Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) before and after construction
Construction of the Santa Monica Freeway cut through some of LA’s most diverse neighborhoods in the 1960s, displacings tens of thousands. It’s revealing of California’s priorities that while basic improvements to public transit can take years to realize, the government declared a “state of emergency” and fully mobilized last week after a fire shut down a portion of the 10. The highway is expected to reopen today.
In the meantime, local news and politicians (mainly, unsurprisingly, Republicans) have been rushing to blame the unhoused for starting the fire that damaged the highway, callously dehumanizing them and ignoring the structural factors that have contributed to the explosive growth of homelessness. It’s difficult not to hope for a world in which the state prioritized the housing crisis with the same urgency as it treats automobile delays.
Seen at the beginning, the 10 cut through Boyle Heights, with the East LA Interchange alone displacing at least 15,000 residents. Home to a large Latino and immigrant population, Boyle Heights was nicknamed the “Ellis Island of the West Coast.” Because of this diversity, planners viewed the neighborhood as a “slum,” using the highways as their tools of clearance. The government’s view of the neighborhood during the era is made clear in the redlining documents:
“[Boyle Heights] is a ‘melting pot’ area and is literally honeycombed with diverse and subversive racial elements. It is seriously doubted whether there is a single block in the which does not contain detrimental racial elements.”
Keep in mind that this is the government’s own language. More on Boyle Heights to come.
Other neighborhoods the 10 cut through include Sugar Hill, formerly the wealthiest Black neighborhood in Los Angeles (more on Sugar Hill in the previous post). Also the Pico District in Santa Monica, the heart of SM’s Black community (with the Belmar Triangle leveled for the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium). More on Santa Monica, the Belmar Triangle, and the rest of LA to come.
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