President Biden’s new hard infrastructure bill—passed with a level of bipartisan support in both houses of Congress that’s almost unheard of these days for a spending package—is quite a major accomplishment. (What, you thought I was going to make a joke involving Biden’s prior use of an off-color exuberance?) One important measure of its success is the degree to which it increases racial equity.
An area of concern is that the law leaves a great deal of discretion on setting spending priorities to the states. Biden has emphasized the importance of advancing racial equity in the infrastructure bill and throughout his presidency—starting on Day One.
However, the question remains whether some states might be, ahem, less than fully invested in that issue. Throughout our history, racial inequities have far too often been exacerbated by various infrastructure projects—and not just in the South.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the point person for the infrastructure bill, sat for a long interview with Chief White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for The Grio April Ryan to explain how the commitment to equity will be made real. “This is really important. We’re going to create billions and billions of dollars in economic opportunity and we have to make sure that happens equitably.” He talked about making sure that the decisions made on where to spend the money are taken with equity very much in mind.
Prompted by Ryan’s comment that “the interstate system was built to keep certain groups in and certain groups out. So it was built on a racist system, correct?” Sec. Buttigieg agreed, and acknowledged examples of previous projects that saw interstate highways divide Black communities in ways that inflicted serious harm. “Often, this wasn’t just an act of neglect. Often this was a conscious choice. There is racism physically built into some of our highways. And that’s why the jobs plan has dollars specifically committed to reconnect some of the communities that were divided…. So there’s intention about that.”
Sucker Carlson mocked Buttigieg for talking about the reality of racism: “Roads can’t be racist any more than toasters and sectional couches can be racist. They are inanimate objects. They’re not alive.” Right, Tucker. Bullwhips used by slaveowners weren’t alive either, so I guess they can’t be racist. The most hated man in the Senate, Ted Cruz twisted the secretary’s remarks into a joke that only Trumpists would find funny. Florida Gov. Ron DeathSantis likewise remarked that he’d heard “some weird stuff from the Secretary of Transportation trying to make this about social issues. To me, a road’s a road.” Right. And a hooded white robe is just a garment.
The infrastructure bill includes $1 billion to remedy at least part of the damage caused in the past—some of the worst of which resulted from the federal interstate highway program. This amount isn’t enough to solve the problem in full, unfortunately, as this Prism article lays out in detail. Northeastern University professor of urban and public policy Joan Fitzgerald called it “a drop in the bucket” and lamented the loss of the $20 billion President Biden had initially proposed for this purpose. Regarding the funds cut, the New York Times reported that “there is additional funding that is still pending in a domestic policy bill that Democrats hope to pass soon.”
In the interview with Ryan, Buttigieg also emphasized that the bill would focus on equity when it comes to the business end of the projects—not just the where of the projects but the who—to make sure that businesses owned by Americans of color and Black-owned businesses specifically are properly represented. Additionally, he cited the necessity of making sure that the workforce on the projects is diverse. All these measures are vital elements of ensuring greater equity.
The secretary got into the weeds a bit on the details of how to increase the numbers of Black-owned businesses so that those making decisions on awarding prime contracts and hiring subcontractors can’t say they just couldn’t find any. He explained that “we got to take responsibility for why they’re not out there and build more businesses up that maybe exist. Maybe they haven’t been big enough to get the bonding or go through these hoops to even have a shot. They’re bidding on a federal project. We’ve got to work on all of that.”
Former Obama Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx echoed Ryan and Buttigieg, noting that most of the infrastructure in our country was built more than a half-century ago, in other words, at “a time before Black people were at the table.” Looking forward, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh also spoke to Ryan, and cited the importance of getting members of groups who are underrepresented in the construction industry into workforce development programs and pre-apprentice programs—specifically those that lead to union jobs.
The Biden-Harris team, along with congressional Democrats, have made sure that equity is prioritized throughout the infrastructure bill. This priority goes beyond just building roads and bridges. For one other example, there’s $2.75 billion set aside to promote digital equity, as part of a historic $65 billion investment in increasing broadband connectivity. Some of the digital equity funds go to states, and some to localities, but all of it is specifically targeted at ensuring we close our digital divide.
In an interview with Government Technology, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s Policy Director Amy Huffman expressed enthusiasm about the potential impact: “The exciting nature of it is that it opens up so many opportunities for state and local innovation around this issue. That’s what I’m really excited about—state and local, and historically bootstrapped organizations in communities—to see what they come up with.”
