and not the oppressed
(b) There's a long list of things that were OK when I was my son's age and aren't OK now, and I don't look back on it and think "oh, that was OK then," because...it really wasn't.
Just throwing this out there, but is that not a broad based assumption that most people past tense were the ones doing the oppressing? Certainly history is full of horrific villainous types who deserve scorn for their racist ideals and actions. That said, as jaded as I am towards humanity I can't bring to myself to really believe the majority of people were willfully malicious on mass by default.
I agree that it's overly broad, but I'm also not sure where to draw the line. I guess it depends whether you think silent assent/complicity constitutes participation.
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 28, 2022, 05:51:43 PM
I agree that it's overly broad, but I'm also not sure where to draw the line. I guess it depends whether you think silent assent/complicity constitutes participation.
But even participation in something that hardly anybody–whether individuals or society as a whole–considered at all wrong to begin with hardly deserves such scorn and derision as people tend to throw. We should be much more willing and eager to deride someone for acting out of step with the current canon of social standards and expectations, but much less willing and eager to deride someone from a different age for acting out of step with those same current standards. Instead, a fair assessment should at least involve some pretense of attempting to understand the worldview in which they operated.
None of that should at all imply withholding grace from the oppressed. And neither will it
necessarily lead one to the conclusion that something done back then was 'OK'. But without any attempt to put oneself in the mind and world of a bygone age, it is impossible to fairly judge the actions done by someone during that age.
Tying it back to the topic of the thread, it seems highway planners of decades past (1) were primarily focused on the cost of land acquisition and on traffic flow, not primarily on marginalizing the already marginalized among them; (2) did not have the benefit of hindsight as to how their decisions would affect the future of said marginalized people; and (3) in at least some cases genuinely believed that the removal of derelict properties in those neighborhoods would actually improve the lives of the people living there. We can call their actions short-sighted or socially irresponsible, and we might have a point to make there. But to simply smear them as 'racist' and to smear their decisions as 'racist' is not only a huge gloss over a complicated history, but it is moreover unfair to the character and intentions of the individuals involved. And all because we impose our own sensibilities and standards, and especially the knowledge and understanding we have accumulated since then, on people in the past–who had a different perspective than we have, both in terms of social standards and of the tools at hand with which to measure the ramifications of their actions.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:29:53 PM
Quote from: thspfc on April 28, 2022, 12:19:59 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 10:21:36 AM
Quote from: Henry on April 28, 2022, 10:18:50 AM
The more I think of it, the more I see a "guns don't kill people" deal. IOW, highways aren't racist, the people who build them are.
Of course. But the question is, Did the people's racism influence where and how highways were constructed–not whether they were in face racist people or not.
My answer to that would be a little bit, but I think it was more about money. Building on cheap land and where residents were less likely to put up a fight, or even have the means to put up a fight.
There could also be a middle-road answer–that racism did not prompt people to construct highways in such a way and in such locations as to purposely and negatively affect minorities in favor of whites, but that racism did prevent them from caring about such effects to the extent that they were known at the time.
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And what's to say today's focus on light-rail and commuter rail in urban cities won't be seen as wrong-headed in another 20-30 years. The folks at the Bus Riders Union in L.A. have more than a few things to say about LACTMA expansion of light-rail in L.A. County, none of them good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Riders_Union_(Los_Angeles)
Maybe the Bus Riders Union is committing the (more often than not) unpardonable sin of being ahead of its time.
Quote from: brad2971 on April 28, 2022, 08:21:20 PM
And what's to say today's focus on light-rail and commuter rail in urban cities won't be seen as wrong-headed in another 20-30 years. The folks at the Bus Riders Union in L.A. have more than a few things to say about LACTMA expansion of light-rail in L.A. County, none of them good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Riders_Union_(Los_Angeles)
Maybe the Bus Riders Union is committing the (more often than not) unpardonable sin of being ahead of its time.
I was thinking last night about the similarities and differences between putting a highway through a poor/minority neighborhood
vs putting, say, the Orange Line L between Midway and the Loop in Chicago. For one thing, the Orange Line mainly used existing railroad r/o/w, meaning that it didn't have quite the same divide-the-neighborhood effect that a new expressway does.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 09:48:26 AM
Quote from: brad2971 on April 28, 2022, 08:21:20 PM
And what's to say today's focus on light-rail and commuter rail in urban cities won't be seen as wrong-headed in another 20-30 years. The folks at the Bus Riders Union in L.A. have more than a few things to say about LACTMA expansion of light-rail in L.A. County, none of them good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Riders_Union_(Los_Angeles)
Maybe the Bus Riders Union is committing the (more often than not) unpardonable sin of being ahead of its time.
I was thinking last night about the similarities and differences between putting a highway through a poor/minority neighborhood vs putting, say, the Orange Line L between Midway and the Loop in Chicago. For one thing, the Orange Line mainly used existing railroad r/o/w, meaning that it didn't have quite the same divide-the-neighborhood effect that a new expressway does.
I live three blocks from the four-track embankment that carries the CTA Red and Purple Lines, and I can assure you that it most certainly does not divide the neighborhood. The ROW needed to carry a four-lane expressway is exponentially wider than the ROW needed to carry a four-track heavy rail line.
If the US had started building freeways 20 years earlier, would it have been easier to avoid splitting neighborhoods?
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 29, 2022, 10:07:38 AM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 09:48:26 AM
Quote from: brad2971 on April 28, 2022, 08:21:20 PM
And what's to say today's focus on light-rail and commuter rail in urban cities won't be seen as wrong-headed in another 20-30 years. The folks at the Bus Riders Union in L.A. have more than a few things to say about LACTMA expansion of light-rail in L.A. County, none of them good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Riders_Union_(Los_Angeles)
Maybe the Bus Riders Union is committing the (more often than not) unpardonable sin of being ahead of its time.
I was thinking last night about the similarities and differences between putting a highway through a poor/minority neighborhood vs putting, say, the Orange Line L between Midway and the Loop in Chicago. For one thing, the Orange Line mainly used existing railroad r/o/w, meaning that it didn't have quite the same divide-the-neighborhood effect that a new expressway does.
I live three blocks from the four-track embankment that carries the CTA Red and Purple Lines, and I can assure you that it most certainly does not divide the neighborhood. The ROW needed to carry a four-lane expressway is exponentially wider than the ROW needed to carry a four-track heavy rail line.
When I was at college near Harlem Avenue, I never got the impression that the Eisenhower really divided neighborhoods south of it from neighborhoods north of it. But then, most of my time in that area was spent along the Green Line rather than along the Blue Line, so perhaps my impression was misguided. ?
Quote from: Henry on April 27, 2022, 10:25:13 AM
Conversely, Atlanta has been able to escape these ills, and it even built the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library where two of the cancelled freeways (I-675 and I-485, with I-420 being the third) were supposed to have met. That city has gotten along just fine without them, no matter how bad traffic on the existing ones may get.
The fact that traffic has gotten worse, doesn't really convince me the city has gotten along fine without them.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 10:11:56 AM
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 29, 2022, 10:07:38 AM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 09:48:26 AM
Quote from: brad2971 on April 28, 2022, 08:21:20 PM
And what's to say today's focus on light-rail and commuter rail in urban cities won't be seen as wrong-headed in another 20-30 years. The folks at the Bus Riders Union in L.A. have more than a few things to say about LACTMA expansion of light-rail in L.A. County, none of them good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Riders_Union_(Los_Angeles)
Maybe the Bus Riders Union is committing the (more often than not) unpardonable sin of being ahead of its time.
I was thinking last night about the similarities and differences between putting a highway through a poor/minority neighborhood vs putting, say, the Orange Line L between Midway and the Loop in Chicago. For one thing, the Orange Line mainly used existing railroad r/o/w, meaning that it didn't have quite the same divide-the-neighborhood effect that a new expressway does.
I live three blocks from the four-track embankment that carries the CTA Red and Purple Lines, and I can assure you that it most certainly does not divide the neighborhood. The ROW needed to carry a four-lane expressway is exponentially wider than the ROW needed to carry a four-track heavy rail line.
When I was at college near Harlem Avenue, I never got the impression that the Eisenhower really divided neighborhoods south of it from neighborhoods north of it. But then, most of my time in that area was spent along the Green Line rather than along the Blue Line, so perhaps my impression was misguided. ?
Oh, the Eisenhower and the Kennedy/Dan Ryan divided the hell out of neighborhoods, no question about that. But it was the expressways that divided them, not the L lines.
That may serve to confirm what I was thinking, then: light rail and commuter rail don't tend to divide neighborhoods because they generally use existing rail corridors–around which those neighborhoods have already grown–whereas an expressway slices a fresh cut through them.
This explains how the Red Line south of the Loop 'divided the hell out of neighborhoods' but the Red Line north of the Loop 'most certainly does not divide the neighborhood'. The Dan Ryan branch follows the median of a big wide expressway, whereas the North Side main line has been in operation as a passenger railway since 1900.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7234/7187486567_c6d9c8a791.jpg)
Highway billboard from North Carolina.
Rick
Well, yeah, billboards can definitely be racist.
https://goo.gl/maps/tqqyuc7Z2WLdWY1t7
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 10:52:18 AMThat may serve to confirm what I was thinking, then: light rail and commuter rail don't tend to divide neighborhoods because they generally use existing rail corridors–around which those neighborhoods have already grown
...mostly. The railroad ROW that the Orange Line follows is a freight line and never hosted passenger rail service, and there hasn't been much TOD along the route.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 10:52:18 AM–whereas an expressway slices a fresh cut through them.
This explains how the Red Line south of the Loop 'divided the hell out of neighborhoods' but the Red Line north of the Loop 'most certainly does not divide the neighborhood'. The Dan Ryan branch follows the median of a big wide expressway, whereas the North Side main line has been in operation as a passenger railway since 1900.
Agreed on all points.
Quote from: abefroman329 on April 29, 2022, 12:14:13 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 10:52:18 AM
That may serve to confirm what I was thinking, then: light rail and commuter rail don't tend to divide neighborhoods because they generally use existing rail corridors–around which those neighborhoods have already grown
...mostly. The railroad ROW that the Orange Line follows is a freight line and never hosted passenger rail service, and there hasn't been much TOD along the route.
No argument from me there–although, now that I'm looking at the timetable, service on the Orange Line appears to be more frequent than I remember it being. Well anyway, I was more referring to the physical structure not ripping through neighborhoods, because the physical structure was for the most part already there when passenger service was launched. In this way, adding passenger rail provided access benefit to the neighborhoods without doing much to diminish them in any way. That's unlike a highway, which can provide access benefit to neighborhoods but at the same time damage them in other ways.
Considering segregation was the law of the land, I find it odd when people insist there was no racism at play. Was every highway planner/engineer full on KKK? Of course not. But getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive in aggregate.
