Oct 07 2015
The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City
GUEST: Eric Avila is a professor of history, Chicano Studies, and urban planning at UCLA. He wrote the book Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles. His latest book is called The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City.
*This segment was originally featured on Uprising on July 8, 2014.
The American freeway is both a blessing and a curse. It enables speedy travel across cities and states. But it also divides communities physically and economically, pollutes and decimates surrounding neighborhoods, and provokes major political battles.
Often communities of color have been on the negative end of the impacts of freeway construction. Freeways are associated with urban sprawl and a loss of community. Historic homes are bulldozed or have their values plummet in service to the freeway.
But freeways are also unexpected canvases for art and political expression.
2 Responses to “The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City”
Interesting but must make the point that the decision in the 50s to privatize transportation meant that segregation could be easily maintained. Therefore the Freeways were a double attack on communities of color: they destroyed them and kept the reaces and classes well-separated. It continues today and is in the process of spreading, as France, for example, a country where high speed trains are easily available, and reduce pollution, is nevertheless in the midst of building toll roads to connect cities. This in a warming world!
Talk about freeway art being political, check out this 7 minute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiKuL-LdU2k&index=9&list=PLZ2ODCFJw4TQqYual10CAjYDMyiGq7Rcd
What is weird is that this “you exist for your car” world is never seen as a fundamental divergence in human evolution. It is much easier now to feel that the Earth is not “your Home”, but an occupied planet, nothing more sentimental than that. The video is a tribute to KPFK.