Not every state or locality shares Huffman’s values, unfortunately. Kevin DeGood, who leads the infrastructure policy team at the Center for American Progress, pointedly asked, “Do you think Ron DeSantis is going to prioritize racial equity in his distribution of federal infrastructure dollars?”
Attention from federal officials like Buttigieg is necessary to achieve greater equity in infrastructure. Necessary, but not sufficient. A lot rides on what happens below the federal level.
At Vox, Li Zhou went into great depth in breaking down the kind of discretion the states and localities will have, in particular when it comes to equity, as well as how the White House can exercise control over at least some of the infrastructure bill’s funds. The $660 billion dollars will pay for projects submitted to the DOT by state and local governments, which the department will then review, but the states will basically be able to set the priorities. Then there’s an additional $211 billion in “discretionary funds” that the DOT itself will be in charge of. The department will have to give approval on those projects. The Justice40 initiative, a Biden executive order creating a “whole of government effort” aimed at sending 40% of all federal government funds to disadvantaged communities, will come into play.
To some degree, it was inevitable that states would have a lot of say over how to spend the funds the infrastructure bill provides. On the one hand, the White House or the Department of Transportation (DOT) cannot pick every single infrastructure project—it simply wouldn’t be feasible—so relying on states and localities is necessary. Beth Osborne, a DOT official under President Obama, pointed out that “a fundamental part of this program has always been to have the feds raise money, hand it over to the states and cross our fingers.”
Some people in those local areas don’t trust their leaders to always do the racially equitable thing—and they would know firsthand. The New York Times spoke to folks in the community of Allendale in Shreveport, Louisiana, an overwhelmingly Black area perhaps best known as the one-time home of the blues great Lead Belly. A proposal to expand Interstate Highway 49 has long been in the works. Take a guess where the extended highway would run? Of course, it goes right through Allendale.
Dorothy Wiley’s house would be demolished to make way for the project, and she isn’t pleased about the degree of local control over the infrastructure funds. Wiley, who leads a group fighting the I-49 expansion, made clear where she stood: “Looking at where I live right now, it’s like they want to push us out farther and, well, it will gentrify the community.” She added, “My hope is that it won’t be the same but I feel like it will.”
Local Chamber of Commerce types and other moneyed interests are pushing hard for the project. In 2017, the plan gained the backing of Shreveport’s mayor at the time, Ollie Tyler. Willie Bradford, the city council member representing the affected area of Allendale, also supported it: “I grew up in that area, and I know most of the citizens here,” stated Bradford. “I was elected to lead, and I understand the economic impact that this corridor will probably have on this community.” Black people don’t always agree or have the same interests as one another, as this case makes clear. Wiley wants to protect her neighborhood, which is both Black and lower-income, but Black elected leaders in her area have a different vision. When decisions are made at the local level, economically powerful interests often come out on top. Ultimately, Louisiana officials have to decide whether to submit the I-49 project for funding made available by the infrastructure bill.
A similar situation is playing out in Houston, where local community members oppose the expansion of Interstate Highway 45. In that case, in March the DOT stopped a project already in progress, citing the Civil Rights Act. Sean Jefferson would be forced out of his home if the project is completed, and doesn’t think the compensation he’s being offered would allow him to stay in the area. “I’m just scared about what’s going to happen,” he expressed. “We’ve been staying with each other for a long time. This is the place that we call home.” Jefferson is “praying and hoping” that the Biden administration succeeds in killing the expansion. An official in the department cited the Houston case as evidence of their overall commitment to ensuring racial equity, promising to “use every tool in our arsenal, both hard and soft.”
Although we’ve talked about Texas and Louisiana, racism has been “physically built into” the infrastructure all over our country. As Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law Deborah N. Archer recently wrote: “The highway system was a tool of a segregationist agenda, erecting a wall that separated White and Black communities and protected White people from Black migration.”
Daily Kos’s Doctor RJ highlighted instances of this foulness from Atlanta to Detroit in an article that explored major problems in America’s infrastructure. Others include Montgomery, Alabama, where Sam Engelhardt, the state highway director, built I-85 along a route that essentially committed assault on the once-thriving Oak Park neighborhood. The neighborhood still suffers great harm (Heather McGhee highlighted the effects of white supremacy on Oak Park’s infrastructure in her recent book). It was no accident, as Engelhardt himself made clear when he proudly proclaimed: “I stand for white supremacy segregation.” For another of the worst examples in our history, travel over a thousand miles northward, to my now true blue hometown of New York City.
