Rethinking America’s Highways

1. Set Focus 
Pose this essential question: What should be the goals of urban planners?

2. Read and Discuss 
Have students read the article, marking key ideas and questions. Then ask them to answer the following questions, citing text evidence:

• Why were highways built through cities and, specifically, through communities of color? (Highways were built through cities so that they could help quickly evacuate people in the event of nuclear attack. They were often built through communities of color because land there was cheaper to buy after years of the discriminatory practice of redlining, and because the people in those areas did not have the political power to demand that construction take place elsewhere.)

• What are some ways cities, organizations, and others are addressing the problems created by urban highways? (Some cities plan to replace stretches of highway with more connected and walkable neighborhoods. Rochester, New York, has already filled in part of a sunken highway and developed the area with townhouses and bike lanes. Locals in other cities are demanding fixes to pollution and safety hazards, and President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan allocates $1 billion to reconnect neighborhoods.)

• Raynard Sanders says that this time around “it’s the community’s decision.” What does he mean? (He means that community members now have a say in whether to keep, remove, or reimagine urban highways, unlike in the past, when they had no voice in how or where they were built.)

3. Core Skill Practice
Assign, print, or project the activity Urban Highways: Before & After. Have students use it to analyze how highways that ran through cities changed them.

4. Writing Prompt
How might the concerns about removing urban highways be addressed? Explain in a brief essay.

5. Classroom Debate
Should highways be removed from cities?

6. Quiz & Skills
Use the quiz to assess students’ comprehension and Organizing Ideas to review outlining skills.