roadsTaken: Consequences

This article was developed as part of the “roadsTaken”  project, which documents the history of highway planning, construction, and displacement in Houston, Texas.

Disproportionate Displacement in Houston

This section explains the results of the roadsTaken study, which estimates the number of people displaced by highway construction and analyzes the consequences of this displacement. roadsTaken estimates that 21,073 residents were displaced by urban freeways from 1946 to 1974.^[1] While Houston experienced exponential population growth during this period, this figure represents around 1 in 20 Houstonians when highway construction began.

The displacement was also disproportionate by race. The population of Houston was just over 20% Black during this period, and that of Harris County was just under 20% Black. However, both of the methodologies used in this study reveal that the majority of displaced residents were Black (Figures 1 and 2). In fact, three times as many Black residents were displaced compared to what would be expected if displacements were proportional to the area’s racial demographics. This means that Black residents were four to five times more likely to be displaced than white residents.

The following subsections discuss these numbers, the broader consequences of displacement, and some of the reactions to freeway construction.

Houston’s Freeways by the Numbers

The study cataloged a total of 11,007 structures removed for freeway construction, including 6,939 residences, over 1,000 commercial and industrial structures, 10 educational buildings, and 44 buildings belonging to churches. An additional 2,678 residential structures, such as garages, sheds, outbuildings, and other ancillary residential buildings, were also included.

First, the population directly displaced by highways is examined. If the displacements caused by freeways were proportionate to race, approximately 4,000 Black Houstonians would have been expected to be displaced. However, the census tract methodology indicates that over 11,000 Black Houstonians were displaced (Figure 1).

Figure 1 — Chart of Estimated Displacements by Race

The second methodology, which used census roll matching, produced similar results. Approximately 1,500 direct matches of Black residents would have been expected if highway displacement had occurred proportionally across racial groups. However, 3,463 Black Houstonians were identified as displaced (Figure 2). This confirms that Black Houstonians were disproportionately displaced by highway construction, with more than twice as many Black Houstonians living at addresses within freeway right-of-way than expected, based on the area’s population. It should be noted that this count excludes displacements that occurred more than 15 years after the last available data for this methodology, which is from 1950.^[3] 

Neither methodology adequately counts the Hispanic population of Houston displaced by freeways, as Hispanic was not added to the full census until 1980, although 16 displaced residents were still identified as “Mexican” on the 1940 and 1950 censuses, despite it being officially removed as a category.^[4] Most Hispanic Houstonians were identified by census takers as “White.” Using the roadsTaken database of census rolls and matching it with common surnames of Hispanic origin identifies three major sites of freeway displacement that were partially or predominately Hispanic: the Eastex Freeway through Frost Town between Congress Street and Buffalo Bayou, the North Freeway through the First Ward along Crockett and Summer Streets, and the downtown section of Interstate 10 in the Northside neighborhood between North Main Street and Jensen Drive.^[5] Future publications will use this data to provide a more comprehensive survey and estimate of Hispanic/Latino displacements. RoadsTaken’s census roll matching lists also include 15 displaced residents listed as “Italian”, 4 as “Chinese”, 4 as “French,” and 2 as “Japanese,” and 2 as mixed white and Black.^[6]

Figure 2 — Chart of Matched Displacements by Race

Figure 3 — Chart of Matched Displacements by Race with Estimate of Likely Hispanic Residents

The following two heat maps (Figures 4 and 5) illustrate the density and scale of displacements. Although freeways would eventually crisscross all parts of Houston, the extent of displacement varied depending on the width of the freeway and the density of the housing in the right-of-way. For example, despite both the North Freeway and the Eastex Freeway being built along similar paths from north of the city to downtown in the 1950s, the displacement impact varied significantly: 1,185 buildings were removed for the Eastex freeway compared to only 686 for the North Freeway. This variation is attributed to the Eastex Freeway cutting through the heart of a large neighborhood, while the North Freeway was built through less dense areas and followed major bayous. The effects of the freeway displacement were most severe when the routes did not follow existing geographic features or infrastructure and instead cut straight across the street grid.

