Virginia Tech prof looking at Interstate hiway displacement & destruction

[VTGoose]

A Virginia Tech history professor has received a grant to study the "displacement and environmental destruction" caused by the construction of the Interstate highway system. "LaDale Winling, an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, is determined to change that. And to help him achieve that goal, the National Endowment for Humanities has provided him with a prestigious grant to kickstart a new project, "Connecting the Interstates."  "Connecting the Interstates"  will illuminate the damaging effects of the highway system through an interactive map, Winling said. The tool can help community leaders, public officials, journalists, and historians along with the general public understand the system's impact on a deeper level." See https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/destruction-and-displacement--history-professor-earns-grant-to-e.html for details.

Bruce in Blacksburg

[sparker]

A Virginia Tech history professor has received a grant to study the "displacement and environmental destruction" caused by the construction of the Interstate highway system. "LaDale Winling, an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, is determined to change that. And to help him achieve that goal, the National Endowment for Humanities has provided him with a prestigious grant to kickstart a new project, "Connecting the Interstates."  "Connecting the Interstates"  will illuminate the damaging effects of the highway system through an interactive map, Winling said. The tool can help community leaders, public officials, journalists, and historians along with the general public understand the system's impact on a deeper level." See https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/destruction-and-displacement--history-professor-earns-grant-to-e.html for details.

Bruce in Blacksburg

It certainly sounds like the parties involved have already reached a conclusion (Interstate=bad) and are essentially on a "mining" expedition to root out supporting evidence.  It'll be interesting to see if in the process they actually develop a statistically relevant model or simply present a "laundry list" of the various things the system's development encompassed that actually produced victims (such as planners' penchant for deploying urban sections through the least monetarily valuable properties -- almost invariably impoverished and/or minority) to save money and avoid tweaking the rich and powerful.  And virtually every one of the 47K miles of the system has some environmental impact, as does all development, public or private sectors.  If it's merely a composite of issues that have already been discussed, often at length, then this work might simply be a form of screed.  If it reveals something we don't already know, then it may actually be of interest. 

[HighwayStar]

Ugh...frankly it sounds nauseating. I am imagining the usual Ivory Tower academic with a predetermined notion of what they want to find out to either cherry pick or simply fabricate whatever evidence is needed to reach that conclusion. 

[Konza]

Barf.  Puke.  Vomit.

Why do we continue to subsidize these overeducated idiots?

[SectorZ]

I actually know a prof at Va Tech (long childhood friend) that is a professor there in civil engineering. Based on his "leanings", I was opening this and hoping it wasn't him. It's something dumb he would do.

At least he's qualified to discuss it, unlike this professor.

[kalvado]

Looks like a part of bigger - and more meaningful - work:
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality

[Henry]

Yawn...

[HighwayStar]

Barf.  Puke.  Vomit.

Why do we continue to subsidize these overeducated idiots?

I agree. Genuine scholarship of use to the public is one thing, but this is just a glorified grievance study pushing an agenda.

[Max Rockatansky]

Waste of time/money just to come to their inevitable and obvious pre-conceived conclusion.  I would argue that planners have long already taken what was learned from early Interstate era and have been applying it more productively in recent decades.  Said topic has been researched to death already and it's negatives along with it's positives are well known:

[froggie]

I find it a bit amusing that some commenters have effectively put their ostrich-head-in-the-sand regarding the negative impacts of Interstate construction when those impacts are well documented.  The underlying question, which I can see this study assisting with (if done right, as sparker may have a point), is whether the positive benefits to travel, safety, and the economy, outweigh the negative drawbacks of displacement and environmental damage that have occurred over the years.

Of course, if the politicians and engineers of the '50s and '60s hadn't been so cheap and wonton in their bulldozing, this would be a far different question to answer.  I am firmly of the belief that today's negative viewpoint of freeways (especially in urban areas) would be far less negative if the fair-market-value, relocation-assistance, and environmental-mitigation programs of today had existed when the Interstates first began construction.