Compared to most of the country, the Big Apple is staunchly progressive. Even in the 1950s, with its integrated schools and Black leaders like Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., NYC liked to think of itself as more racially enlightened than the Jim Crow South. It was, but it was still no paradise for Black and brown New Yorkers. In the post-WWII period, one government official wielded more power over New Yorkers, especially members of the most vulnerable communities, than anyone else. Yet he never won a single election. His decisions on where and how to build highways hurt vulnerable communities, in particular New Yorkers of color, in ways that continue to affect lives many decades later. His name was Robert Moses.
Robert Caro, who wrote the definitive Moses biography, The Power Broker, characterized his subject as “the most racist human being I had ever really encountered.” During an interview with the author, who was then researching the book, Moses took a call, hung up, and then ranted: “They expect me to build playgrounds for that scum floating up from Puerto Rico.” And that was just what he said on a single day, out of the blue. In terms of his impact, this man makes Alabama’s Sam Engelhardt look like Mother Theresa.
Among many other roads, Moses built the Cross Bronx Expressway. Like some of the interstate highways mentioned above, it sliced a community in two. The aforementioned Caro argued that the road is largely responsible for the serious socioeconomic problems that have plagued the borough—especially the South Bronx—throughout the three-quarters of a century since construction began, although other scholars have offered less harsh assessments. Whatever the exact impact, the evidence suggests it was significant.
This is important not just for the damage suffered largely by Black and brown residents of those neighborhoods, but also because the whole country saw the South Bronx as literally on fire. This was an image fed most famously during a national broadcast of the 1977 World Series when Howard Cosell intoned, as only he could: “ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning.” Plenty of conservatives used the desolation of the South Bronx to attack Black and brown communities as dysfunctional, without understanding (or caring) about how decisions like building the Cross Bronx destroyed economic opportunity and community ties that provided support for people.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, whose district is bisected by the road, has been a leader in calling for funding to help mitigate its continuing negative effects. “The Cross Bronx Expressway has imposed on the Bronx the burden of chronic disease,” according to Torres. “We can’t breathe here in the Bronx.” Here’s more from Torres: “The Cross Bronx Expressway … is both literally and metaphorically a structure of racism, with diesel truck traffic polluting the air black and brown kids breathe every day. As Faulkner said, the past is not even past. And that’s especially true in The Bronx. We are haunted by this Moses legacy.”
Members of the community spoke out along similar lines. Nilka Martell, a resident of the South Bronx who created and leads Loving the Bronx, related her lived experience: “When I was pregnant with my youngest child, we lived on the Cross-Bronx Expressway and out of my three children he was the only one born with asthma.” Martell, Torres, and others—including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have pushed for the Cross-Bronx to be capped with parks and other green public space—as was done in Boston with the Rose Kennedy Greenway, built over the so-called Big Dig tunnel.
A Columbia University study done in 2018 found that 2.4 miles of the CBE could be feasibly capped with parks and green space, and that the project would create far more benefits than it would cost. As per the study, there are 226,608 people residing close to the highway, and on average capping would help each one to the tune of $1,629. It would also add to each of their lives about eight weeks of “quality-adjusted life years, a combined measure of health and longevity.” At the time it was published, the study’s author added:
Schumer believes funds from the infrastructure bill will be deployed to help jumpstart the capping project.
As for the rest of the country, the aforementioned Prof. Archer called for “requiring jurisdictions to complete comprehensive racial equity impact studies prior to any construction. Racial equity impact studies have been used or proposed in various contexts to reform racialized institutions and structures. … Highway redevelopment projects should join this growing list.”
To be sure, New York City and our country as a whole has made real progress since the 1950s on racial equity. Racists like Robert Moses no longer wield dictatorial power over huge pots of infrastructure funds that allow him to harm many thousands of people and significantly worsen racial inequities with a single edict. Americans of color, and Black Americans in particular, wield much more institutional power today, and elected officials in most parts of the country are far more concerned with racial equity than in those days. On the other hand, as we like to say in our house, that’s an awfully low bar to clear.
Even now, elected officials need to be reminded or, in some cases, pressured to use infrastructure spending to enhance racial equity wherever possible, and never to undertake projects that worsen already existing inequities. Although the Biden administration will have the ability to steer some of the infrastructure funds toward projects that bring about greater equity, in the end, it’s officials at the state and local level who will exercise control over most of the money. One way to help ensure they do their job as a voice for their constituents is for their constituents to make their wishes known.