Figure 4 — Heat Map of Displaced Residents by Race (Estimate)

Figure 5 — Heat Map of Displaced Residents by Race (Census Rolls)

The value of homes, the tenure of residents (whether they rent or own their own home), and the household income of residents has also been collected from census tract data by the roadsTaken project. Evidence such as the correlation with HOLC neighborhood grades (see previous section, “History”) with highway routes indicates that these factors played an important role in urban freeway displacement. RoadsTaken is exploring the correlation between displaced communities and home value, tenure, and household income in more detail in future research.

Beyond the disproportionate impact on residential displacement, Houston’s urban freeways also disproportionately affected educational institutions, churches, and important commercial areas. Of the 37 religious structures identified as removed, sources identified 25 as churches with predominantly Black congregations — around two-thirds of the total. Eleven served white or integrated congregations, while one was listed as “Mexican.” All the schools demolished due to highway construction were located in predominately Black neighborhoods.^[7]

A total of 843 commercial buildings — stores, hotels, restaurants — were removed by highway construction during the study period. The highest concentrations of commercial displacement occurred in the Fourth Ward, along today’s Interstate 45, and the Fifth Ward, along the East and Eastex freeways. The roadsTaken map highlights several commercial districts that were either completely or significantly displaced by highway construction and its aftereffects (Figure 6). Of the 15 largest commercial districts affected by freeways — defined as areas with 10 or more stores or other businesses within a two-block radius — seven districts (containing 206 businesses) were in primarily Black and low-income neighborhoods. Another four districts (with 85 businesses) were located on the borders of or along major throughfares to Black neighborhoods.^[8] The remaining four districts (with 48 businesses) were situated in predominantly white neighborhoods. Figure 7 illustrates one such commercial district on Lyons Avenue, along the right-of-way of the Eastex Freeway.

Figure 6 — Commercial Districts Removed by Highways

Figure 7 — Details of the Lyons Avenue, West, and Eastex Freeway (Left) and Names of Known Businesses Shuttered After Freeway Construction (Right)

Industrial buildings — including factories, warehouses, and other light and heavy industry structures — were situated along many of the freeway routes. A 1947 proposed zoning map created by the city of Houston highlights areas designated for the heaviest industry. Freeways were largely routed around, or in some cases built above, these parts of the city (Figure 8).

Figure 8 — Map of Houston Freeways and Major Industrial Zones (1947)

Consequences of Displacement

Once cities like Houston decided to build limited-access expressways through the most densely populated areas around city cores, significant population displacement became inevitable. But how and why were these decisions to build highways straight through American cities repeatedly made?

According to Mark Rose and Raymond Mohl, after World War II, political and financial interests — such as those of trucking companies, urban renewal proponents, downtown business leaders, and developers of outlying land — aligned with the promise of funds from the national government.^[9] Steered by these interests, the emerging class of urban planning engineers designed highway routes based on traffic efficiency and logic. Planners sought ways to connect existing rural highways to the city core, sometimes following rail lines or clearing inexpensive property in low-income neighborhoods. They also recognized how routing freeways through “slums” and “blighted areas” could save millions on construction costs.^[10] Places where neighborhood street grids did not align were often targeted for highway right-of-way lines.^[11] This approach was intended to preserve downtown areas and downtown property values while making traffic faster and safer. However, it also resulted in neighborhoods being divided by race, income, and purpose.^[12]

Paul Mason Fotch notes that funding for public and low-income housing was never adequately allocated in post-war housing legislation. Most federal-to-city funding went to nonhousing urban renewal projects. Nationwide, the result was clear: More low-income housing was destroyed than created by government action.^[13] In Houston, a similar trend occurred. During the study period from 1946 to 1980, the Housing Authority of the City of Houston built fewer than 1,000 general purpose housing units, while highway acquisition cleared nearly 7,000 residences during the same period (Figure 9).^[14]

