In 1956, the U.S. Federal Aid Highways Act provided $25 billion to create a network of roads across the nation. In today’s money, that’s equivalent to $215 billion.
The act had huge economic and social consequences. It helped boost the economy and create an automobile-centered society. But the new freeways also divided communities, disrupted pedestrian movement and broke social ties. In some notorious cases, freeway building was used to clear working-class Black communities and segregate cities along racial lines.
There have been numerous studies and anecdotal accounts of how the freeways destroyed thriving communities. The effects are still apparent today.