Quote from: jamess on April 29, 2022, 02:27:35 PM
segregation was the law of the land ... getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive
The one does not necessarily follow from the other–at least when it comes to highway planning. Just because segregation was the law of the land, and just because racism was much more rife then than now, that doesn't necessarily mean that highway planning was done with morally objectionable purposes in mind.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:32:19 PM
Quote from: jamess on April 29, 2022, 02:27:35 PM
segregation was the law of the land ... getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive
The one does not necessarily follow from the other–at least when it comes to highway planning. Just because segregation was the law of the land, and just because racism was much more rife then than now, that doesn't necessarily mean that highway planning was done with morally objectionable purposes in mind.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 02:33:23 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:32:19 PM
Quote from: jamess on April 29, 2022, 02:27:35 PM
segregation was the law of the land ... getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive
The one does not necessarily follow from the other–at least when it comes to highway planning. Just because segregation was the law of the land, and just because racism was much more rife then than now, that doesn't necessarily mean that highway planning was done with morally objectionable purposes in mind.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
By that logic, then, everything done by everyone back then was racist in nature–even if the people actually doing the doing weren't racist, and even if they never had race on their mind when they were doing it. At that point, the conversation becomes meaningless.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:36:09 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 02:33:23 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:32:19 PM
Quote from: jamess on April 29, 2022, 02:27:35 PM
segregation was the law of the land ... getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive
The one does not necessarily follow from the other–at least when it comes to highway planning. Just because segregation was the law of the land, and just because racism was much more rife then than now, that doesn't necessarily mean that highway planning was done with morally objectionable purposes in mind.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
By that logic, then, everything done by everyone back then was racist in nature–even if the people actually doing the doing weren't racist, and even if they never had race on their mind when they were doing it. At that point, the conversation becomes meaningless.
Nah. It just means that racism was so pervasive in society to the point of being encouraged by legislation that it becomes impossible to separate it from motivations behind decisions.
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 02:37:52 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:36:09 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 02:33:23 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:32:19 PM
Quote from: jamess on April 29, 2022, 02:27:35 PM
segregation was the law of the land ... getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive
The one does not necessarily follow from the other–at least when it comes to highway planning. Just because segregation was the law of the land, and just because racism was much more rife then than now, that doesn't necessarily mean that highway planning was done with morally objectionable purposes in mind.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
By that logic, then, everything done by everyone back then was racist in nature–even if the people actually doing the doing weren't racist, and even if they never had race on their mind when they were doing it. At that point, the conversation becomes meaningless.
Nah. It just means that racism was so pervasive in society to the point of being encouraged by legislation that it becomes impossible to separate it from motivations behind decisions.
How is that different?
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:44:15 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 02:37:52 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:36:09 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 02:33:23 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 02:32:19 PM
Quote from: jamess on April 29, 2022, 02:27:35 PM
segregation was the law of the land ... getting "those people" to go away was certainly seen as a positive
The one does not necessarily follow from the other–at least when it comes to highway planning. Just because segregation was the law of the land, and just because racism was much more rife then than now, that doesn't necessarily mean that highway planning was done with morally objectionable purposes in mind.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
By that logic, then, everything done by everyone back then was racist in nature–even if the people actually doing the doing weren't racist, and even if they never had race on their mind when they were doing it. At that point, the conversation becomes meaningless.
Nah. It just means that racism was so pervasive in society to the point of being encouraged by legislation that it becomes impossible to separate it from motivations behind decisions.
How is that different?
Because it's meaningful. Racism played a part in highway planner's decisions because everyone was racist.
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 03:12:25 PM
Racism played a part in highway planner's decisions because everyone was racist.
Then the whole discussion is pointless. Basically, because it happened back then, it was racist. No point in even investigating the question.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 03:29:38 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 29, 2022, 03:12:25 PM
Racism played a part in highway planner's decisions because everyone was racist.
Then the whole discussion is pointless. Basically, because it happened back then, it was racist. No point in even investigating the question.
The question is investigated.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 11:59:36 AM
Well, yeah, billboards can definitely be racist.
https://goo.gl/maps/tqqyuc7Z2WLdWY1t7
Didn't even have to click the link to know where it was going to take me.. I expected nothing less from Harrison.
Quote from: ozarkman417 on April 29, 2022, 03:59:48 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 11:59:36 AM
Well, yeah, billboards can definitely be racist.
https://goo.gl/maps/tqqyuc7Z2WLdWY1t7
Didn't even have to click the link to know where it was going to take me.. I expected nothing less from Harrison.
It's the upshot of living in a society that values free speech. Sometimes people say things we wish they didn't. It's just a lot harder to ignore when it's a
freaking billboard.
Interestingly, the lady whose land the billboard was on hated the fact that such a message ended up on her property, but, because it was under contract and the message was protected under free speech, she had no recourse. Her own adopted daughter is Hispanic, and she has friends who are black, so a racially charged billboard like that was personally offensive to her. Eventually, she went to a lawyer, and the lawyer found that Brian Bryant hadn't paid the biannual $20 permit fee. Because of that technicality, rather than having no legal way of making the sign come down, the DOT ended up being
obligated to take it down. They sent Mr Bryant his final notice, and then, a year after that, the sign came down in September 2017.
The problem with this discussion is that you'll never get a definitive answer. To get that would require finding all of the people involved and asking them personally what was in their minds when making the decisions that were made, or determining the policies that were made to guide the decisions, or swaying the consensus in whatever meetings were occurring. And then that assumes that those people, if alive, are willing to be totally honest if racism did guide their actions.
Did race play a factor? In some cases, possibly. Maybe probably. That's the best answer you're going to get. And I'm African-American...if that needs to be identified in order for me to make the point I just made.
Maybe. But some of the Chicago story came from Mike Roykos Boss. I read an article about the Crosstown Daley pretty much killed every other freeway plan because he felt they built the 1940 Plan and that was enough. The Stevenson was built along the ship canal to avoid teardowns.So it's not clear Daley plotted anything.
The crosstown also was to use existing railroad ROW. Mini crosstown ideas survive because they can be limited to that ROW. The crosstown money went to the Orange line.
Quote from: ozarkman417 on April 29, 2022, 03:59:48 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 11:59:36 AM
Well, yeah, billboards can definitely be racist.
https://goo.gl/maps/tqqyuc7Z2WLdWY1t7
Didn't even have to click the link to know where it was going to take me.. I expected nothing less from Harrison.
From what I've heard, a lot of them used to be scattered all over North Carolina. Supposedly, one was even along I-95 in Fayetteville, but I don't remember seeing it.
As for the original question, no matter how much racism exists in the country, you can't convince me that any municipality has ever built roads just to throw black or Hispanic people out of their homes. I don't care if it's in Baltimore, DC, Chicago, Atlantia, Miami, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Boston, Syracuse, or anywhere else. Maybe some racists could see it as an additional benefit, but that's it.
Here's a reminder; Robert Moses built highways through poor and rich neighborhoods alike.
No, roads weren't used to simply throw minorities out. They were obviously built to try to improve transportation first and foremost. But, the decisions to their placement were definitely tainted by racism.
The idea that Robert Moses equally affected the rich and the poor is an absolute false equivalence, per The Power Broker.
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 10:52:18 AM
That may serve to confirm what I was thinking, then: light rail and commuter rail don't tend to divide neighborhoods because they generally use existing rail corridors–around which those neighborhoods have already grown–whereas an expressway slices a fresh cut through them.
This explains how the Red Line south of the Loop 'divided the hell out of neighborhoods' but the Red Line north of the Loop 'most certainly does not divide the neighborhood'. The Dan Ryan branch follows the median of a big wide expressway, whereas the North Side main line has been in operation as a passenger railway since 1900.
I assume you've heard of gentrification and "transit-oriented development" that is planned or occurs when a new light rail or commuter rail line is built. There may be a time within the next 20-30 years where intellectuals of all races will make claims that light-rail lines negatively altered majority-minority neighborhoods just as much as freeways did, based upon those very things happening in those neighborhoods.
It should have been very telling to a whole bunch of the planning and development folks in this nation that, when presented with the idea to tear down the I-10 viaduct and restore Claiborne Ave's neutral grounds, the descendants of New Orleans black folks negatively affected by highway development stated that they wanted no part of that idea.
Quote from: brad2971 on April 30, 2022, 09:21:06 AM
Quote from: kphoger on April 29, 2022, 10:52:18 AM
That may serve to confirm what I was thinking, then: light rail and commuter rail don't tend to divide neighborhoods because they generally use existing rail corridors–around which those neighborhoods have already grown–whereas an expressway slices a fresh cut through them.
This explains how the Red Line south of the Loop 'divided the hell out of neighborhoods' but the Red Line north of the Loop 'most certainly does not divide the neighborhood'. The Dan Ryan branch follows the median of a big wide expressway, whereas the North Side main line has been in operation as a passenger railway since 1900.
I assume you've heard of gentrification and "transit-oriented development" that is planned or occurs when a new light rail or commuter rail line is built. There may be a time within the next 20-30 years where intellectuals of all races will make claims that light-rail lines negatively altered majority-minority neighborhoods just as much as freeways did, based upon those very things happening in those neighborhoods.
It should have been very telling to a whole bunch of the planning and development folks in this nation that, when presented with the idea to tear down the I-10 viaduct and restore Claiborne Ave's neutral grounds, the descendants of New Orleans black folks negatively affected by highway development stated that they wanted no part of that idea.
It's clear that issues of classism will (or should) be as prevalent in the future as issues of racism. Unfortunately, the very people who are at the forefront of our national conversations on race are among the least credible on matters of class.
Quote from: Rothman on April 30, 2022, 08:41:00 AM
No, roads weren't used to simply throw minorities out. They were obviously built to try to improve transportation first and foremost. But, the decisions to their placement were definitely tainted by racism.
The idea that Robert Moses equally affected the rich and the poor is an absolute false equivalence, per The Power Broker.
The originally intended route of the Northern State Parkway in Old Westbury is where the Long Island Expressway is today. Rich white people forced him to build the "objector's bend." Bayside is far from a poor neighborhood since the Clearview Expressway was built through it. The route of the Mid-Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, and the Lower Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Neither of these two roads had their routes chosen because of racism. And all the BS that Robert Caro claimed about the low bridges being racially motivated can be easily discredited by the encouragement of the use of the LIRR and then local buses to get to Jones Beach (6:44 to 6:58 on the video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OfB6aGZ-Y
Hey, where are the Whites Only signs? Oh, that's right. NOWHERE!
Quote from: D-Dey65 on April 30, 2022, 07:36:37 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 30, 2022, 08:41:00 AM
No, roads weren't used to simply throw minorities out. They were obviously built to try to improve transportation first and foremost. But, the decisions to their placement were definitely tainted by racism.