Figure 9 — Chart of Buildings Cleared by Category

Displaced people often received little advance notice before being forced to relocate. According to a 1962–64 study by the Bureau of Public Roads, 89% of people displaced by urban interstate highways were given less than a year to move, with around 43% receiving 90 days’ notice or less.^[15] A Texas study showed the average time between learning of an impending freeway and relocating was 3.2 for home-owners and 1.1 for renters.^[16] As Kyle Shelton shows in “Power Moves: Transportation, Politics, and Development in Houston,” Ramona Toliver and her neighbors in the Fifth Ward only found out about the East Freeway when surveyors arrived at their doors staking out right-of-way lines.^[17] Meanwhile, wealthy, white home-owners across town in Memorial Bend were well-aware of the county’s plans to build the Beltway through their subdivision.^[18]

Nationally, most displaced tenants saw an increase in their rent-to-income ratio, while low-income homeowners reported difficulty rebuying homes. Likewise, most displaced business saw earnings decrease after displacement, with 40% closing altogether.^[19] Many of these problems were felt more acutely by elderly, non-white residents, larger households, and those living in poverty. Across the country and in Texas, Black and low-income displaced residents reported higher levels of dissatisfaction with relocation programs and were more likely to have negative reactions or attitudes toward the highway relocation process.^[20]

A Texas Highway Department study of low-income residents in Austin and Houston highlighted a significant disparity in housing outcomes between white and non-white displaced residents: “Cross-tabulations by race or nationality background indicate that the majority of those who involuntarily upgraded or failed to upgrade [their housing conditions] were non-Anglos (Table 34). Only 29 (38 percent) of the non-Anglos voluntarily upgraded beyond the comparable replacement value. On the other hand, 65 (68 percent) of the Anglos voluntarily upgraded. Apparently, the Anglos had more financial means or incurred more debt to upgrade voluntarily than did the non-Anglos.”^[21]

Even homeowners, such as those surveyed in Dallas by the Texas Highway Department in 1960, who on average found better housing after displacement, overwhelmingly claimed to be in a worse financial position.^[22] Many of these government studies, initiated in the 1960s, aimed to assess the effectiveness of the relocation payments promoted in the Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 1962 and 1968. However, in Houston, around two-thirds of the displacements during the period from 1946 to 1980 had already occurred (Figure 10), before relocation assistance programs began.

Figure 10 — Chart of Residences Cleared by Year

In one Texas study, half of the businesses displaced by freeway construction either struggled to find a new location or were unable to relocate altogether. About 28% of these businesses discontinued operations entirely.^[23] Additionally, 29% of business operators, even after receiving relocation assistance, felt that their net worth had worsened because of highway relocation.

Reflecting on her youth in the Fourth Ward, Myrtle Ross — interviewed by Matthew Griffis in 2018 — was asked about the community’s feeling about the freeway built through the neighborhood: “We didn’t like [the freeway]. We weren’t excited about it because it wasn’t helping us. Because the school [Booker T. Washington High School] was right there on West Dallas [Street] and then there was the Pilgrim Temple [building] that was owned by black people. And it [the freeway project] was just displacing a lot of black people.”^[24] Not only does the freeway through the Fourth Ward align with the 1929 city plan “Proposed Race Restriction Areas,” it cut most of the neighborhood from its most important civic institutions. In 2021, the city of Houston designated the Fourth Ward as a Heritage District.^[25] Interstate 45 still runs through the middle of the district.