Some electeds will listen, but others may still not care about equity. In those cases, we simply have to work to throw the bums out.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh’s Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)
An area of concern is that the law leaves a great deal of discretion on setting spending priorities to the states. Biden has emphasized the importance of advancing racial equity in the infrastructure bill and throughout his presidency—starting on Day One.
However, the question remains whether some states might be, ahem, less than fully invested in that issue. Throughout our history, racial inequities have far too often been exacerbated by various infrastructure projects—and not just in the South.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the point person for the infrastructure bill, sat for a long interview with Chief White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for The Grio April Ryan to explain how the commitment to equity will be made real. “This is really important. We’re going to create billions and billions of dollars in economic opportunity and we have to make sure that happens equitably.” He talked about making sure that the decisions made on where to spend the money are taken with equity very much in mind.
Prompted by Ryan’s comment that “the interstate system was built to keep certain groups in and certain groups out. So it was built on a racist system, correct?” Sec. Buttigieg agreed, and acknowledged examples of previous projects that saw interstate highways divide Black communities in ways that inflicted serious harm. “Often, this wasn’t just an act of neglect. Often this was a conscious choice. There is racism physically built into some of our highways. And that’s why the jobs plan has dollars specifically committed to reconnect some of the communities that were divided…. So there’s intention about that.”
Sucker Carlson mocked Buttigieg for talking about the reality of racism: “Roads can’t be racist any more than toasters and sectional couches can be racist. They are inanimate objects. They’re not alive.” Right, Tucker. Bullwhips used by slaveowners weren’t alive either, so I guess they can’t be racist. The most hated man in the Senate, Ted Cruz twisted the secretary’s remarks into a joke that only Trumpists would find funny. Florida Gov. Ron DeathSantis likewise remarked that he’d heard “some weird stuff from the Secretary of Transportation trying to make this about social issues. To me, a road’s a road.” Right. And a hooded white robe is just a garment.
The infrastructure bill includes $1 billion to remedy at least part of the damage caused in the past—some of the worst of which resulted from the federal interstate highway program. This amount isn’t enough to solve the problem in full, unfortunately, as this Prism article lays out in detail. Northeastern University professor of urban and public policy Joan Fitzgerald called it “a drop in the bucket” and lamented the loss of the $20 billion President Biden had initially proposed for this purpose. Regarding the funds cut, the New York Times reported that “there is additional funding that is still pending in a domestic policy bill that Democrats hope to pass soon.”
In the interview with Ryan, Buttigieg also emphasized that the bill would focus on equity when it comes to the business end of the projects—not just the where of the projects but the who—to make sure that businesses owned by Americans of color and Black-owned businesses specifically are properly represented. Additionally, he cited the necessity of making sure that the workforce on the projects is diverse. All these measures are vital elements of ensuring greater equity.
The secretary got into the weeds a bit on the details of how to increase the numbers of Black-owned businesses so that those making decisions on awarding prime contracts and hiring subcontractors can’t say they just couldn’t find any. He explained that “we got to take responsibility for why they’re not out there and build more businesses up that maybe exist. Maybe they haven’t been big enough to get the bonding or go through these hoops to even have a shot. They’re bidding on a federal project. We’ve got to work on all of that.”
Former Obama Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx echoed Ryan and Buttigieg, noting that most of the infrastructure in our country was built more than a half-century ago, in other words, at “a time before Black people were at the table.” Looking forward, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh also spoke to Ryan, and cited the importance of getting members of groups who are underrepresented in the construction industry into workforce development programs and pre-apprentice programs—specifically those that lead to union jobs.
The Biden-Harris team, along with congressional Democrats, have made sure that equity is prioritized throughout the infrastructure bill. This priority goes beyond just building roads and bridges. For one other example, there’s $2.75 billion set aside to promote digital equity, as part of a historic $65 billion investment in increasing broadband connectivity. Some of the digital equity funds go to states, and some to localities, but all of it is specifically targeted at ensuring we close our digital divide.
In an interview with Government Technology, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s Policy Director Amy Huffman expressed enthusiasm about the potential impact: “The exciting nature of it is that it opens up so many opportunities for state and local innovation around this issue. That’s what I’m really excited about—state and local, and historically bootstrapped organizations in communities—to see what they come up with.”
Not every state or locality shares Huffman’s values, unfortunately. Kevin DeGood, who leads the infrastructure policy team at the Center for American Progress, pointedly asked, “Do you think Ron DeSantis is going to prioritize racial equity in his distribution of federal infrastructure dollars?”
