About this report This report was released in July 2023. This project was conducted under the leadership of Calvin Gladney, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, and Beth Osborne, vice president of transportation. Abigail Grimminger, communications manager, was the primary author of this report, with additional contributions from Stephen Kenny, policy associate. Atlanta and … Continued

As Part I shows, intentional decisions were made to divide and harm communities of color. And as Part II shows, the overt racism of the early interstate age may no longer exist in the same form, but our standards and measures and models are failing to fix that damage, and often make it worse. This … Continued

How today’s policies and decisions inflict damage and perpetuate past harms The transportation or land-use professionals and policymakers practicing today are not the ones responsible for the mistakes made decades ago, nor for the racial inequities that were literally built into our communities. But two other things are also true: First, the problems created by … Continued

History quantified: Examining the damage in Washington, DC The devastation, disconnection, and displacement of highways plowed through cities and neighborhoods is easy to see, but rarely do we quantify the costs in terms of lost wealth, land, residents, and businesses. The damage also could have been much worse, with many planned highways never built or … Continued

History quantified: Examining the damage in Atlanta The devastation, disconnection, and displacement of highways plowed through cities and neighborhoods is easy to see, but rarely do we quantify the costs in terms of lost wealth, land, residents, and businesses. The damage also could have been much worse, with many planned highways never built or completed. … Continued

The Interstate age: Damaging divisions, created by design As the story goes, after being shaped in his youth by a long and delay-filled trip in a military convoy across the United States on the country’s limited network of small highways and backroads in 1919, President Dwight Eisenhower advanced plans to create a national network of … Continued

Divided by Design Low-income communities and communities of color have been and continue to be disproportionately harmed by our approach to transportation in the United States. This damage has come in many forms, but most egregiously through the construction of the Interstate Highway System. A growing understanding of this reality helped lead to the creation … Continued

Transportation for America’s Community Connectors portal provides tools and information for advocates to decode the complex and confusing maze of programs, acronyms, and decision points that determine what gets built with federal and state transportation dollars.  Who actually chooses how federal transportation dollars get spent? Did you know USDOT has almost no say on the new highways … Continued

Supporting leaders in small and mid-sized communities—in and out of government—to repair the damage of divisive infrastructure. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Smart Growth America in collaboration with Equitable Cities, the New Urban Mobility Alliance, and America Walks have created the Community Connectors program to help advance locally driven projects that will … Continued

Community Connectors applications are closed. Thank you for your interest. Learn more about the Community Connectors Grant program On Tuesday, June 6th the Community Connectors team hosted a webinar outlining the program’s guidelines and requirements, and answering questions from prospective applicants that will help you and your partners put together a strong application. Watch the … Continued