When asked by Dorothee Sauter of the University of Houston’s Center for Public History what the highways did in his neighborhood of the Third Ward, social services planner and resident Ernie Atwell responded, “That about killed it. Instead [of] using transportation, resolving a transportation problem as a positive resolution, it made a negative resolution in development…You have nobody coming to your grocery store, you moved 30,000 people. That set the Third Ward back. It caused a knock down, an abandoning of many houses and many buildings, other than the roads that they had to knock down. In the Third Ward you have a larger ratio of undeveloped land to the total land than you normally have. That was conveyed by the displacement of all the houses and everything that you had to move or knock down for the 288 and 59 highway. That transportation problem became a development problem for the Third Ward.”^[26]

Pushback Against Freeway Expansion

The success of Houston’s first modern expressway, the Gulf Freeway — carrying over 100,000 vehicles per day within just six years of opening and raising property values throughout the area with relatively few displacements — gave urban planners the impression that the benefits of freeways outweighed any costs.^[27] Unfortunately, this was a misguided view. The Gulf Freeway accounted for only around 5% of the total displacements caused by freeway construction over the next 30 years, and evidence suggests the true social cost of these displacements may have been far greater.

Using the roadsTaken project, the evolution of Houston’s highway plans can be tracked plan by plan and year by year.^[28] The most significant plan changes, in terms of the displacements they caused, included shifting the Southwest Freeway from Richmond Avenue to its current location, moving the Southwest Freeway and West Loop interchange to the north, adjusting the North Loop one block to the north into Independent Heights, rerouting the South Freeway from Almeda Road to its present location to the east, and cancelling the planned Harrisburg Freeway in the Second Ward. Most of these changes came from planners in City Hall or Austin, but occasionally public protests did succeed in altering freeway plans. For example, after sustained pressure from homeowners, county planners relocated the Southwest Freeway interchange north of Bellaire, reducing the number of homes and schools affected.^[29] Major changes were also made at the behest of wealthy developers. For example, through extensive lobbying and donating right-of-way for the freeway, Frank Sharp successfully rerouted the Southwest Freeway outside the city core through his planned suburb and shopping complex, Sharpstown.^[30]

However, objections from less influential residents and business owners — such as the protests of proprietors along Pierce Avenue and Lyons Avenue — were often ignored.^[31] In one notable case, planners shifted the South Freeway from its original planned route along Almeda Road east into Riverside Terrace, displacing an estimated 2,441 residents. Many of these residents were Black, including Houston School Board Trustee Hattie Mae White. She recalled that “we knew a freeway was to be built near this house, but it was to go down Almeda.”^[32] When Houston planners rerouted the South Freeway into this now Black neighborhood, White was “one of the last ones to move off.” ^[33]

By the 1970s, organized opposition to highway expansion in Houston began to take shape, aligning with a nation-wide pushback against urban freeway construction. Residents of the Third Ward south of the Gulf Freeway sought to curtail the expansion of the Gulf Freeway or, at the very least, relocate the added right-of-way to the highway’s north side to minimize the residential impact.^[34] Meanwhile, in the Second Ward, resident Richard Holgin organized the predominately Mexican-American neighborhood in opposition to the proposed Harrisburg Freeway.^[35] While this freeway was eventually scrapped due to the protests and funding and federal regulation issues, the Gulf Freeway expansion proceeded, resulting in the displacement of approximately 430 residents, nearly all of whom were Black.^[36]

Conclusion: The Limit to Freeways

In 1965, Roscoe Jones, the successor to Ralph Ellifrit as head of the Houston planning department, told the Chronicle, “We shouldn’t slow down on our freeway building program. But there’s a limit to how many we can build. Eventually, vital parts of the city will have to be destroyed for more freeways.”^[37] Jones’ leadership marked a shift toward a “more democratic” planning process, departing from the “great designer” mentality that had previously driven Houston’s urban freeway plans. However, despite this shift in rhetoric, Houston continued with the expansion and construction of highways in Black neighborhoods, including the completion of the North Loop through Kashmere Gardens, the construction of South Freeway in Riverside Terrace, and the widening of the Gulf Freeway in the Third Ward.^[38]