The idea that Robert Moses equally affected the rich and the poor is an absolute false equivalence, per The Power Broker.
The originally intended route of the Northern State Parkway in Old Westbury is where the Long Island Expressway is today. Rich white people forced him to build the "objector's bend." Bayside is far from a poor neighborhood since the Clearview Expressway was built through it. The route of the Mid-Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, and the Lower Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Neither of these two roads had their routes chosen because of racism. And all the BS that Robert Caro claimed about the low bridges being racially motivated can be easily discredited by the encouragement of the use of the LIRR and then local buses to get to Jones Beach (6:44 to 6:58 on the video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OfB6aGZ-Y
Hey, where are the Whites Only signs? Oh, that's right. NOWHERE!
Cherry-picking the history and a misunderstanding of how racism was implemented in the North (e.g., overt segregation wasn't used, but other policies certainly were, most notably redlining).
Again, I believe Caro's well-documented assertions about Moses' and others' racism and the effects of such.
Quote from: Rothman on April 30, 2022, 07:40:57 PM
Quote from: D-Dey65 on April 30, 2022, 07:36:37 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 30, 2022, 08:41:00 AM
No, roads weren't used to simply throw minorities out. They were obviously built to try to improve transportation first and foremost. But, the decisions to their placement were definitely tainted by racism.
The idea that Robert Moses equally affected the rich and the poor is an absolute false equivalence, per The Power Broker.
The originally intended route of the Northern State Parkway in Old Westbury is where the Long Island Expressway is today. Rich white people forced him to build the "objector's bend." Bayside is far from a poor neighborhood since the Clearview Expressway was built through it. The route of the Mid-Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, and the Lower Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Neither of these two roads had their routes chosen because of racism. And all the BS that Robert Caro claimed about the low bridges being racially motivated can be easily discredited by the encouragement of the use of the LIRR and then local buses to get to Jones Beach (6:44 to 6:58 on the video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OfB6aGZ-Y
Hey, where are the Whites Only signs? Oh, that's right. NOWHERE!
Cherry-picking the history and a misunderstanding of how racism was implemented in the North (e.g., overt segregation wasn't used, but other policies certainly were, most notably redlining).
Again, I believe Caro's well-documented assertions about Moses' and others' racism and the effects of such.
And all the projects he built in those minority neighborhoods disprove Caro's claims on a grand scale:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained
I'm not dismissing his racism. I'm just saying Caro's myths about him building low bridges to keep minorities in buses from them or building roads to displace minorities are an easily proven myth.
You ever have an interaction with a business where you just kind of get the run-around and it takes a long time to get anything done? Say you're trying to do a return, and initially it's questionable whether you can even return it, because it might be outside the return window, so it takes some time to establish that this particular item is under a different, longer return window, but then the register isn't letting the clerk process the return, so she has to get a manager, and then the manager initially says the return is outside the return window, and then you and the clerk both have to explain it to her, and then the register won't accept her override code, so she has to call her boss to figure out how to do the return, and then come to find out they can only give you store credit, and then...
Now, does the store in this example have an explicit policy that says "returns should be complicated and annoying"? No. But the sum total of all of the decisions the institution has made, the policies they have written, and the processes they have in place, all add up to make your return complicated and annoying. There isn't a conscious decision being made to make it so, and nobody involved in the transaction is really pushing it to be that way. Rather, the system, being oblivious to what it is doing, inartfully lumbers along, making for a sub-optimal experience for everyone involved.
The exact same thing is true of racism in the United States. Most people aren't consciously acting in a prejudiced manner–some are, but it's hopefully a vast minority–but decisions from the past have piled on top of one another for generation after generation to just kind of make it suck, not on purpose, but on accident. And it's hard to get people to change their mind on it, especially when they grow up with the world a certain way and don't really have a reason to change it, especially when they can't see an individual policy as a piece of a bigger puzzle.
Highway construction is just one of thousands of those puzzle pieces.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on April 30, 2022, 09:52:37 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 30, 2022, 07:40:57 PM
Quote from: D-Dey65 on April 30, 2022, 07:36:37 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 30, 2022, 08:41:00 AM
No, roads weren't used to simply throw minorities out. They were obviously built to try to improve transportation first and foremost. But, the decisions to their placement were definitely tainted by racism.
The idea that Robert Moses equally affected the rich and the poor is an absolute false equivalence, per The Power Broker.
The originally intended route of the Northern State Parkway in Old Westbury is where the Long Island Expressway is today. Rich white people forced him to build the "objector's bend." Bayside is far from a poor neighborhood since the Clearview Expressway was built through it. The route of the Mid-Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, and the Lower Manhattan Expressway's route was proposed to connect the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Neither of these two roads had their routes chosen because of racism. And all the BS that Robert Caro claimed about the low bridges being racially motivated can be easily discredited by the encouragement of the use of the LIRR and then local buses to get to Jones Beach (6:44 to 6:58 on the video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OfB6aGZ-Y
Hey, where are the Whites Only signs? Oh, that's right. NOWHERE!
Cherry-picking the history and a misunderstanding of how racism was implemented in the North (e.g., overt segregation wasn't used, but other policies certainly were, most notably redlining).
Again, I believe Caro's well-documented assertions about Moses' and others' racism and the effects of such.
And all the projects he built in those minority neighborhoods disprove Caro's claims on a grand scale:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained
I'm not dismissing his racism. I'm just saying Caro's myths about him building low bridges to keep minorities in buses from them or building roads to displace minorities are an easily proven myth.
Do you read the articles you post?
"The verdict? It appears that Sid Shapiro was right.
Overall, clearances are substantially lower on the Moses parkway, averaging just 107.6 inches (eastbound), against 121.6 inches on the Hutchinson and 123.2 inches on the Saw Mill. Even on the Bronx River Parkway"
Your article proves the myth was fact.
Quote from: edwaleni on April 27, 2022, 09:02:18 AM
In the Chicago example, the then Mayor Daley (Sr.) had some very clear objectives when it came to using the new federal dollars to build expressways. But was he targeting anyone?
i can't really remember if he was displaced by the congress expressway or the douglas extension of the blue line (now pink) but my dad's house was moved in the 50's for one of the two. it leans heavily today because the foundation was never set correctly during relocation. no real $$$ there.
also the century freeway (the 110) in LA is another great example.
~cat
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 30, 2022, 11:23:49 PM
The exact same thing is true of racism in the United States. Most people aren't consciously acting in a prejudiced manner–some are, but it's hopefully a vast minority–but decisions from the past have piled on top of one another for generation after generation to just kind of make it suck, not on purpose, but on accident.
To add to this: when i was younger, "racist" and "prejudiced" were two separate terms. "Racist" was the more overt term, meant for intentional acts or emotions, and "prejudiced" was the more subtle term. Now the use of the term "racist" has morphed to cover all of it.
But I think that some people who aren't really racist but more prejudiced get quickly defensive about being labeled racist because they are thinking of the more narrow definition...which unfortunately blinds them to realize that they are prejudiced. In addition...most of us are probably prejudiced in some fashion, on some topic...it's human. But the important thing is to realize and correct your prejudices when confronted with them. And that's hard to do with a defensive reaction.
And that doesn't just apply to someone's actions - that applies to their perceptions and understandings also. Which is one reason why people get so defensive when confronting perceptions of the past (a/k/a denial).
As I said earlier...proving racism (in the narrow definition) in many of the highway decisions is probably going to be impossible in many cases. But denying it in either the narrow definition of racism, or the broader more subtle definition...is just as invalid of a possibility as proving it IMO.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 30, 2022, 11:23:49 PM
You ever have an interaction with a business where you just kind of get the run-around and it takes a long time to get anything done? Say you're trying to do a return, and initially it's questionable whether you can even return it, because it might be outside the return window, so it takes some time to establish that this particular item is under a different, longer return window, but then the register isn't letting the clerk process the return, so she has to get a manager, and then the manager initially says the return is outside the return window, and then you and the clerk both have to explain it to her, and then the register won't accept her override code, so she has to call her boss to figure out how to do the return, and then come to find out they can only give you store credit, and then...
Now, does the store in this example have an explicit policy that says "returns should be complicated and annoying"? No. But the sum total of all of the decisions the institution has made, the policies they have written, and the processes they have in place, all add up to make your return complicated and annoying. There isn't a conscious decision being made to make it so, and nobody involved in the transaction is really pushing it to be that way. Rather, the system, being oblivious to what it is doing, inartfully lumbers along, making for a sub-optimal experience for everyone involved.
The exact same thing is true of racism in the United States. Most people aren't consciously acting in a prejudiced manner–some are, but it's hopefully a vast minority–but decisions from the past have piled on top of one another for generation after generation to just kind of make it suck, not on purpose, but on accident. And it's hard to get people to change their mind on it, especially when they grow up with the world a certain way and don't really have a reason to change it, especially when they can't see an individual policy as a piece of a bigger puzzle.
Highway construction is just one of thousands of those puzzle pieces.
It's also possible that the exact same store policies that made your specific return excruciatingly difficult have made returns
overall an efficient and beneficial system–maybe even better than any alternative. So, say, 4% of all returns have a nasty amount of rigmarole, but the other 96% of all returns are simple and fast with no questions asked.
That would be perhaps difficult to quantify, and the analogue of race disparity as it relates to highway infrastructure would be much harder to quantify.
Quote from: brad2971 on April 30, 2022, 09:21:06 AM
There may be a time within the next 20-30 years where intellectuals of all races will make claims that light-rail lines negatively altered majority-minority neighborhoods just as much as freeways did, based upon those very things happening in those neighborhoods.
Well, no, because a light rail line isnt spewing tons of pollution, both in particulate matter and in noise levels. Light rail also has a much higher safety record, Rail can certainly create barriers in neighborhoods, as some agencies absolutely love fencing and detest grade crossings, but even that will be to a much lesser extent.
Much more common are examples where a rail line is proposed, and opposition is mounted on pretty racist grounds, claiming that the new rail service will "bring criminals" to the neighborhood and whatnot.
IE:
QuoteSome residents of Gloucester County worry that a proposed new light-rail line between Camden and Glassboro will bring an increase in crime to the small towns along the route.
"More people are coming up here from Camden. Palmyra used to be so quiet. It seems like so much change. It scares me for it to be here. . . . You have these people walking the quiet neighborhoods.
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20090525_Some_in_Glouco_fear_that_light_rail_will_bring_crime.html
Camden (and Philadelphia) are majority black communities. The suburban towns are majority white.
Some people are a little more blatant with their racism.
QuoteA mayoral candidate doesn't want a light rail extension to be built into the western Twin Cities suburbs because it's "going to bring riffraff and trash from Minneapolis."
Bob Ivers is running to be the next mayor of Hopkins, hoping to beat out incumbent Mayor Molly Cummings in the Nov. 7 election.