[kalvado]

I find it a bit amusing that some commenters have effectively put their ostrich-head-in-the-sand regarding the negative impacts of Interstate construction when those impacts are well documented.  The underlying question, which I can see this study assisting with (if done right, as sparker may have a point), is whether the positive benefits to travel, safety, and the economy, outweigh the negative drawbacks of displacement and environmental damage that have occurred over the years.

Of course, if the politicians and engineers of the '50s and '60s hadn't been so cheap and wonton in their bulldozing, this would be a far different question to answer.  I am firmly of the belief that today's negative viewpoint of freeways (especially in urban areas) would be far less negative if the fair-market-value, relocation-assistance, and environmental-mitigation programs of today had existed when the Interstates first began construction.

It is an equally interesting question, if those highways would be affordable

if the fair-market-value, relocation-assistance, and environmental-mitigation programs of today had existed when the Interstates first began construction.

While the history cannot be undone, understanding different aspects of the past is certainly a part of getting the broader view of the world and future planning

[HighwayStar]

I find it a bit amusing that some commenters have effectively put their ostrich-head-in-the-sand regarding the negative impacts of Interstate construction when those impacts are well documented.  The underlying question, which I can see this study assisting with (if done right, as sparker may have a point), is whether the positive benefits to travel, safety, and the economy, outweigh the negative drawbacks of displacement and environmental damage that have occurred over the years.

Of course, if the politicians and engineers of the '50s and '60s hadn't been so cheap and wonton in their bulldozing, this would be a far different question to answer.  I am firmly of the belief that today's negative viewpoint of freeways (especially in urban areas) would be far less negative if the fair-market-value, relocation-assistance, and environmental-mitigation programs of today had existed when the Interstates first began construction.

I don't think its fair to say that we are putting our heads in the sand, its more that we have been through this many times over and are tired of hearing the same old arguments.
Did the freeways displace people? Of course they did, but the harsh reality is that most of the displacement was moving people out of slums where many were not even property owners to start with. Sure there has been plenty of romanticism of the inner city before the freeway, but the actual evidence indicates that whoever could leave the cities for the suburbs did, so to think that uprooting a few involuntarily was enough to even enter into the impact calculation is dubious. I lived in a part of DC for a while that was "saved" from the freeways and I have a hard time believing that the area was better off for it.
My hometown has the same issue, people displaced, and a great deal of romanticism about the days before that. But an objective look at the facts shows that people were living in squalid conditions that were almost invariably worse than where they ended up.
In any case, trying to put a dollar value on the freeways is not something that is ever going to work, as a key function was always their value as defense highways, which is essentially impossible to put a dollar value on from an economic analysis standpoint.

[jeffandnicole]

..."Connecting the Interstates"  will illuminate the damaging effects of the highway system through an interactive map, Winling said. The tool can help community leaders, public officials, journalists, and historians along with the general public understand the system's impact on a deeper level." See https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/destruction-and-displacement--history-professor-earns-grant-to-e.html for details.

So this is just going to be a paper that just footnotes the scores of other papers that have already researched the same thing?

[kalvado]

..."Connecting the Interstates"  will illuminate the damaging effects of the highway system through an interactive map, Winling said. The tool can help community leaders, public officials, journalists, and historians along with the general public understand the system's impact on a deeper level." See https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/destruction-and-displacement--history-professor-earns-grant-to-e.html for details.

So this is just going to be a paper that just footnotes the scores of other papers that have already researched the same thing?

I have a link up in the thread, gentlemen we're talking about is one of the authors.
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality  - scroll down to "view map" button. My impression is that they're expanding the platform to include more data. THere may be some bias in data presentation, but having data in one place to begin with is useful regardless.