Attention from federal officials like Buttigieg is necessary to achieve greater equity in infrastructure. Necessary, but not sufficient. A lot rides on what happens below the federal level.
At Vox, Li Zhou went into great depth in breaking down the kind of discretion the states and localities will have, in particular when it comes to equity, as well as how the White House can exercise control over at least some of the infrastructure bill’s funds. The $660 billion dollars will pay for projects submitted to the DOT by state and local governments, which the department will then review, but the states will basically be able to set the priorities. Then there’s an additional $211 billion in “discretionary funds” that the DOT itself will be in charge of. The department will have to give approval on those projects. The Justice40 initiative, a Biden executive order creating a “whole of government effort” aimed at sending 40% of all federal government funds to disadvantaged communities, will come into play.
To some degree, it was inevitable that states would have a lot of say over how to spend the funds the infrastructure bill provides. On the one hand, the White House or the Department of Transportation (DOT) cannot pick every single infrastructure project—it simply wouldn’t be feasible—so relying on states and localities is necessary. Beth Osborne, a DOT official under President Obama, pointed out that “a fundamental part of this program has always been to have the feds raise money, hand it over to the states and cross our fingers.”
Some people in those local areas don’t trust their leaders to always do the racially equitable thing—and they would know firsthand. The New York Times spoke to folks in the community of Allendale in Shreveport, Louisiana, an overwhelmingly Black area perhaps best known as the one-time home of the blues great Lead Belly. A proposal to expand Interstate Highway 49 has long been in the works. Take a guess where the extended highway would run? Of course, it goes right through Allendale.
Dorothy Wiley’s house would be demolished to make way for the project, and she isn’t pleased about the degree of local control over the infrastructure funds. Wiley, who leads a group fighting the I-49 expansion, made clear where she stood: “Looking at where I live right now, it’s like they want to push us out farther and, well, it will gentrify the community.” She added, “My hope is that it won’t be the same but I feel like it will.”
Local Chamber of Commerce types and other moneyed interests are pushing hard for the project. In 2017, the plan gained the backing of Shreveport’s mayor at the time, Ollie Tyler. Willie Bradford, the city council member representing the affected area of Allendale, also supported it: “I grew up in that area, and I know most of the citizens here,” stated Bradford. “I was elected to lead, and I understand the economic impact that this corridor will probably have on this community.” Black people don’t always agree or have the same interests as one another, as this case makes clear. Wiley wants to protect her neighborhood, which is both Black and lower-income, but Black elected leaders in her area have a different vision. When decisions are made at the local level, economically powerful interests often come out on top. Ultimately, Louisiana officials have to decide whether to submit the I-49 project for funding made available by the infrastructure bill.
A similar situation is playing out in Houston, where local community members oppose the expansion of Interstate Highway 45. In that case, in March the DOT stopped a project already in progress, citing the Civil Rights Act. Sean Jefferson would be forced out of his home if the project is completed, and doesn’t think the compensation he’s being offered would allow him to stay in the area. “I’m just scared about what’s going to happen,” he expressed. “We’ve been staying with each other for a long time. This is the place that we call home.” Jefferson is “praying and hoping” that the Biden administration succeeds in killing the expansion. An official in the department cited the Houston case as evidence of their overall commitment to ensuring racial equity, promising to “use every tool in our arsenal, both hard and soft.”
Although we’ve talked about Texas and Louisiana, racism has been “physically built into” the infrastructure all over our country. As Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law Deborah N. Archer recently wrote: “The highway system was a tool of a segregationist agenda, erecting a wall that separated White and Black communities and protected White people from Black migration.”
Daily Kos’s Doctor RJ highlighted instances of this foulness from Atlanta to Detroit in an article that explored major problems in America’s infrastructure. Others include Montgomery, Alabama, where Sam Engelhardt, the state highway director, built I-85 along a route that essentially committed assault on the once-thriving Oak Park neighborhood. The neighborhood still suffers great harm (Heather McGhee highlighted the effects of white supremacy on Oak Park’s infrastructure in her recent book). It was no accident, as Engelhardt himself made clear when he proudly proclaimed: “I stand for white supremacy segregation.” For another of the worst examples in our history, travel over a thousand miles northward, to my now true blue hometown of New York City.