And during a League of Women Voters candidate forum on Monday, Ivers called minorities "coloreds" and "ethnics" in his effort to explain why he doesn't want the Southwest Light Rail line to go through Hopkins.
https://bringmethenews.com/news/the-light-rail-will-bring-riffraff-and-trash-from-welfare-apolis-guy-running-for-mayor-in-hopkins-says
Thats from 2017. That is a political candidate making blatantly racist statements in 2017. Now imagine what happened behind closed doors in 1954.
Oh, and speaking of "You have these people walking the quiet neighborhoods" you also frequently see stories of people opposing SIDEWALKS because they claim it will bring crime.
Quote from: Rothman on May 01, 2022, 12:22:08 AM
Do you read the articles you post?
"The verdict? It appears that Sid Shapiro was right.
Actually, they prove the opposite. The bus stops at Jones Beach, and the existence of Jacob Riis Park, which was just as easily accessible by buses in Brooklyn for everybody, no matter what races they are easily disprove that he built anything just to kick out minorities. Or Colonial Park, now known as Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem. Or what about Soundview Park and Pelham Bay Park? Plus, the low overpasses were for appearances. He was about having them blend into the landscape, just like the parkways of Westchester, which sadly need more overpasses and interchanges. So Shapiro was wrong.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 03, 2022, 08:54:56 PM
Quote from: Rothman on May 01, 2022, 12:22:08 AM
Do you read the articles you post?
"The verdict? It appears that Sid Shapiro was right.
Actually, they prove the opposite. The bus stops at Jones Beach, and the existence of Jacob Riis Park, which was just as easily accessible by buses in Brooklyn for everybody, no matter what races they are easily disprove that he built anything just to kick out minorities. Or Colonial Park, now known as Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem. Or what about Soundview Park and Pelham Bay Park? Plus, the low overpasses were for appearances. He was about having them blend into the landscape, just like the parkways of Westchester, which sadly need more overpasses and interchanges. So Shapiro was wrong.
That's not what your article concluded, hence the quote from it I provided from it that you truncated.
Quote from: jamess on May 03, 2022, 04:48:41 PM
Oh, and speaking of "You have these people walking the quiet neighborhoods" you also frequently see stories of people opposing SIDEWALKS because they claim it will bring crime.
Ugh I have heard this exact thing from people in person. "I don't want the city (boring suburb) to build this bike path along the road because people will use it to case my house for robbery".
Mindblowingly stupid.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on May 04, 2022, 03:11:22 PM
Quote from: jamess on May 03, 2022, 04:48:41 PM
Oh, and speaking of "You have these people walking the quiet neighborhoods" you also frequently see stories of people opposing SIDEWALKS because they claim it will bring crime.
Ugh I have heard this exact thing from people in person. "I don't want the city (boring suburb) to build this bike path along the road because people will use it to case my house for robbery".
Mindblowingly stupid.
When the Phoenix Light Rail was being proposed the argument against it in Scottsdale was that it would bring in crime and homeless people. The irony that one of the largest bike trails in the Phoenix area was located in Scottsdale wasn't lost on me when it was time to vote. Rural Metro also already had a huge bus presence in Scottsdale at the time as well.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 04, 2022, 03:52:43 PM
Quote from: triplemultiplex on May 04, 2022, 03:11:22 PM
Quote from: jamess on May 03, 2022, 04:48:41 PM
Oh, and speaking of "You have these people walking the quiet neighborhoods" you also frequently see stories of people opposing SIDEWALKS because they claim it will bring crime.
Ugh I have heard this exact thing from people in person. "I don't want the city (boring suburb) to build this bike path along the road because people will use it to case my house for robbery".
Mindblowingly stupid.
When the Phoenix Light Rail was being proposed the argument against it in Scottsdale was that it would bring in crime and homeless people. The irony that one of the largest bike trails in the Phoenix area was located in Scottsdale wasn't lost on me when it was time to vote. Rural Metro also already had a huge bus presence in Scottsdale at the time as well.
The South Shore Line, which currently runs from downtown Chicago to South Bend, is getting an new branch that goes through my town. Lots of ignorant people complaining that "thugs from the city" are going to ride the train out to our town to commit crimes.
Yeah, that's exactly it. Amongst an epidemic of carjackings, they're going to pay $6 to spend an hour on a train to get here.
Well, obviously, the reason they aren't already going from Dolton over to Munster to commit crimes is that Pace bus doesn't go that far... :rolleyes:
Quote from: abefroman329 on May 04, 2022, 06:23:26 PM
Related:
Are people that stupid?
Ooh, I just robbed this house and stole this guy's piano. I'm going to take it several blocks then on a bus and a train. :poke: :-D
Quote from: Rothman on May 03, 2022, 11:06:36 PM
That's not what your article concluded, hence the quote from it I provided from it that you truncated.
Sorry, but the lack of Jim Crow signs, the mixed neighborhoods he built the roads through, and the mass transit facilitation at the parks those roads lead to leaves me extraordinarily unconvinced.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 08, 2022, 08:32:45 AM
Quote from: Rothman on May 03, 2022, 11:06:36 PM
That's not what your article concluded, hence the quote from it I provided from it that you truncated.
Sorry, but the lack of Jim Crow signs, the mixed neighborhoods he built the roads through, and the mass transit facilitation at the parks those roads lead to leaves me extraordinarily unconvinced.
You're the one that provided the article to the contrary.
And to say that systemic racism didn't exist because Jim Crow wasn't in the North ignores all the evidence to the contrary (e.g., redlining and the subsequent need for busing to integrate schools).
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 04, 2022, 03:52:43 PM
Quote from: triplemultiplex on May 04, 2022, 03:11:22 PM
Quote from: jamess on May 03, 2022, 04:48:41 PM
Oh, and speaking of "You have these people walking the quiet neighborhoods" you also frequently see stories of people opposing SIDEWALKS because they claim it will bring crime.
Ugh I have heard this exact thing from people in person. "I don't want the city (boring suburb) to build this bike path along the road because people will use it to case my house for robbery".
Mindblowingly stupid.
When the Phoenix Light Rail was being proposed the argument against it in Scottsdale was that it would bring in crime and homeless people. The irony that one of the largest bike trails in the Phoenix area was located in Scottsdale wasn't lost on me when it was time to vote. Rural Metro also already had a huge bus presence in Scottsdale at the time as well.
Douglas County (CO) and Park Meadows Mall made similar arguments when the Southeast Light Rail was constructed. So much so, that direct access to the mall wasn't added until two years after the light rail became operational. That light rail line has since been extended further into Lone Tree/DC.
Quote from: Rothman on May 08, 2022, 09:51:56 AM
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 08, 2022, 08:32:45 AM
Quote from: Rothman on May 03, 2022, 11:06:36 PM
That's not what your article concluded, hence the quote from it I provided from it that you truncated.
Sorry, but the lack of Jim Crow signs, the mixed neighborhoods he built the roads through, and the mass transit facilitation at the parks those roads lead to leaves me extraordinarily unconvinced.
You're the one that provided the article to the contrary.
And to say that systemic racism didn't exist because Jim Crow wasn't in the North ignores all the evidence to the contrary (e.g., redlining and the subsequent need for busing to integrate schools).
No, what I'm saying is it's not involved in the construction of the road network. I don't care how much redlining there has been in the cities. Nobody builds roads on the basis or racism.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 09, 2022, 09:58:28 AM
Quote from: Rothman on May 08, 2022, 09:51:56 AM
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 08, 2022, 08:32:45 AM
Quote from: Rothman on May 03, 2022, 11:06:36 PM
That's not what your article concluded, hence the quote from it I provided from it that you truncated.
Sorry, but the lack of Jim Crow signs, the mixed neighborhoods he built the roads through, and the mass transit facilitation at the parks those roads lead to leaves me extraordinarily unconvinced.
You're the one that provided the article to the contrary.
And to say that systemic racism didn't exist because Jim Crow wasn't in the North ignores all the evidence to the contrary (e.g., redlining and the subsequent need for busing to integrate schools).
No, what I'm saying is it's not involved in the construction of the road network. I don't care how much redlining there has been in the cities. Nobody builds roads on the basis or racism.
LOL...if you say so...
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 09, 2022, 09:58:28 AM
Quote from: Rothman on May 08, 2022, 09:51:56 AM
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 08, 2022, 08:32:45 AM
Quote from: Rothman on May 03, 2022, 11:06:36 PM
That's not what your article concluded, hence the quote from it I provided from it that you truncated.
Sorry, but the lack of Jim Crow signs, the mixed neighborhoods he built the roads through, and the mass transit facilitation at the parks those roads lead to leaves me extraordinarily unconvinced.
You're the one that provided the article to the contrary.
And to say that systemic racism didn't exist because Jim Crow wasn't in the North ignores all the evidence to the contrary (e.g., redlining and the subsequent need for busing to integrate schools).
No, what I'm saying is it's not involved in the construction of the road network. I don't care how much redlining there has been in the cities. Nobody builds roads on the basis or racism.
But they do build roads on the basis of money, a tendency that disproportionately affects nonwhite communities.
Quote from: thspfc on May 09, 2022, 12:42:52 PM
But they do build roads on the basis of money, a tendency that disproportionately affects nonwhite communities.
They also build on the basis of connecting certain destinations, regardless of who or what else is along the way or in the way.
You know, by this so-called "logic" if our highways can be racist, so can our railroads. We displaced a lot of Native Americans to build our railroads across the country. We also displaced white and even non-white settlers. And many of our stations had segregated waiting rooms,
even on Long Island!!The former Wainscott LIRR station had segregated waiting rooms for whites and non-whites.
So, do you want to tear those railroads and the stations down too? I don't.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 09, 2022, 05:16:41 PM
Quote from: thspfc on May 09, 2022, 12:42:52 PM
But they do build roads on the basis of money, a tendency that disproportionately affects nonwhite communities.
They also build on the basis of connecting certain destinations, regardless of who or what else is along the way or in the way.
You know, by this so-called "logic" if our highways can be racist, so can our railroads. We displaced a lot of Native Americans to build our railroads across the country. We also displaced white and even non-white settlers. And many of our stations had segregated waiting rooms, even on Long Island!!
The former Wainscott LIRR station had segregated waiting rooms for whites and non-whites.
So, do you want to tear those railroads and the stations down too? I don't.
Not many (any?) people here are advocating tearing down freeways due to the facts on how they were routed. Simply acknowledging that racism played a role in such routings.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 09, 2022, 05:16:41 PM
Quote from: thspfc on May 09, 2022, 12:42:52 PM
But they do build roads on the basis of money, a tendency that disproportionately affects nonwhite communities.
They also build on the basis of connecting certain destinations, regardless of who or what else is along the way or in the way.