[NoGoodNamesAvailable]

I wouldn't have an issue with this if they were actually being fair about it instead of wasting egregious amounts of money to come to a predetermined conclusion

[HighwayStar]

I wouldn't have an issue with this if they were actually being fair about it instead of wasting egregious amounts of money to come to a predetermined conclusion

Exactly. Any realistic study would take into consideration the reasons for construction as they related to defense and national security, and I will bet that neither is addressed at all in this "study"

[sparker]

I find it a bit amusing that some commenters have effectively put their ostrich-head-in-the-sand regarding the negative impacts of Interstate construction when those impacts are well documented.  The underlying question, which I can see this study assisting with (if done right, as sparker may have a point), is whether the positive benefits to travel, safety, and the economy, outweigh the negative drawbacks of displacement and environmental damage that have occurred over the years.

Of course, if the politicians and engineers of the '50s and '60s hadn't been so cheap and wonton in their bulldozing, this would be a far different question to answer.  I am firmly of the belief that today's negative viewpoint of freeways (especially in urban areas) would be far less negative if the fair-market-value, relocation-assistance, and environmental-mitigation programs of today had existed when the Interstates first began construction.

It is an equally interesting question, if those highways would be affordable

if the fair-market-value, relocation-assistance, and environmental-mitigation programs of today had existed when the Interstates first began construction.

While the history cannot be undone, understanding different aspects of the past is certainly a part of getting the broader view of the world and future planning

Although currently it may not be "PC" to do so, temporal context is an integral part of any examination of programs over a half-century old (and the Interstate System is, in 2021, eligible for full Medicare!).  The nation was under the thrall of the "red scare"; the prospect of constructing a system that would allow an efficient diaspora from a nuked region was part of the calculus of selling the system (although with current dollars the projected $41B cost seems ridiculously paltry).  Originally conceived of as a "farm to market network on steroids", the growing political power of expanding metro regions in the '50's necessitated bringing their leaders and representatives on board; the myriad belts, inner loops, and spurs elucidated in the famous/infamous "Yellow Book" were the direct results of this influence shift.  The lure of a then-unprecedented 90% federal fund match was too tempting for some city governments to pass up; inner freeways would provide access points to central city businesses for both employment and retail purposes; inner loops could be used to "hyper-define" the "desirable" areas while providing real and psychic barriers to portions of the populace not seen as contributing much to the city's commerce & revenue stream -- particularly when a sizeable number of those deemed to be "desirable" in that regard were hightailing it to the suburbs.  Of course, that overall concept was both elitist and, often covertly, racist -- but when taken in context of, say, 1956, those same city leaders, as well as a significant share of the constituents who elected/selected them, were people who had come of age during the Great Depression -- and had that historical incentive to attempt to forestall or ward off any interruption of the postwar boom (albeit interspersed with roller-coaster recessions before and during the Korean conflict); keeping the central city businesses afloat was deemed vital to that continuum; using the upcoming Interstate system to enhance that concept, regardless of whether or not it disrupted or even harmed portions of the residents, was simply considered to be part of that effort.  Of course, in the ensuing years the residents of many of those metro areas, particularly concentrated in the Northeast as well as densely packed cities such as San Francisco, reacted to potential displacement by pressing for suspension of the planned city freeway corridors; that activity was successful in a number of venues -- although some metro regions, such as Los Angeles, were able to substantially deploy their urban Interstate mileage prior to the main thrust of the protest movement. 

Part of the city leaders' calculus was that major retailers and/or employers would maintain their central city facilities because the new city-bound Interstate corridors would funnel traffic to them; but one thing that was not initially anticipated was that the counties and/or incorporated suburbs would provide financial incentives for those same firms to either relocate or establish branches out in the 'burbs -- particularly those near planned bypasses or beltways -- which would obviate the outlying residents' need to access the city center for either or both employment or commerce.  As those outer jurisdictions' coffers were fuller due to a lesser service-provision load (albeit largely equalized years down the line), the "tug-of-war" usually tipped to the suburban areas, with land/housing developers calling many of the shots.  This resulted in deterioration of the central cities and major declines in overall population (cf. Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc.).  While the deployment of those urban Interstate corridors that avoided cancellation was certainly contributory to that phenomenon, it was only secondarily causal; the atmosphere that purposed "white flight" was pervasive prior to the systems' construction starting in 1957. 

