Freeways’ Splitting and Cordoning Effects in Neighborhoods of Color: Colton, Fresno, and San Diego

Abstract

Spanning more than six decades between the 1940s and early 2000s, the construction of the U.S. federal Interstate Highway System perpetuated racial inequality, weakened social institutions, disrupted local economies, and physically divided neighborhoods. Systemic racism embedded within housing, educational, and labor systems depressed land values, hindered homeownership, and made neighborhoods of color more vulnerable to selection for freeway routes. Unequal political power in the decision making process also disadvantaged people of color, who often were excluded from participatory planning processes. Additionally, unlike white Americans, people of color had significantly less ability to relocate to rapidly expanding suburbs if displaced by freeway construction. Expanding on prior work conducted by researchers at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, this study incorporates three additional case studies in California: South Colton (Inland Empire), West Fresno (Central Valley), and City Heights (San Diego).

About the Project

This project examines the consequences of freeway construction on neighborhoods of color across California: South Colton, West Fresno, and City Heights in San Diego. The construction of freeways was a contributing mechanism to the perpetuation of racial inequality, weakening social institutions, disrupting local economies, and physically dividing neighborhoods. In South Colton, a freeway was ultimately not built through its community of color, though largely for reasons of construction costs. City Heights, initially a predominantly non-Hispanic white neighborhood, underwent a demographic transformation driven by white flight during a decades-long pause in freeway construction. West Fresno did face consequences from freeway development but was also unique in its diversity of residents pre-freeway, including people of color and non-Hispanic white immigrant communities. Freeway development contributed to transforming West Fresno into an overwhelming community of color. Across these cases, freeways fragmented communities, displaced residents, and reinforced pre-existing racial divides. These racialized impacts stemmed from systemic socioeconomic marginalization and exclusion of people of color in the planning process.