You know, by this so-called "logic" if our highways can be racist, so can our railroads. We displaced a lot of Native Americans to build our railroads across the country. We also displaced white and even non-white settlers. And many of our stations had segregated waiting rooms, even on Long Island!!
The former Wainscott LIRR station had segregated waiting rooms for whites and non-whites.
So, do you want to tear those railroads and the stations down too? I don't.
I'm not in any way advocating for freeway removal on the basis of past racist tendencies, and I'm not sure how you gathered that I was from my post, but alright.
However there are certain urban freeways that I believe should be removed, with the poster child being the western and northern segments of Kansas City's loop around downtown. There's just no reason why those stretches have to be there, and they unnecessarily disconnect the city. I-35 and I-70 could be rerouted along what is now I-670.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 09, 2022, 05:16:41 PM
You know, by this so-called "logic" if our highways can be racist, so can our railroads.
Who exactly are you arguing against? Or are you just trying to build a strawman?
Of course this is true. It's common that "quiet zones" exist in wealthy, majority white areas while the train is required to blast away in the non-white parts of town.
Northern Kentucky had at least one highway project that I'm pretty sure was racist, and it's had tons that were classist.
I think the 12th Street project in Covington in the 2000s probably had some racism at its core. From what I've seen from public officials, that would be very likely.
And I-471 is a living celebration of classism. Think of all the blocks and blocks of poor and working-class housing that was torn down for it, while the road bulges to the west to avoid tearing down the country club. The new KY 9 through Newport was built for the very purpose of tearing down public housing, and public officials weren't even shy about admitting it.
I just wonder what public officials said behind closed doors.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:40:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And, even on this forum, people have purported that those whose homes were demolished could have simply moved–presumably into non-slum/non-ghetto housing. It does seem commonsense to wonder why, if that had been true, they hadn't already moved into better conditions...
The traditional economics reason for this is likely that by removing supply, and paying out the appraised value to those individuals, its making it easier for them to move - I imagine its not the easiest to sell your home and move in the slum/ghetto. The modifications to the supply/demand curve should have helped. Of course, the issue is highways brought a bunch of new problems with it to those areas.
Its not like we exactly have abandoned the idea of using eminent domain to try to improve blighted areas following the same economic principles... just now we seem to have realized that just slapping some facility in the middle of a community without much thought isn't a great way to do that, but by more strategically picking the locations to try to avoid dividing communities. The common theory now seems to be to try to place the improvements on the edge of these areas to avoid dividing the communities. When my city placed a new basketball arena, soccer stadium, and university/high school complex, they weren't exactly tearing down any nice homes/buildings, but thought was put into trying to make sure that they weren't dividing communities, attempts were made to situate parking to discourage people from avoiding surrounding businesses and escaping the area quickly, etc...
Quote from: UCFKnights on May 22, 2022, 09:50:33 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:40:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And, even on this forum, people have purported that those whose homes were demolished could have simply moved–presumably into non-slum/non-ghetto housing. It does seem commonsense to wonder why, if that had been true, they hadn't already moved into better conditions...
The traditional economics reason for this is likely that by removing supply, and paying out the appraised value to those individuals, its making it easier for them to move - I imagine its not the easiest to sell your home and move in the slum/ghetto. The modifications to the supply/demand curve should have helped. Of course, the issue is highways brought a bunch of new problems with it to those areas.
Its not like we exactly have abandoned the idea of using eminent domain to try to improve blighted areas following the same economic principles... just now we seem to have realized that just slapping some facility in the middle of a community without much thought isn't a great way to do that, but by more strategically picking the locations to try to avoid dividing communities. The common theory now seems to be to try to place the improvements on the edge of these areas to avoid dividing the communities. When my city placed a new basketball arena, soccer stadium, and university/high school complex, they weren't exactly tearing down any nice homes/buildings, but thought was put into trying to make sure that they weren't dividing communities, attempts were made to situate parking to discourage people from avoiding surrounding businesses and escaping the area quickly, etc...
This is part of the reason I find the HSR so fascinating in Fresno. The location was run straight through the middle of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the city and basically obliterated the old Chinese district to make way for new station. The people who are pro-HSR are all in with the demolition whereas people who aren't for the HSR aren't exactly crying foul on what area is being demolished. Hard to assess how the project location might be viewed four-five decades after the fact like we are doing with a lot of the freeway corridors.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 22, 2022, 10:15:55 PM
Quote from: UCFKnights on May 22, 2022, 09:50:33 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:40:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And, even on this forum, people have purported that those whose homes were demolished could have simply moved–presumably into non-slum/non-ghetto housing. It does seem commonsense to wonder why, if that had been true, they hadn't already moved into better conditions...
The traditional economics reason for this is likely that by removing supply, and paying out the appraised value to those individuals, its making it easier for them to move - I imagine its not the easiest to sell your home and move in the slum/ghetto. The modifications to the supply/demand curve should have helped. Of course, the issue is highways brought a bunch of new problems with it to those areas.
Its not like we exactly have abandoned the idea of using eminent domain to try to improve blighted areas following the same economic principles... just now we seem to have realized that just slapping some facility in the middle of a community without much thought isn't a great way to do that, but by more strategically picking the locations to try to avoid dividing communities. The common theory now seems to be to try to place the improvements on the edge of these areas to avoid dividing the communities. When my city placed a new basketball arena, soccer stadium, and university/high school complex, they weren't exactly tearing down any nice homes/buildings, but thought was put into trying to make sure that they weren't dividing communities, attempts were made to situate parking to discourage people from avoiding surrounding businesses and escaping the area quickly, etc...
This is part of the reason I find the HSR so fascinating in Fresno. The location was run straight through the middle of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the city and basically obliterated the old Chinese district to make way for new station. The people who are pro-HSR are all in with the demolition whereas people who aren't for the HSR aren't exactly crying foul on what area is being demolished. Hard to assess how the project location might be viewed four-five decades after the fact like we are doing with a lot of the freeway corridors.
Eh, not exactly. The HSR line runs along the UP right of way. 99% of the demolitions have actually been road related.
And Chintown - the whole 2 blocks - has been dead for 40+ years. One of the largest buildings recently burnt down because it had been abandoned for so long and the homeless break in.
Had they used the BNSF corridor, there would have been a lot more demolitions. Had they gone further west, they would have not been able to serve downtown, which defeats the purpose.
If you want a Fresno example, just look at how 180 destroyed the Belmont corridor in the last 2 decades.
Quote from: jamess on May 24, 2022, 12:28:49 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 22, 2022, 10:15:55 PM
Quote from: UCFKnights on May 22, 2022, 09:50:33 PM
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 12:40:20 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 28, 2022, 12:35:41 PM
It was once thought that slum clearance would nullify the reasons it existed rather than push it elsewhere. It is fascinating to read 1950s and 1960s eras studies on the topic in the California Highways & Public Works volume. They really didn't have a solid idea what effects would be caused by Freeway and Expressway development, just guesses.
And, even on this forum, people have purported that those whose homes were demolished could have simply moved–presumably into non-slum/non-ghetto housing. It does seem commonsense to wonder why, if that had been true, they hadn't already moved into better conditions...
The traditional economics reason for this is likely that by removing supply, and paying out the appraised value to those individuals, its making it easier for them to move - I imagine its not the easiest to sell your home and move in the slum/ghetto. The modifications to the supply/demand curve should have helped. Of course, the issue is highways brought a bunch of new problems with it to those areas.
Its not like we exactly have abandoned the idea of using eminent domain to try to improve blighted areas following the same economic principles... just now we seem to have realized that just slapping some facility in the middle of a community without much thought isn't a great way to do that, but by more strategically picking the locations to try to avoid dividing communities. The common theory now seems to be to try to place the improvements on the edge of these areas to avoid dividing the communities. When my city placed a new basketball arena, soccer stadium, and university/high school complex, they weren't exactly tearing down any nice homes/buildings, but thought was put into trying to make sure that they weren't dividing communities, attempts were made to situate parking to discourage people from avoiding surrounding businesses and escaping the area quickly, etc...
This is part of the reason I find the HSR so fascinating in Fresno. The location was run straight through the middle of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the city and basically obliterated the old Chinese district to make way for new station. The people who are pro-HSR are all in with the demolition whereas people who aren't for the HSR aren't exactly crying foul on what area is being demolished. Hard to assess how the project location might be viewed four-five decades after the fact like we are doing with a lot of the freeway corridors.
Eh, not exactly. The HSR line runs along the UP right of way. 99% of the demolitions have actually been road related.
And Chintown - the whole 2 blocks - has been dead for 40+ years. One of the largest buildings recently burnt down because it had been abandoned for so long and the homeless break in.
Had they used the BNSF corridor, there would have been a lot more demolitions. Had they gone further west, they would have not been able to serve downtown, which defeats the purpose.
If you want a Fresno example, just look at how 180 destroyed the Belmont corridor in the last 2 decades.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I am wondering how 4-5 decades on how people will feel about those demolitions in Fresno? Who's to say in that timeframe someone won't come around to critique the Fresno HSR project in a light that might not be so favorable as it is viewed in present tense? I can totally see someone in the future twisting cheap right of way and slum clearance into a substantially different narrative than it actually was.
This thread is a great example, what we are doing is viewing things 4-5 decades after the fact and drawing conclusions. Some people are probably making correct assumptions and conclusions, but few us of were around for many of the projects being cited in this thread. How much accurate and intimate knowledge do we have a half century removed?
Amusingly I use a lot of the parts shops on Belmont still, way cheaper priced than the rest of the city. The corridor might be dead but it is a haven for cheap automotive parts and service if you know where to look.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 24, 2022, 12:56:37 PM
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I am wondering how 4-5 decades on how people will feel about those demolitions in Fresno? Who's to say in that timeframe someone won't come around to critique the Fresno HSR project in a light that might not be so favorable as it is viewed in present tense? I can totally see someone in the future twisting cheap right of way and slum clearance into a substantially different narrative than it actually was.
Because we know connectivity is a goal of the project. Right now theres a barren wasteland between downtown and Chinatown due to the massive UP right of way. When trains come by, and they do so very, very slowly, they block the crossings for a long time.
The HSR project is building underpasses to fix this issue, and the station will have a grand entrance on both sides.
Yeah in the future someone might give a bad faith argument, but the plan is explicitly designed to fix mistakes of the past.
Quote from: jamess on May 25, 2022, 12:49:11 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 24, 2022, 12:56:37 PM
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I am wondering how 4-5 decades on how people will feel about those demolitions in Fresno? Who's to say in that timeframe someone won't come around to critique the Fresno HSR project in a light that might not be so favorable as it is viewed in present tense? I can totally see someone in the future twisting cheap right of way and slum clearance into a substantially different narrative than it actually was.
