Posted on 07/31/2018 11:38:58 AM PDT by Jagermonster
Across the United States, some cities are building parks above the roadways in an effort to reconnect communities, often low-income neighborhoods, that had been splintered decades ago when new freeways were rammed through in the name of progress.
When Marvin Anderson walks along the tree-lined streets of Rondo – his childhood neighborhood – in St. Paul, Minn., the memories come rushing back. “That’s what I miss about it ... the smells of the food, hearing laughter ... in the barbershop, over a soda fountain,” he says.
Mr. Anderson was born in this primarily African-American neighborhood in 1949. As a child, he thrived on Rondo’s culture of openness, in which black residents felt free from discrimination, says Anderson, now the executive director of ReConnectRondo – a nonprofit pushing for infrastructure that would revitalize the region.
But in 1956 the city approved the construction of Interstate 94 through the middle of Rondo. To build each stage, St. Paul bulldozed blocks of local businesses and homes – including several apartments Anderson’s father owned.
The neighborhood still feels the aftermath, says Anderson. “The destruction of Rondo has created ... a wandering group of people ... without a sense of home,” he says.
Along with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Anderson and ReConnectRondo have been seeking to rebuild that sense of home by advocating for the Rondo Land Bridge. This grassy installation would extend over several blocks of I-94 and merge the divided north and south sides of the neighborhood with public green space and new homes.
Decades after developers pushed highways through US neighborhoods like Rondo in the name of progress, many are now reexamining how this development has contributed to urban inequality. From St. Paul to Dallas to Pittsburgh, city halls are backing “deck parks” or ...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I think this sort of park can be a very good idea (provided other spending priorities are addressed first).
“how this development has contributed to urban inequality...”
Hmm, I can think of plenty of neighborhoods just like this that turned into ghettos without an expressway being built down the middle of them, so I don’t think this is the common denominator.
“Building Parks above the roadways.”
I saw the line drawing, but I would need to see either photos or the actual event to conceive how this is intended to work.
Seems that it would be extremely expensive. Spending on ‘extra’ Infrastructure would soak up dollars that could be used for affordable housing in the same neighborhoods.
The value would be intrinsic at best.
I do like the idea of gathering spots, but this may not be the best way. Too artificial.
I would hope that these “parks” will include high fences to keep “teens” from throwing heavy objects on the highway below.
As for resurrecting the old neighborhoods—I seriously doubt that it is going to work out they way they imagine. It is hard to believe, but years ago, black neighborhoods were largely law-abiding, if poor, places to live. They didn’t feature gangs of ferals roaming the streets.
In about 1952, my dad, very white, drove his Buick convertible through Watts for at least an hour claiming he was lost. He did it to aggravate my very prejudiced great aunt who was visiting from New Jersey. I still remember her saying “lock the doors, lock the doors!”. Even as a kid, I laughed at her. Now the racial situation on the East Coast was likely very different than the West. We were perfectly safe. Then.
Urban barriers protect low crime neighborhoods from high crime neighborhoods. These elevated parks are pontoon bridges for invading armies.
About 40 years ago, work was stopped on I-696 in Metro Detroit because the planned Freeway was going to split up a Jewish neighborhood from their synagogue, thus preventing them from walking to services on the Sabbath and preventing the free exercise of their religion.
They built a park over the freeway to solve the problem. This is nothing new.
Using tax dollars to build expensive new areas for muggings, drug deals, prostitution and murders.
What could go wrong??
Dallas has several of them - really nice, urban parks. Add some food trucks and instant party!
Maybe can work then. I had never heard of the concept till now.
And when their done doing all of that tgey can use the courts for midnight basketball.
Only after the dead body and syringe removal.
As mentioned above, it is not that new of an idea. Millenium Park in Chicago (where the Bean is) is kind of like this, although they decked over rail lines rather than highways.
I’d like to see them do this in some parts of my own Cleveland, especially where the Mall (big open green space) gets cut off from the lakefront by rail lines and the shoreway, and where the innerbelt cuts the end of the Cleveland State campus.
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