[SectorZ]

Looks like a part of bigger - and more meaningful - work:
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality

There is so much wrong with that link from a factual standpoint I don't even know where to start

(And I won't start, just because this forum isn't the appropriate place to pick it apart)

[kalvado]

Looks like a part of bigger - and more meaningful - work:
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality

There is so much wrong with that link from a factual standpoint I don't even know where to start

(And I won't start, just because this forum isn't the appropriate place to pick it apart)

Because discussion it brings is too intelligent to be here?
HOLC maps are, at the very least, an interesting and pretty factual aspect of urban history. The narrative of those maps is also pretty interesting but makes me wonder if the mortgage crisis was in part due to the total drop of that narrative, and where is the line between realistic risk assessment and other options.

[HighwayStar]

Although currently it may not be "PC" to do so, temporal context is an integral part of any examination of programs over a half-century old (and the Interstate System is, in 2021, eligible for full Medicare!).  The nation was under the thrall of the "red scare"; the prospect of constructing a system that would allow an efficient diaspora from a nuked region was part of the calculus of selling the system (although with current dollars the projected $41B cost seems ridiculously paltry).  Originally conceived of as a "farm to market network on steroids", the growing political power of expanding metro regions in the '50's necessitated bringing their leaders and representatives on board; the myriad belts, inner loops, and spurs elucidated in the famous/infamous "Yellow Book" were the direct results of this influence shift.  The lure of a then-unprecedented 90% federal fund match was too tempting for some city governments to pass up; inner freeways would provide access points to central city businesses for both employment and retail purposes; inner loops could be used to "hyper-define" the "desirable" areas while providing real and psychic barriers to portions of the populace not seen as contributing much to the city's commerce & revenue stream -- particularly when a sizeable number of those deemed to be "desirable" in that regard were hightailing it to the suburbs.  Of course, that overall concept was both elitist and, often covertly, racist -- but when taken in context of, say, 1956, those same city leaders, as well as a significant share of the constituents who elected/selected them, were people who had come of age during the Great Depression -- and had that historical incentive to attempt to forestall or ward off any interruption of the postwar boom (albeit interspersed with roller-coaster recessions before and during the Korean conflict); keeping the central city businesses afloat was deemed vital to that continuum; using the upcoming Interstate system to enhance that concept, regardless of whether or not it disrupted or even harmed portions of the residents, was simply considered to be part of that effort.  Of course, in the ensuing years the residents of many of those metro areas, particularly concentrated in the Northeast as well as densely packed cities such as San Francisco, reacted to potential displacement by pressing for suspension of the planned city freeway corridors; that activity was successful in a number of venues -- although some metro regions, such as Los Angeles, were able to substantially deploy their urban Interstate mileage prior to the main thrust of the protest movement. 

Part of the city leaders' calculus was that major retailers and/or employers would maintain their central city facilities because the new city-bound Interstate corridors would funnel traffic to them; but one thing that was not initially anticipated was that the counties and/or incorporated suburbs would provide financial incentives for those same firms to either relocate or establish branches out in the 'burbs -- particularly those near planned bypasses or beltways -- which would obviate the outlying residents' need to access the city center for either or both employment or commerce.  As those outer jurisdictions' coffers were fuller due to a lesser service-provision load (albeit largely equalized years down the line), the "tug-of-war" usually tipped to the suburban areas, with land/housing developers calling many of the shots.  This resulted in deterioration of the central cities and major declines in overall population (cf. Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc.).  While the deployment of those urban Interstate corridors that avoided cancellation was certainly contributory to that phenomenon, it was only secondarily causal; the atmosphere that purposed "white flight" was pervasive prior to the systems' construction starting in 1957.