Because we know connectivity is a goal of the project. Right now theres a barren wasteland between downtown and Chinatown due to the massive UP right of way. When trains come by, and they do so very, very slowly, they block the crossings for a long time.
The HSR project is building underpasses to fix this issue, and the station will have a grand entrance on both sides.
Yeah in the future someone might give a bad faith argument, but the plan is explicitly designed to fix mistakes of the past.
Right, but with many past freeway examples you see cited in popular conscious these days how are they any different then versus what the is doing HSR now? It makes all the sense in the world for a city like Fresno to go all in with the HSR from a present viewpoint because it the potential revitalization the project offers would otherwise take decades to achieve. Will people make similar complaints and comparisons about the HSR as they do now with freeways in the future?...maybe?...probably?...who knows? Either way, maybe the HSR can serve as an example of why a modernist view point being universally applied retroactively to past corridors and events might possibly not the best way to frame things?
Can a highway or any public works project be racist? Absolutely, but there is needs to be some sort of burden of proof for me to be comfortable with that conclusion. Some projects overtly were influenced by racism and classism, but that is certainly not a blanket label I'm willing to apply to all past infrastructure projects.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/biden-administration-launches-1-billion-effort-to-correct-racist-highway-designs-of-the-past/ar-AAZ1o3W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e5c8161bdfa348c191bc0be8698f0153
Let's comment on this with Grace...
Quote from: bwana39 on June 30, 2022, 10:39:04 PM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/biden-administration-launches-1-billion-effort-to-correct-racist-highway-designs-of-the-past/ar-AAZ1o3W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e5c8161bdfa348c191bc0be8698f0153
Let's comment on this with Grace...
I'm guessing the "new infrastructure, like greenways to promote cycling and walking or transit programs, like rapid bus lines" part will end up being the bulk of the projects–and that the "[tearing] down highways" part, not so much.
Quote from: bwana39 on June 30, 2022, 10:39:04 PM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/biden-administration-launches-1-billion-effort-to-correct-racist-highway-designs-of-the-past/ar-AAZ1o3W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e5c8161bdfa348c191bc0be8698f0153
Let's comment on this with Grace...
Grace? She passed away 30 years ago...
Quote from: hbelkins on July 01, 2022, 09:59:04 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 30, 2022, 10:39:04 PM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/biden-administration-launches-1-billion-effort-to-correct-racist-highway-designs-of-the-past/ar-AAZ1o3W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e5c8161bdfa348c191bc0be8698f0153
Let's comment on this with Grace...
Grace? She passed away 30 years ago...
You knew my grandma?
Quote from: kphoger on July 01, 2022, 10:08:05 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on July 01, 2022, 09:59:04 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 30, 2022, 10:39:04 PM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/biden-administration-launches-1-billion-effort-to-correct-racist-highway-designs-of-the-past/ar-AAZ1o3W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e5c8161bdfa348c191bc0be8698f0153
Let's comment on this with Grace...
Grace? She passed away 30 years ago...
You knew my grandma?
Actually, that was a reference to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, when Aunt Bethany said it after Clark asked her to give the blessing of the family Christmas Eve dinner. And when she finally did, she hilariously recited the Pledge of Allegiance, with the rest playing along and gradually joining in.
Quote from: Henry on July 01, 2022, 10:13:10 AM
Quote from: kphoger on July 01, 2022, 10:08:05 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on July 01, 2022, 09:59:04 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 30, 2022, 10:39:04 PM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/biden-administration-launches-1-billion-effort-to-correct-racist-highway-designs-of-the-past/ar-AAZ1o3W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e5c8161bdfa348c191bc0be8698f0153
Let's comment on this with Grace...
Grace? She passed away 30 years ago...
You knew my grandma?
Actually, that was a reference to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, when Aunt Bethany said it after Clark asked her to give the blessing of the family Christmas Eve dinner. And when she finally did, she hilariously recited the Pledge of Allegiance, with the rest playing along and gradually joining in.
Aw man, I can't believe that went over my head!
No, but what's really weird is that my paternal grandmother, whose name was Grace, died approximately 30 years ago. I can't remember the exact year, and I can't seem to find the obituary online, but it was right around 30 years ago.
I was thinking more quiet dignity and grace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We9zqMx-kRQ
Or: https://youtu.be/ogO6_fANT5E
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 25, 2022, 01:47:30 PMCan a highway or any public works project be racist? Absolutely, but there is needs to be some sort of burden of proof for me to be comfortable with that conclusion. Some projects overtly were influenced by racism and classism, but that is certainly not a blanket label I'm willing to apply to all past infrastructure projects.
This is my view - except for racism isn't the same as classism, though there is an overlap between race and class. Arguably the issue with highways is classism, rather than racism - the areas where freeways were successfully driven through were lower class 'slums', and the higher class areas were able to block them - rather than specifically targeting black areas.
There's an issue where focussing on race (especially in the UK, where the race issue is more disconnected from the class issue, and there's a big issue with classism) is that the white lower classes are overlooked, exacerbating the classism that the left is meant to care about as being bad. And worse higher class non-whites can be seen as oppressed and in need of help, with the white lower classes as oppressors in need of punishment, exponentially making the classism problem far worse.
Quote from: D-Dey65 on May 09, 2022, 05:16:41 PMYou know, by this so-called "logic" if our highways can be racist, so can our railroads.
I remember reading, as a kid, a children-focused history book on the Victorians. When they built the approach to Kings Cross station in the early 1850s, they demolished a cemetery and a load of slum housing. With the cemetery (which wasn't entirely higher class people) they sought permission from the families to move the bodies and found a place to rebury them. With the people in the slums, they just evicted them and razed it to the ground.
Obviously London in the early 1850s was 99% white, and it was possibly the pinnacle of Britain not being racist (Darwin hadn't published so the racism that came off the back of that didn't exist, and the horrors of the slave trade had been thrown off - instead Britain was waging war against those trading slaves), but the same approach in the 60s in the US would have certainly raise 'it was racist' heckles nowadays.
Quote from: english si on July 01, 2022, 03:55:43 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 25, 2022, 01:47:30 PMCan a highway or any public works project be racist? Absolutely, but there is needs to be some sort of burden of proof for me to be comfortable with that conclusion. Some projects overtly were influenced by racism and classism, but that is certainly not a blanket label I'm willing to apply to all past infrastructure projects.
This is my view - except for racism isn't the same as classism, though there is an overlap between race and class. Arguably the issue with highways is classism, rather than racism - the areas where freeways were successfully driven through were lower class 'slums', and the higher class areas were able to block them - rather than specifically targeting black areas.
There's an issue where focussing on race (especially in the UK, where the race issue is more disconnected from the class issue, and there's a big issue with classism) is that the white lower classes are overlooked, exacerbating the classism that the left is meant to care about as being bad. And worse higher class non-whites can be seen as oppressed and in need of help, with the white lower classes as oppressors in need of punishment, exponentially making the classism problem far worse.
This leads to an observation of one of the odd cultural differences between the US and the UK–in the US there is not much recognition at all of classism as a concept. Many lower-class people have the belief that they can and should be upper-class–and would be but for some stroke of luck that hasn't happened yet. There's a belief that one can change their social class simply by working hard. That means that a segment of the population is loathe to do anything to address classism directly; they don't want to do anything that they perceive as penalizing the upper classes that they assume they will be part of someday. (This is why it is so easy to get poor people to oppose tax increases on the rich, for instance.)
Racism, of course, cannot be written off in such a fashion–a Black man cannot aspire to someday be considered White–so that's what society focuses on. Of course, many of the same forces that act to keep a poor Black man down also keep a poor White man down, but the poor White man thinks someday he'll be a rich White man, so he self-disincentivizes doing anything to act against those forces.
In the UK it's higher class to pretend to be working class. Sure Jamie Olive Oil is very much a class snob (to the point of making deliberately crap food, but with the higher class signalling ingredients, eg always using Olive Oil), but the mockney accent (which is put on) is an attempt to signal lower class, which is an attempt to signal higher class (though not the truely upper class as they typically don't have any need to show they are posh).
I remember John Prescott doing a documentary looked for the working class, and found a load of middle class people (which means something different here - professionals are middle class) claiming to be working class. He said to someone who was positively poor "your the first working class person I've actually met", to which the reply was "how can I be working class if I don't work?" And that was more ignorance than the middle class (who may have spent early childhood with working class parents) people who claimed to be working class and oppressed despite being management or professional when it comes to their employment.
So we probably overstate classism in the UK as we're obsessed with it as identifiers, just as the US is about race.
Quote from: english si on July 01, 2022, 07:27:39 PM
In the UK it's higher class to pretend to be working class. Sure Jamie Olive Oil is very much a class snob (to the point of making deliberately crap food, but with the higher class signalling ingredients, eg always using Olive Oil), but the mockney accent (which is put on) is an attempt to signal lower class, which is an attempt to signal higher class (though not the truely upper class as they typically don't have any need to show they are posh).
I remember John Prescott doing a documentary looked for the working class, and found a load of middle class people (which means something different here - professionals are middle class) claiming to be working class. He said to someone who was positively poor "your the first working class person I've actually met", to which the reply was "how can I be working class if I don't work?" And that was more ignorance than the middle class (who may have spent early childhood with working class parents) people who claimed to be working class and oppressed despite being management or professional when it comes to their employment.
So we probably overstate classism in the UK as we're obsessed with it as identifiers, just as the US is about race.
Psst. We declared independence because of the UK's strict classism... ;D
Quote from: Rothman on July 01, 2022, 07:32:48 PM
Psst. We declared independence because of the UK's strict classism... ;D
Heh, yeah, there are some aspects of the UK class system that make absolutely no sense to me, even as an American who has actively tried to understand them. The peerage is one of them–I cannot comprehend why the government takes the time to hand out titles like "Archbaron of Drawerchester" or whatever, much less why they or anyone else would care if they had that title, since it seems to not really carry any duties or responsibilities of office.
Quote from: english si on July 01, 2022, 07:27:39 PM
So we probably overstate classism in the UK as we're obsessed with it as identifiers, just as the US is about race.
The US is obsessed about race? What?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on July 01, 2022, 09:18:49 PM
Quote from: english si on July 01, 2022, 07:27:39 PM
So we probably overstate classism in the UK as we're obsessed with it as identifiers, just as the US is about race.
The US is obsessed about race? What?
News outlets never shut up about race. Black this white that. All the time.
I don't think it's correct to say that the US is "obsessed" with race. Non-White people are forced to deal with it whether they want to or not; there's no escaping it. Of the 73% of the population that is White, I'd guess 50% are of the opinion that "hey, there are problems here that need to be fixed" and 50% are of the opinion that "it doesn't affect me so why should I care". None of that adds up to an "obsession" to me.
