Such was my reaction to learn about the proposed "Inner-City Connector" in Shreveport, Louisiana, a 3.6-mile long freeway extension which would close a gap in I-49 and make it easier for long-distance motorists to zip through Shreveport without ever seeing the city. Strong Towns member Jennifer Hill laid out the story behind this project and the reasons it's a colossally ill-conceived proposal in an article yesterday.

But the fact that we're seriously having this discussion in 2017 is disturbing, given the ignominious and well-documented history of projects exactly like this. The fact that we're seriously still having this discussion in places like Shreveport is evidence of how disastrously out-of-touch both the priorities of the Louisiana DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, and the planning and funding mechanisms used to produce large infrastructure projects like this, still are.

Some historical context is necessary here. Much of it is probably familiar to Strong Towns readers, but it bears repeating.

A Brief History of Urban Highways

America has a long and shameful history of ramming ill-conceived freeways through—almost always—low-income neighborhoods populated largely by people of color. These projects have invariably destroyed and displaced whole communities, devastated the tax base of cities while subsidizing suburban commuters, and created unseemly "moats" of high-speed traffic and polluted air that ruined the urban fabric of city neighborhoods for a generation or more.

The economic death spirals into blight, abandonment, and rampant crime that were endured by countless inner-city neighborhoods in the second half of the 20th century probably owe as much to freeways as to any other single factor.