Detroit wins grant to remove interstate that wrecked a Black community

By Ian Duncan, The Washington Post

The federal government will provide $105 million under a program bolstered by the infrastructure law to help fill in Interstate 375 and turn it into a boulevard

Detroit’s Paradise Valley was a buzzing nightlife district, home to jazz clubs and hundreds of other Black-owned business. Then urban renewal plans launched after World War II and the digging of a highway through the area displaced more than 100,000 residents.

Today, almost nothing of Paradise Valley and the neighboring Black Bottom area remain.

For years, Detroit leaders worked on a plan to fill in the highway trench, turning Interstate 375 into a mile-long boulevard. On Thursday, the Biden administration announced it would give Michigan a helping hand in the form of a $105 million grant.

The award is the biggest step the administration has taken toward helping to remove an aging highway, fulfilling — in one community, at least — a goal the White House set when it announced infrastructure plans early last year.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (D) said the federal money will shorten the project’s timeline by two years. He said the effects of the highway being built were felt across the city and have echoed through three generations.

Discover the impact of this project.

Combined with racist housing policies, highways like these leave Black residents in less safe and accessible neighborhoods.

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