Not sure if it's an obsession, but because racism is a constant issue here, it's little wonder that it is discussed frequently.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 01, 2022, 10:24:00 PM
I don't think it's correct to say that the US is "obsessed" with race. Non-White people are forced to deal with it whether they want to or not; there's no escaping it. Of the 73% of the population that is White, I'd guess 50% are of the opinion that "hey, there are problems here that need to be fixed" and 50% are of the opinion that "it doesn't affect me so why should I care". None of that adds up to an "obsession" to me.
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
I think a large segment of certain minority groups are indeed obsessed with race. I believe there is a small (but not insignificant) portion of white Americans who are racist and obsessed with promoting it.
It isn't as easy or as clear-cut as segments of the population and even the media would try to make it.
Americans are either obsessed about racism, consciously mindful of racism, constantly bombarded by race issues in the media, striving to rid their outlook of any race-based biases, weary of all the talk about race, or actively and loudly insisting that the US has absolutely zero race problems at all. The percentages reflected in each of those categories varies by race, but they're all present across the board.
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Egads. Glad to know where you stand. I think given my own experience and available information that you're mostly wrong (I mean, personal accountability surely is needed).
So much of the conversation focuses on whether the minorities are experiencing oppression from their perspective while whites stay mostly silent about their own experiences being prejudiced themselves or minimizing it as a fringe issue ("That's just my crazy uncle").
Wonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made. Sort of hope it stays open.
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 07:55:51 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Egads. Glad to know where you stand. I think given my own experience and available information that you're mostly wrong (I mean, personal accountability surely is needed).
So much of the conversation focuses on whether the minorities are experiencing oppression from their perspective while whites stay mostly silent about their own experiences being prejudiced themselves or minimizing it as a fringe issue ("That's just my crazy uncle").
Wonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made. Sort of hope it stays open.
You haven't said anything that refutes what I said. This post of yours is just the typical "you disagree with me so you're wrong." And I don't expect anything more from you at this point.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 08:57:53 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 07:55:51 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Egads. Glad to know where you stand. I think given my own experience and available information that you're mostly wrong (I mean, personal accountability surely is needed).
So much of the conversation focuses on whether the minorities are experiencing oppression from their perspective while whites stay mostly silent about their own experiences being prejudiced themselves or minimizing it as a fringe issue ("That's just my crazy uncle").
Wonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made. Sort of hope it stays open.
You haven't said anything that refutes what I said. This post of yours is just the typical "you disagree with me so you're wrong." And I don't expect anything more from you at this point.
I wasn't really arguing with what you said or trying to convince you that I am "right" or whatever. More of a focus on the ramifications of your opinion.
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 09:01:10 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 08:57:53 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 07:55:51 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Egads. Glad to know where you stand. I think given my own experience and available information that you're mostly wrong (I mean, personal accountability surely is needed).
So much of the conversation focuses on whether the minorities are experiencing oppression from their perspective while whites stay mostly silent about their own experiences being prejudiced themselves or minimizing it as a fringe issue ("That's just my crazy uncle").
Wonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made. Sort of hope it stays open.
You haven't said anything that refutes what I said. This post of yours is just the typical "you disagree with me so you're wrong." And I don't expect anything more from you at this point.
I wasn't really arguing with what you said or trying to convince you that I am "right" or whatever. More of a focus on the ramifications of your opinion.
Like what?
QuoteWonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made.
What a bizarre line. What is this dangerous revelation that I made?
My line of thought on this is not new or unique. The US isn't an echo chamber of the same left-wing opinions like internet forums are.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 09:15:29 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 09:01:10 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 08:57:53 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 07:55:51 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Egads. Glad to know where you stand. I think given my own experience and available information that you're mostly wrong (I mean, personal accountability surely is needed).
So much of the conversation focuses on whether the minorities are experiencing oppression from their perspective while whites stay mostly silent about their own experiences being prejudiced themselves or minimizing it as a fringe issue ("That's just my crazy uncle").
Wonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made. Sort of hope it stays open.
You haven't said anything that refutes what I said. This post of yours is just the typical "you disagree with me so you're wrong." And I don't expect anything more from you at this point.
I wasn't really arguing with what you said or trying to convince you that I am "right" or whatever. More of a focus on the ramifications of your opinion.
Like what?
QuoteWonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made.
What a bizarre line. What is this dangerous revelation that I made?
My line of thought on this is not new or unique. The US isn't an echo chamber of the same left-wing opinions like internet forums are.
There we have it.
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 09:32:58 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 09:15:29 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 09:01:10 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 08:57:53 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 07:55:51 AM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on July 01, 2022, 10:51:13 PM
Scott, I disagree. We know there are problems. We just don't think that we (white America) are 100% of the problem. I agree that minorities started far behind and have not made inroads toward overall success, but SOME of it clearly belongs at the feet of the minority groups themselves.
100%. The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
Do I blame my life problems on racism? Of course not. I've never been personally affected by it. However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
Egads. Glad to know where you stand. I think given my own experience and available information that you're mostly wrong (I mean, personal accountability surely is needed).
So much of the conversation focuses on whether the minorities are experiencing oppression from their perspective while whites stay mostly silent about their own experiences being prejudiced themselves or minimizing it as a fringe issue ("That's just my crazy uncle").
Wonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made. Sort of hope it stays open.
You haven't said anything that refutes what I said. This post of yours is just the typical "you disagree with me so you're wrong." And I don't expect anything more from you at this point.
I wasn't really arguing with what you said or trying to convince you that I am "right" or whatever. More of a focus on the ramifications of your opinion.
Like what?
QuoteWonder if the thread needs to be locked before more revelations like this are made.
What a bizarre line. What is this dangerous revelation that I made?
My line of thought on this is not new or unique. The US isn't an echo chamber of the same left-wing opinions like internet forums are.
There we have it.
There we have what?
Once again, wouldn't expect anything better from NE2 North.
Americans certainly have an obsession with having opinions on almost everything.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
So we had slavery for 246 years. Then, after 11 years of Reconstruction where the disadvantages that the freed slaves suffered were being seriously reversed, we had the 1876 election where the Republicans (then the liberal party) agreed to end reconstruction in exchange for the electoral votes from the disputed states to put Hayes in the White House.
What followed was 88 years of mostly unchecked Jim Crow until the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since then, we've had very slow progress in achieving equality.
However, because school history curricula have largely been whitewashed, we've continued to have generations of white children in this country who don't learned about the real impacts that slavery and Jim Crow still have on black Americans today, and they become generations of white adults who truly don't understand why there is so much poverty, drug use and violence in black communities.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
A group that has suffered racism for 400 years can't get true equality if the majority doesn't make a little bit of sacrifice themselves. That's an economic reality. That said, affirmative action might cost a white person a specific college or job choice that he/she wants, but white privilege is still so bountiful so that white person can easily find an equivalent opportunity.
Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on July 02, 2022, 01:22:24 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
The majority of the "racism" seen in the US today is just hangover from racism that occurred decades ago. Are some minorities disadvantaged? Yes. But there are many things contributing to the racial quality of life difference that can't be blamed on past or present racism.
So we had slavery for 246 years. Then, after 11 years of Reconstruction where the disadvantages that the freed slaves suffered were being seriously reversed, we had the 1876 election where the Republicans (then the liberal party) agreed to end reconstruction in exchange for the electoral votes from the disputed states to put Hayes in the White House.
What followed was 88 years of mostly unchecked Jim Crow until the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since then, we've had very slow progress in achieving equality.
However, because school history curricula have largely been whitewashed, we've continued to have generations of white children in this country who don't learned about the real impacts that slavery and Jim Crow still have on black Americans today, and they become generations of white adults who truly don't understand why there is so much poverty, drug use and violence in black communities.
What's new?
Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on July 02, 2022, 01:22:24 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
And racism against white people exists. Affirmative action is blatant racism. Treating people differently based on their race - that's literally what affirmative action is.
A group that has suffered racism for 400 years can't get true equality if the majority doesn't make a little bit of sacrifice themselves. That's an economic reality. That said, affirmative action might cost a white person a specific college or job choice that he/she wants, but white privilege is still so bountiful so that white person can easily find an equivalent opportunity.
I feel that there are probably better solutions to the race gap than being racist towards white people. For example, starting from the bottom by focusing more on improving conditions within ethnic minority communities.
I also don't think that people of today should be punished for the actions of people in the distant past just because they happen to have the same skin color as those past people.
Saying things like affirmative action are "racist" and "punish" white people is like a basketball player saying it's unfair that you gave a stepstool to a five-foot-tall person and not them.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
I feel that there are probably better solutions to the race gap than being racist towards white people. For example, starting from the bottom by focusing more on improving conditions within ethnic minority communities.
How?
Quote from: Rothman on July 02, 2022, 06:08:58 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
I feel that there are probably better solutions to the race gap than being racist towards white people. For example, starting from the bottom by focusing more on improving conditions within ethnic minority communities.
How?
Investing into education, housing, addiction rehab facilities, gun control, healthcare, etc. in those communities.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 02, 2022, 05:41:42 PM
Saying things like affirmative action are "racist" and "punish" white people is like a basketball player saying it's unfair that you gave a stepstool to a five-foot-tall person and not them.
Not at all. In the case of affirmative action, an advantage is purposely given to the minority race. I'm saying that no advantage should be given to either race. By saying that the step stool would otherwise be given to the basketball player, you're saying that the lack of affirmative action would automatically give white people an advantage. I believe that whatever advantage there may be for white people is not caused by the lack of affirmative action, because there is plenty.
Unfortunately, yes, highway placement historically has often been racist.
(As an urban planning and transportation planning nerd, this is something I've studied extensively...will post more when not preoccupied with my toddler...)
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 06:21:33 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 02, 2022, 05:41:42 PM
Saying things like affirmative action are "racist" and "punish" white people is like a basketball player saying it's unfair that you gave a stepstool to a five-foot-tall person and not them.
Not at all. In the case of affirmative action, an advantage is purposely given to the minority race. I'm saying that no advantage should be given to either race. By saying that the step stool would otherwise be given to the basketball player, you're saying that the lack of affirmative action would automatically give white people an advantage. I believe that whatever advantage there may be for white people is not caused by the lack of affirmative action, because there is plenty.
Your logic is hard to follow. The purpose of affirmative action is to offset advantages that White people naturally have (due to essentially getting a multi-century "head start" in development over Black people). It is not that not having it would automatically give them an advantange–they're going to have one either way, it's just that this is a tool to help mitigate that advantage, like a golf handicap. Or to use the stepstool analogy–my 5'1" wife using a stepstool does not change the fact that I'm 5'10", it just means she can reach the same shelves as me.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 02:15:44 PM
I also don't think that people of today should be punished for the actions of people in the distant past just because they happen to have the same skin color as those past people.