Black and low-income Houstonians were disproportionately displaced by freeways planned by Texas and Houston’s all-white authorities. These planners, fully aware of the city’s racial geography, sought to demolish neighborhoods and areas they deemed undesirable.^[39] From 1946 to 1974, approximately 21,000 Houstonians were displaced by freeway construction, including around 11,173 Black residents. This is equivalent to 11.8% of Harris County’s Black population in 1940, before highway construction began. Planners soon realized that displacement had a more severe impact on renters, low-income residents, and non-white communities. While planners may not have viewed the neighborhoods and commercial districts affected by freeway construction as “vital parts of the city,” they were essential to the communities that lived there. Where planners saw “blighted areas” and slums, residents saw thriving neighborhoods filled with businesses, homes, schools, and civic and cultural institutions (Figure 11). While Houston grew rapidly during the post-war decades, much of the city’s core saw a dramatic decline in population and housing stock.^[40]

Figure 11 — Lyons and Jensen in Houston's Fifth Ward, Looking East (October 1956)

Not only were Black Houstonians disproportionately displaced by highway construction, but they were also more likely to be adversely affected from the loss of their homes and businesses. The statistics provided, along with the roadsTaken interactive map, tell only part of this complex story. Freeway construction during this period extended beyond the city’s core with the development of the Outer Belt — now known as Sam Houston Parkway — and continues with ongoing projects today. As of publication, the Texas Department of Transportation is building two urban freeway expansions, the North Houston Highway Improvement Project and the I-10 expansion from Heights Boulevard to I-45, which are estimated to displace thousands more Houstonians in the coming years. As the debate around these projects and the future of Houston’s urban freeway network evolve, roadsTaken aims to provide both policymakers and the public with a deeper understanding of the city’s long history of urban freeway construction and displacement.

Click here for the full-view version of the “roadsTaken” interactive map and database of Houston’s highway displacement.      

Previous Section

Notes

^[1] Matt Drwenski, Uilvim Ettore Gardin Franco, and Bruno Sousa, “roadsTaken: The History of Highway Displacement in Houston,” Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/roads-taken.

^[2] Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa.

^[3] This excludes data from the South Freeway and the North Loop East freeway, both of which experienced large demographic changes between 1950 and the 1960s.

^[4] D’Vera Cohn, “Census History: Counting Hispanics,” March 3, 2010, Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/03/03/census-history-counting-hispanics-2/.

^[5] Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa.

^[6] Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa.

^[7] Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa. Display “Legend” to see key for building types.

^[8] As was the case for the Lyons Avenue and Harbor Drive area. For more information, see the forthcoming article on the protest of the dead-ending of Lyons Avenue by the East Freeway on roadsTaken.

^[9] Mark H. Rose and Raymond A. Mohl, Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939 (University of Tennessee Press, 2012), 55–67.

^[10] “’Build Expressways Through Slum Areas,’” The American City 66, no. 11 (November 1951): 125.

^[11] Karen Benjamin, video call with the author, October 2, 2023.

^[12] Rose and Mohl, 57.

^[13] John R. Logan and Harvey Luskin Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (University of California Press, 1987), 168–70.

^[14] Curtis Lang, “A Depleted Legacy: Public Housing in Houston,” Cite 33 (Fall/Winter 1995): 14; Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa.

^[15] U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Public Works, Select Subcommittee on Real Property Acquisition, Real Property Acquisition Practices and Adequacy of Compensation in Federal and Federally Assisted Programs: Hearings Before the Select Subcommittee on Real Property Acquisition of the Committee on Public Works, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., February 27, 1964 (Boston, MA) and February 28, 1964 (Providence, RI), 36.

^[16] Jesse L. Buffington, “Consequences of Freeway Displacement to Urban Residents in Low Valued Housing” (Texas Transportation Institute, 1973), 96, https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/148-3.pdf.

^[17] Kyle Shelton, Power Moves: Transportation, Politics, and Development in Houston (University of Texas Press, 2017), 55–6, https://doi.org/10.7560/314296.

