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Interstate highways caused significant population declines in central cities. In a recent working paper (Brinkman and Lin, 2019), we argued that highways' adverse effects on local quality of life versus their regional accessibility benefits were a significant factor in U.S. central city decline. Those declines were presaged by initial policies that did not anticipate the disamenity effects of urban highways and slow responses to the protests against early urban interstate construction.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 authorized and financed the Interstate Highway System to complete 41,000 miles of interstates by 1969. Commensurate with the ambitious scale and timeline, early construction was fast: planners faced few constraints and little opposition. Initial national design standards called cities to feature several radial interstate routes intersecting near the central business district and one or more circumferential beltways (AASHTO, 1957; U.S. Congress, 1944).
Interstate boosters emphasized highways' accessibility benefits but neglected negative quality-oflife effects. Central city mayors and downtown business groups argued that highways were "the most effective way to relieve traffic congestion ... and enhance access to the business district" (Fogelson, 2001: 262). Few anticipated negative side effects. A plan for Detroit showed highways with a "'parkway' ambience ... reinforced by groups of pedestrians ambling along only a few feet from the freeway, as though it were a Parisian boulevard" (DiMento and Ellis, 2013: 19). Even Lewis Mumford, later an important critic of urban highways, initially "viewed the...