Quote:
Originally Posted by DCReid
A booming spike in Houston's population is making traffic terrible. To help with this, a massive $9 billion freeway-widening project was put in place to widen 24 miles of interstate. But the project is threatening to disrupt the lives of thousands of people — most of them are from communities of color...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ho...ion/ar-AAUduF4 |
A lot of buzzwords lol. What this article obviously doesn't say is the expansion of this freeway is key to DEMOLISHING an elevated section of the freeway near downtown (or making it an elevated park like Hi-Line in NYC) thus opening it up to neighborhoods to its west. There are going to be a few hundred people displaced yes (not over 1k because not all those structures are occupied) but they will be well compensated and the freeway is literally already there. It's not like they're talking about building a brand new freeway in the middle of the neighborhood.
Now IMO it's on the state to offer more than market value, which completely throws away the generational wealth argument because often times folks wouldn't even be receiving this money if it wasn't for the new development displacing them. I remember when the Katy Freeway was expanded in Houston's affluent west side that a few residents and businesses were displaced then too. This happens all over and I think is okay so long as you are provided adequate compensation (above market value). There's an entire neighborhood near LAX that was emptied out over time to allow the airport to expand and place a rental car facility there. The homeowners were mostly minority but were well compensated.