^[18] Shelton, 55–71.

^[19] Real Property Acquisition Practices, 31, 106, 478, 493.

^[20] Michael A. Perfater and Gary R. Allen, “Diachronic Analysis of Social and Economic Effects of Relocation due to Highways,” Transportation Research Record 617 (1976): 24.

^[21] Buffington, 86.

^[22] William G. Adkins and Frank F. Eichman, Jr., “Consequences of Displacement by Right of Way to 100 Home Owners, Dallas Texas,” A Report to the Texas Highway Department and to the Bureau of Public Roads, United States Department of Commerce, no. 16, (Texas Transportation Institute, September 1961), 23.

^[23]Jesse L. Buffington, Dale L. Schafer, and Clyde Bullion, “Attitudes, Opinions, and Experiences of Relocatees in Texas Displaced by Highways Under the 1970 Relocation Assistance Program” (Texas Transportation Institute, November 1974), 18, https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/159-2.pdf.

^[24] Matthew R. Griffis, “2018-07-16 Oral History with Myrtle Ross,” Oral History Archive, 2018, 6, https://aquila.usm.edu/rocinterviews/6.

^[25] “Heritage District,” Houston Historic Sites & Landmarks, City of Houston, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ce9c3393ea8943429f0c7671bbc2a4fc.

^[26] Dorothee Sauter, “Ernie Attwell: Desegregation Brought No Change to the Neighborhood,” Oral History Project, Center for Public History, University of Houston, November 22, 2004, https://av.lib.uh.edu/media_objects/pc289j157.

^[27] Peter C. Papademetriou, Transportation and Urban Development in Houston, 1830-1980 (Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, 1982), 75–9.

^[28] Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa.

^[29] “Southwest Freeway Will Not Touch Bellaire!” The Bellaire Texan, January 11, 1956.

^[30] Erik Slotboom, Houston Freeways: A Historical and Visual Journey (Houston Freeways, 2003), 167–72.

^[31] See forthcoming sections on these two protests on “roadsTaken.”

^[32] Hattie Mae White, interview by Jon Schwartz, University of Houston Libraries Special Collections, This Is Our Home It Is Not For Sale Film Collection, November 10, 1985, https://av.lib.uh.edu/media_objects/rf55z7802.

^[33] Ellen Middlebrook, “Ellifritt Urges Shifting Of Southwest Freeway,” The Houston Post, March 4, 1959; Drwenski, Gardin Franco, and Sousa; Barry J. Kaplan, “Race Income, and Ethnicity: Residential Change in a Houston Community, 1920-1970,” Houston History, Winter 1981, https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/race-income-ethnicity-HR-3.1.pdf; and Hattie Mae White, interview by Jon Schwartz.

^[34] Mimi Crossley, “2 Citizens Groups Trying to Stop Construction of Freeways,” The Houston Post, February 19, 1972.

^[35] For the full story of the Harrisburg freeway protests, see Slotboom, 198–204; and Kyle Shelton, Power Moves, 91–119.

^[36] Shelton, 118–9.

^[37] Bill Connolly, “’There’s a Limit to Freeways,’” The Houston Chronicle, January 12, 1965.

^[38] “Roscoe Jones Interview, 1968,” Burdette Keeland Audio Collection, University of Houston Libraries Special Collections, 1968, https://av.lib.uh.edu/media_objects/x633f107f.

^[39] See “History” section.

^[40] Scott N. Markley et al., “Housing Unit and Urbanization Estimates for the Continental U.S. in Consistent Tract Boundaries, 1940–2019,” Scientific Data 9, no. 82 (March 11, 2022), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01184-x.

^[41] Photograph is from Dan Hardy of the Houston Chronicle. More images of the Fifth Ward can be found at “Fifth Ward,” Chron, November 9, 2018, https://www.chron.com/houston/slideshow/Fifth-Ward-187134.php.           
 

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