You touch on a number of key points here.
I will agree that freeways were/are physical barriers in many places, which is always assumed to be a bad thing, but in practice many people who actually live there are happy to have that separation from whatever is on the other side. More importantly, the idea that everyone on "the wrong side of the freeway" would somehow be made better off without that barrier is often implied but is nevertheless irrational.
Second, with respect to the flight to the suburbs, you are correct in noting that the phenomena predates the interstate system. In a generally prosperous era, following so much tumult, it is not hard to understand why people wished to escape larger urban centers for the less polluted and more spacious suburbs.
Third, to venture into more speculative territory here, I suspect there was a dual function of many policies that encouraged suburban living beyond simply responding to popular demand. Particularly from 1945 until the mid to late sixties the advantages of having the American people "spread out" into the suburbs resulting a much lower population density were probably apparent to the many government officials who had witnessed the effects of bombing in WWII and in particular the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suburbanization was a brilliant defensive strategy during the first half of the Cold War planned or not, and I would be shocked if this had not crossed the mind of Eisenhower et al.

[hbelkins]

I find it a bit amusing that some commenters have effectively put their ostrich-head-in-the-sand regarding the negative impacts of Interstate construction vaccines when those impacts are well documented.  The underlying question, which I can see this study assisting with (if done right, as sparker may have a point), is whether the positive benefits to travel, safety, and the economy public and individual health, outweigh the negative drawbacks of displacement and environmental damage health consequences and side effects that have occurred over the years.

Engage in a discussion over what's been changed and added above, and the world thinks you're a kook. I guess it all just depends on what's being re-examined.

(Yes, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but concern over possible long-term side effects of a certain new vaccine that's been rushed to market is the primary reason I don't plan to take that shot.)

But on a less pot-stirring note, I just wonder how many here have ever driven the routes that various interstates, freeways, and other modern construction have replaced to evaluate just how much those new routes have improved things. The case in point that I always fall back to is the routing of KY 15 from Winchester (the gateway to central Kentucky) and Whitesburg (deep in the mountains). The entire current route of the Mountain Parkway and KY 15, with the exception of about 10 miles in Breathitt County and 10-15 miles in Perry, Knott, and Letcher counties, is on an entirely new alignment. I have never driven the full length of the old route in one sitting -- I did drive from Winchester to Whitesburg on the new route a few times when I lived in Winchester -- but I have driven it all in various segments. Right now, a trip from Winchester to Whitesburg can be expected to take about 2 hours and 15 minutes or so (and that will improve once the construction near Hazard is done that will eliminate a couple of traffic lights). It's a good route; much of it four lanes and the rest an improved at-grade "super 2" with no steep hills. The old route is two lanes, narrow, very crooked, goes through downtowns, and has at least one mountain with nasty switchbacks. I think it's reasonable to say that a through trip on that route would take four hours.

Was that route worth it? Absolutely.

And how about Corridor H? How long would it take to drive from Weston to Wardensville (since the route won't be finished to Strasburg for years) if you had to use CR 151, the old routing of US 219, WV 93, WV 42, and WV 55? Enough of H is finished now to the point where GPS routings now show it as a preferred routing from Kentucky to DC.

[kalvado]

I find it a bit amusing that some commenters have effectively put their ostrich-head-in-the-sand regarding the negative impacts of Interstate construction vaccines when those impacts are well documented.  The underlying question, which I can see this study assisting with (if done right, as sparker may have a point), is whether the positive benefits to travel, safety, and the economy public and individual health, outweigh the negative drawbacks of displacement and environmental damage health consequences and side effects that have occurred over the years.

Engage in a discussion over what's been changed and added above, and the world thinks you're a kook. I guess it all just depends on what's being re-examined.

(Yes, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but concern over possible long-term side effects of a certain new vaccine that's been rushed to market is the primary reason I don't plan to take that shot.)