Compared to most of the country, the Big Apple is staunchly progressive. Even in the 1950s, with its integrated schools and Black leaders like Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., NYC liked to think of itself as more racially enlightened than the Jim Crow South. It was, but it was still no paradise for Black and brown New Yorkers. In the post-WWII period, one government official wielded more power over New Yorkers, especially members of the most vulnerable communities, than anyone else. Yet he never won a single election. His decisions on where and how to build highways hurt vulnerable communities, in particular New Yorkers of color, in ways that continue to affect lives many decades later. His name was Robert Moses.
Robert Caro, who wrote the definitive Moses biography, The Power Broker, characterized his subject as “the most racist human being I had ever really encountered.” During an interview with the author, who was then researching the book, Moses took a call, hung up, and then ranted: “They expect me to build playgrounds for that scum floating up from Puerto Rico.” And that was just what he said on a single day, out of the blue. In terms of his impact, this man makes Alabama’s Sam Engelhardt look like Mother Theresa.
Among many other roads, Moses built the Cross Bronx Expressway. Like some of the interstate highways mentioned above, it sliced a community in two. The aforementioned Caro argued that the road is largely responsible for the serious socioeconomic problems that have plagued the borough—especially the South Bronx—throughout the three-quarters of a century since construction began, although other scholars have offered less harsh assessments. Whatever the exact impact, the evidence suggests it was significant.
This is important not just for the damage suffered largely by Black and brown residents of those neighborhoods, but also because the whole country saw the South Bronx as literally on fire. This was an image fed most famously during a national broadcast of the 1977 World Series when Howard Cosell intoned, as only he could: “ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning.” Plenty of conservatives used the desolation of the South Bronx to attack Black and brown communities as dysfunctional, without understanding (or caring) about how decisions like building the Cross Bronx destroyed economic opportunity and community ties that provided support for people.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, whose district is bisected by the road, has been a leader in calling for funding to help mitigate its continuing negative effects. “The Cross Bronx Expressway has imposed on the Bronx the burden of chronic disease,” according to Torres. “We can’t breathe here in the Bronx.” Here’s more from Torres: “The Cross Bronx Expressway … is both literally and metaphorically a structure of racism, with diesel truck traffic polluting the air black and brown kids breathe every day. As Faulkner said, the past is not even past. And that’s especially true in The Bronx. We are haunted by this Moses legacy.”
Members of the community spoke out along similar lines. Nilka Martell, a resident of the South Bronx who created and leads Loving the Bronx, related her lived experience: “When I was pregnant with my youngest child, we lived on the Cross-Bronx Expressway and out of my three children he was the only one born with asthma.” Martell, Torres, and others—including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have pushed for the Cross-Bronx to be capped with parks and other green public space—as was done in Boston with the Rose Kennedy Greenway, built over the so-called Big Dig tunnel.
A Columbia University study done in 2018 found that 2.4 miles of the CBE could be feasibly capped with parks and green space, and that the project would create far more benefits than it would cost. As per the study, there are 226,608 people residing close to the highway, and on average capping would help each one to the tune of $1,629. It would also add to each of their lives about eight weeks of “quality-adjusted life years, a combined measure of health and longevity.” At the time it was published, the study’s author added:
Schumer believes funds from the infrastructure bill will be deployed to help jumpstart the capping project.
As for the rest of the country, the aforementioned Prof. Archer called for “requiring jurisdictions to complete comprehensive racial equity impact studies prior to any construction. Racial equity impact studies have been used or proposed in various contexts to reform racialized institutions and structures. … Highway redevelopment projects should join this growing list.”
To be sure, New York City and our country as a whole has made real progress since the 1950s on racial equity. Racists like Robert Moses no longer wield dictatorial power over huge pots of infrastructure funds that allow him to harm many thousands of people and significantly worsen racial inequities with a single edict. Americans of color, and Black Americans in particular, wield much more institutional power today, and elected officials in most parts of the country are far more concerned with racial equity than in those days. On the other hand, as we like to say in our house, that’s an awfully low bar to clear.
Even now, elected officials need to be reminded or, in some cases, pressured to use infrastructure spending to enhance racial equity wherever possible, and never to undertake projects that worsen already existing inequities. Although the Biden administration will have the ability to steer some of the infrastructure funds toward projects that bring about greater equity, in the end, it’s officials at the state and local level who will exercise control over most of the money. One way to help ensure they do their job as a voice for their constituents is for their constituents to make their wishes known.
Some electeds will listen, but others may still not care about equity. In those cases, we simply have to work to throw the bums out.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh’s Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)