Highway Impact on Communities

In the 1950s and 60s, federal highway funding was used to demolish homes and businesses in cities all over the United States, with the goal of creating easier access to growing suburbs as well as a national network of roads. The new urban highways were frequently located in neighborhoods where people of color–primarily Black people–lived, displacing families and businesses and destroying community ties. Today, there is an effort underway in some cities to reconnect the communities that were damaged.