There are bright sides and dark sides of pretty much anything in our lives. Vaccines, as well as highways, as well as marriage, elections outcome, as well as lots of similar thing, may help a certain number (and may be a lot of) of people, but may hurt some. It may be unclear in advance  if someone would be on a net benefit or net loss side, and for some (a lot of people) things may turn out to be problematic in a long run. But once things are done, they are difficult, if at all possible, to undo. What's new here?

[jeffandnicole]

..."Connecting the Interstates"  will illuminate the damaging effects of the highway system through an interactive map, Winling said. The tool can help community leaders, public officials, journalists, and historians along with the general public understand the system's impact on a deeper level." See https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/destruction-and-displacement--history-professor-earns-grant-to-e.html for details.

So this is just going to be a paper that just footnotes the scores of other papers that have already researched the same thing?

I have a link up in the thread, gentlemen we're talking about is one of the authors.
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality  - scroll down to "view map" button. My impression is that they're expanding the platform to include more data. THere may be some bias in data presentation, but having data in one place to begin with is useful regardless.

For shits and giggles, I did look at this link.  Found an area near me: Brooklawn, NJ:  https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/39.924/-75.187&city=camden-nj&area=B14

And then in favorable influences...this is the first time I've seen Camden mentioned positively!

3 Favorable Influences
Good transportation on two important highways and only five miles from Camden.

(I'm guessing the 2 important highways are US 130 and I-76).


I also caught this in one of the Camden sections:

https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=16/39.866/-75.085&city=camden-nj&area=C12

3 Favorable Influences
Black Horse Pike which is the main highway to seashore resorts, runs through this area.

Was true up until the 1960's.  No one is taking the Black Horse Pike in Camden to get to the shore.  Further down, the AC Expressway and NJ 55 are the primary routes to the shore; the Black Horse Pike would be a distant 3rd today.

[SectorZ]

Looks like a part of bigger - and more meaningful - work:
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality

There is so much wrong with that link from a factual standpoint I don't even know where to start

(And I won't start, just because this forum isn't the appropriate place to pick it apart)

Because discussion it brings is too intelligent to be here?
HOLC maps are, at the very least, an interesting and pretty factual aspect of urban history. The narrative of those maps is also pretty interesting but makes me wonder if the mortgage crisis was in part due to the total drop of that narrative, and where is the line between realistic risk assessment and other options.

No, because it's ostensibly very political. Wasn't talking about the maps.

[kalvado]

Looks like a part of bigger - and more meaningful - work:
https://resources.newamericanhistory.org/for-students-mapping-inequality

There is so much wrong with that link from a factual standpoint I don't even know where to start

(And I won't start, just because this forum isn't the appropriate place to pick it apart)

Because discussion it brings is too intelligent to be here?
HOLC maps are, at the very least, an interesting and pretty factual aspect of urban history. The narrative of those maps is also pretty interesting but makes me wonder if the mortgage crisis was in part due to the total drop of that narrative, and where is the line between realistic risk assessment and other options.

No, because it's ostensibly very political. Wasn't talking about the maps.

Discussion about political events of 50+years ago is called history.
Obviously, there are positive and negative consequences of pretty much any political decision of the past. It is fairly natural that people who love roads tend to focus on positive aspects of road construction and pretty much brush off the negatives. It may be equally natural for others to focus on negative aspects. A thorough examination is necessarily focused on relatively small part of the big subject. 

I hope noone denies that, for example, "slum clearance" was a big topic back then (paging @Alps for opinion!). None of us was on receiving end of that clearance to have a first hand opinion of how it worked. It was definitely a tough thing to deal with, I assume
  Is there a need to understand and document those events? I would say yes, for example so  that experience is available for next round of urban re-design which may be needed at some point.  People tend to get triggered by the negative narrative of this study, and that is understandable. Would you be OK with the study of improved mobility brought by construction of interstate system ignoring problems of those displaced by construction? If yes - you must be OK with the other perspective as well, as it is an equally narrow minded approach.