How did Shreveport, Louisiana get to its current condition? If the state of our city is the result of past and present "leadership" vision, wisdom and determination, then did leaders (business, civic and political / governmental), entrusted to shepherd citizens into the future, intend that Shreveport reside at or near the bottom of most city well-being indicators? Did leaders intend that 56% of 2019 city households live in poverty? Was neglecting infrastructure maintenance part of the growth strategy envisioned by past leaders? EPA citations resulted in a $1.1 billion consent decree for sewer repairs that are part of a likely $3 billion infrastructure maintenance deficit. How did we get here? Misinformed good intentions, or perhaps well-informed greed? Or both?

The Shreveport story is reminiscent of the Hans Christian Anderson fable about the emperor that fell victim to two swindlers who sold him clothes made from a "magnificent fabric," invisible to the unfit for office and those unusually stupid. While the swindlers pretended to make the emperor’s new outfit, word about the fabric spread through the ministry and townspeople. A new community belief emerged from a lie. With great industry and promotion, the swindlers proudly showed the emperor’s new clothes. Convinced of the myth, everyone who could not see the fabric was afraid of consequences from confessing their unworthiness or stupidity as judged by what they could not see, including the emperor. Fear and self-doubt created a fake reality; everyone participated in perpetuating the lie, believing others could see what they could not. Looking in the mirror, even the emperor chose to cowardly conceal that his newly fabricated reality judged him lacking intelligence and fitness. Rather than question, he embraced the lie, proclaiming that what did not exist was ‘Magnificent! Excellent! Unsurpassed! A remarkable fit!’ All the townspeople lining the streets exclaimed the success of the fine new clothes... until a curious child in the crowd expressed the truth: “But he hasn’t got anything on.”

The Highway Emperors Buy Into a Swindle

Shreveport’s Emperors story begins in 1950. The kingdom of Shreveport certainly was not perfect, but it was a vibrant city of 127,000 people living within 24 square miles (5,300 per square mile). Shreveport’s population was 67% of its 2018 population but lived in only 20% of its current land area. During this 1950’s era Shreveport was appropriately branded ‘a city on-the-grow.’ Downtown thrived, with approximately 35,000 people living within walking distance. Although not understood by the city's leaders at the time, inner-city African American neighborhoods were also among the vibrant places in Shreveport.

Over thousands of years humanity had learned how to build successful cities. But during the 1960s, Shreveport's leadership embraced a new vision for its future that was untested but promised to increase the beauty and virtue of cities across the U.S. The ‘magnificent fabric’ narrative— freedom and increased prosperity by reshaping the city as automobile-centric — was made more compelling by the federal government paying 90% of the cost. President Eisenhower’s original vision for the interstate system was to connect cities across the US, not cut through their downtowns. The curious expansion of his vision to include cutting through cities was the swindle that seduced countless cities across America, including Shreveport.

Shreveport’s leaders bought in, not wanting to be left behind or to miss out on the promises of prosperity and big federal dollars. Reorganizing the growth of cities required selecting cut-through freeway routes which were strategically placed through the homes of citizens with the least ability to resist. The urban sections of Interstate 20 were routed to cut through the heart of Shreveport running east to west, wiping out ‘Crosstown’ and severing other vibrant African American neighborhoods. A new modern era of growth began.

In retrospective, a story of tragic irony was emerging. Shreveport and the country were struggling with civil rights at the same time that city, state and federal governments were wiping out vibrant, economically viable African American neighborhoods. Clearing paths for urban freeways did irreparable harm to the communities the civil rights movement hoped to empower.

The new Shreveport was leaving the old behind. City growth pushed outward. Our once high quality and economically efficient growth patterns conceded to the new cut-through highway culture. Shifting policies sent a clear message: the inner city will be abandoned.

In recent years this shift in growth patterns has been exposed as a "Growth Ponzi Scheme" by groups including the Strong Towns organization and movement. This swindle creates an illusion of public wealth generated in the short term from new development that extends city infrastructure outward. The illusion is created by ignoring long-term accumulating infrastructure maintenance deficits, an unfortunate long-time standard practice of municipal accounting. All aspects of city operations and finances increasingly stress toward a breaking point. Although counterintuitive, Strong Towns research shows that neglected inner-city neighborhoods are subsidizing the freeway-induced residential enclaves on the outskirts.