History OF Highways
A Community Divided
- Following the redlining of the city, The “Negro Segregation Project” of 1935 was approved and the goal of removing and relocating all negro residents of St Pete to a dedicated district was initiated.
Displacements and relocations of Blacks, engineered by government agencies over five decades, impacted 12 times more Black-led families, organizations, and businesses compared to the impact in White areas of the city. - The construction of 175 and the interstate highway was part of a larger pattern of displacement in St Pete. 2,100 Black families, businesses, and institutions from their homes in the city’s segregation-era Black neighborhoods.
- Despite being 16% of population, twice as many African Americans were displaced per square mile of highway compared to whites.
- the number of Black businesses has never returned to its peak before the highway construction. Black homeownership is lower now than it was at the time of the signing of the fair housing act. Black homeownership rates are dramatically lower than white homeownership, in part due to the erasure of black wealth that occurred during the displacements of the era of "urban renewal"
(Source: Building bridges and Supporting Racial Equality in st pete)
2100 people Displaced
this view looks east from 16th st. On the north side of 5th Ave S you can see the great homes of Sugar Hill, where St Pete's prominent elite black families lived. South of 5th Ave South you see the old Campbell Park neighborhood. The city at one time proposed extending 6th ave S through the park to be a dividing line and relocate black residents but instead accomplished the construction of 175.
175 dominates the landscape now. Nearly 450 feet wide including the rights of way. It is built as a wall across midtown, with few fenestrations. From 16th to MLK there is no access other than a dilapidated pedestrian bridge covered in barbed wire and graffiti.