Affirmative action doesn't actually punish white people. There are lots of opportunities afforded them, and losing one of two of them due to affirmative action does not. So maybe a minority with SAT scores 100 points lower than you got into Harvard and you didn't. Not a big deal. You can still go to Dartmouth and have every opportunity at a future that you'd otherwise have.
Also, when you consider the likely worse public school system that the minority went to compared to the white person, standardized testing scores aren't entirely indicative of how much something is deserved in the first place.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 02, 2022, 06:33:22 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 06:21:33 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 02, 2022, 05:41:42 PM
Saying things like affirmative action are "racist" and "punish" white people is like a basketball player saying it's unfair that you gave a stepstool to a five-foot-tall person and not them.
Not at all. In the case of affirmative action, an advantage is purposely given to the minority race. I'm saying that no advantage should be given to either race. By saying that the step stool would otherwise be given to the basketball player, you're saying that the lack of affirmative action would automatically give white people an advantage. I believe that whatever advantage there may be for white people is not caused by the lack of affirmative action, because there is plenty.
Your logic is hard to follow. The purpose of affirmative action is to offset advantages that White people naturally have (due to essentially getting a multi-century "head start" in development over Black people). It is not that not having it would automatically give them an advantange–they're going to have one either way, it's just that this is a tool to help mitigate that advantage, like a golf handicap. Or to use the stepstool analogy–my 5'1" wife using a stepstool does not change the fact that I'm 5'10", it just means she can reach the same shelves as me.
But that's not a competitive situation with dreams and money on the line.
Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on July 02, 2022, 06:38:11 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 02:15:44 PM
I also don't think that people of today should be punished for the actions of people in the distant past just because they happen to have the same skin color as those past people.
Affirmative action doesn't actually punish white people. There are lots of opportunities afforded them, and losing one of two of them due to affirmative action does not. So maybe a minority with SAT scores 100 points lower than you got into Harvard and you didn't. Not a big deal. You can still go to Dartmouth and have every opportunity at a future that you'd otherwise have.
Also, when you consider the likely worse public school system that the minority went to compared to the white person, standardized testing scores aren't entirely indicative of how much something is deserved in the first place.
The last paragraph is a fair point, but it's not necessarily about race. Somebody who achieved similar or better things with a disadvantaged upbringing, regardless of race, should be seen as more qualified than the person who did not have such privileges as a child. That shouldn't have to do with race at all (of course minorities are more likely to be the former than the latter, but correlation doesn't have to mean causation).
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 06:52:19 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 02, 2022, 06:33:22 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 06:21:33 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 02, 2022, 05:41:42 PM
Saying things like affirmative action are "racist" and "punish" white people is like a basketball player saying it's unfair that you gave a stepstool to a five-foot-tall person and not them.
Not at all. In the case of affirmative action, an advantage is purposely given to the minority race. I'm saying that no advantage should be given to either race. By saying that the step stool would otherwise be given to the basketball player, you're saying that the lack of affirmative action would automatically give white people an advantage. I believe that whatever advantage there may be for white people is not caused by the lack of affirmative action, because there is plenty.
Your logic is hard to follow. The purpose of affirmative action is to offset advantages that White people naturally have (due to essentially getting a multi-century "head start" in development over Black people). It is not that not having it would automatically give them an advantange–they're going to have one either way, it's just that this is a tool to help mitigate that advantage, like a golf handicap. Or to use the stepstool analogy–my 5'1" wife using a stepstool does not change the fact that I'm 5'10", it just means she can reach the same shelves as me.
But that's not a competitive situation with dreams and money on the line.
I don't agree that college should be competitive or cost money, either.
I'm going to be honest that I stopped reading the thread after page 3, but when I saw the title of the post, my mind went immediately three places:
No, highways cannot be racist but they can be made in a racist fashion (I've never seen I-95 only screw up the suspension of black people's cars - it's pretty equal opportunity).
The phrase "white roads through black bedrooms" comes to mind to support my prior statement.
Also, would everybody be happy with an Adolf Hitler Memorial Freeway? Yes, I pulled a Godwin. Yes, I know that there are Americans who'd be perfectly thrilled with that, but the point stands.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2022, 02:04:16 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on April 28, 2022, 01:31:56 PM
I am not sure what generation you are talking about, but what you are describing is hardly new.
True. Maybe it's just because a lot of the older folks I know are highly literate, that by comparison the younger folks seem less able or willing to do otherwise than what I've been accusing them of.
C. S. Lewis lamented the same thing as I've been, several decades ago.
Quote from: C. S. Lewis — “On the Reading of Old Books” (introduction to Athaniasius' "On the Incarnation")
Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. [...] It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?”—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.
This is the best thing I've ever seen you post, and something I 100% agree with and think of daily.
Some of the statements in this thread makes me wonder how many People of color we actually have on this forum or even have lived in minority communities or the hood.
When the Rosevelt Subway line was proposed for the BLVD in NE Philly the residents in certain areas were against it due to "Undesirables" coming up to their areas.
With that type of thinking, what makes people think the same thinking wasn't applied to highway development? if that statement can be said by just a regular person in a neighborhood about a commuter train proposal used by the public including people of their own why wouldn't a highway planner or board say
"This area is a low income area with Undesirable people, we can do a 2 for 1; Clear out what WE VIEW as SLUM, and put the highway down with low cost and not much of a fight."
Then when you look at factors like the green book and the fact that certain highways that were built in the cities didn't even have on or off ramps and those were built as an afterthought should tell you enough who would build something that's cuts right in the middle of your neighborhood but you can't use it.
People can play like that's not how it was but racism/prejudice was in the open heavy at that time and still is in some instances IE: I've experienced it in my 2 decades of living.
The main thing in this current time that needs to happen is bygones need to be bygones and people need to move on, there is no change without work.
And as a classified "Zoomer" the talk of removing highways is plain stupid highways are essential for transportation of people and goods without them it will take 3 weeks to get USPS and tomato soup, what the real solution should be is to tunnel/cap what we can and transform the areas around highways so they aren't such deadzones/blight.
Quote from: Tonytone on July 03, 2022, 12:47:45 AM
how many People of color we actually have on this forum
AnthonyJK, tolbs17, kenarmy, and Bruce are all nonwhite. I'm not sure about others (some may be hiding it).
I think affirmative action is still necessary since every time they run a study submitting the same resumes but with white/black sounding names, there is still a bias towards hiring white people.
Quote from: thspfc on July 02, 2022, 07:31:54 AM
However, a white person who was denied their dream job or dream university, might feel differently if that institution used affirmative action, knowing they might have been just as or more qualified for the job/school, but were passed up due to skin color.
This gives me another chance to tell a story.
I spent a semester in college as assistant sports information director as a graduate assistant. During that semester, my college basketball team won the conference championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time in eons. I couldn't go because of travel party limitations, and also because the college was serving as host for the high school basketball regional tournament and I was designated as the media director, in charge of Press Row and the press room. The baseball team also won the conference regular season championship and hosted the conference tournament, and won it and advanced to the NCAA. I had a good relationship with the boss and he agreed to serve as a reference on my resume.
Several months later, after I had graduated, he got the job as SID at the University of Louisville. Some time after that, an associate SID job opened up at U of L. I would have been in charge of publicity for some minor (non-revenue) sports. That was something I had done as a college GA so I had pertinent experience. I applied for it and thought I had an excellent shot at it because of my past relationship with the boss. I could have either stayed with relatives who lived about 20 miles from campus, or could have rented an apartment upstairs of my aunt and uncle's garage.
I got a call from my old boss who was extremely apologetic, but he told me I could not be considered for the job. I'm a white male, and this was a "quota" job earmarked for a minority or a female (or a female minority). He told me that he'd love to hire me, and he knew I was qualified for the job and would do extremely well, but he was unable to hire me.
It was for the best, anyway. I can't imagine having a long-term career at U of L, or having to live near Louisville, as much as I've come to despise the city.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 01, 2022, 09:13:21 PM
Quote from: Rothman on July 01, 2022, 07:32:48 PM
Psst. We declared independence because of the UK's strict classism... ;D
Heh, yeah, there are some aspects of the UK class system that make absolutely no sense to me, even as an American who has actively tried to understand them. The peerage is one of them–I cannot comprehend why the government takes the time to hand out titles like "Archbaron of Drawerchester" or whatever, much less why they or anyone else would care if they had that title, since it seems to not really carry any duties or responsibilities of office.
Chicks people with vaginas dig it.
Quote from: 1 on July 03, 2022, 06:35:13 AM
Quote from: Tonytone on July 03, 2022, 12:47:45 AM
how many People of color we actually have on this forum
AnthonyJK, tolbs17, kenarmy, and Bruce are all nonwhite. I'm not sure about others (some may be hiding it).
So is Lord Carhorn. He plays the race card quite often.
Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.
Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on July 08, 2022, 12:31:45 AM
Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.
Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.
Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...
Quote from: Rothman on July 08, 2022, 08:26:24 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on July 08, 2022, 12:31:45 AM
Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.
Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.
Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...
I was hoping for a brief on the history of racially motivated infrastructure development in Alanland.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on July 08, 2022, 08:32:38 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 08, 2022, 08:26:24 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on July 08, 2022, 12:31:45 AM
Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.
Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.
Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...
I was hoping for a brief on the history of racially motivated infrastructure development in Alanland.
Highways were built through majority non-goat neighborhoods to make it easier for goats to get to the Grand Alan.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on July 08, 2022, 05:17:27 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on July 08, 2022, 08:32:38 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 08, 2022, 08:26:24 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on July 08, 2022, 12:31:45 AM
Road's can't be racist as they are not sentient.
Now people building a highway and routing it through minority neighborhoods can be racist.
Thank you for reviving a thread to state an opinion already shared by others multiple times in this thread...
I was hoping for a brief on the history of racially motivated infrastructure development in Alanland.
Highways were built through majority non-goat neighborhoods to make it easier for goats to get to the Grand Alan.
i.e. not you
First post here. Weird, because I was somewhat active on misc.transport.roads back in the day. Even though I'm a planner that specializes in urban design, comp planning, and land use law, I'm not one of those "f cars" types. I'm a champion of TND/NU development, complete streets, and road diets, though.
A couple of years ago, I wrote an article about how the Kensington Expressway (NY 33), often thought of among some urbanists as a "racist" highway, really isn't (http://"https://www.cyburbia.org/forums/threads/that-expressway-you-might-think-is-racist-likely-isnt.56905/").
tl;dr: the past paragraph.
So, back to the thread title: what really makes a highway racist? The current criteria among urbanists seems to be "it goes through an area populated primarily by people of color." There's also an assumption of racial malice on the part of the planners, engineers, and civic leaders involved in the project. However, this ignores the history of the highway and the neighborhoods around it, the highway's role in a larger regional or national network, local geography, and the impacts from highway planning and construction elsewhere in a region.