Newfound land : urban highway removal and planning the land it uncovers

Abstract

When the interstate highway system was routed through urban centers during the 1950's and 1960's, few thought these elevated expressways would have a serious detrimental impact on the cities they served. These interstates were designed to bring a new ease to travel between cities. Unhappiness with the system began before much of the Interstate Highway system was complete, when communities were divided, and in some cases obliterated. This pattern of urban destruction can be prominently seen across the North America and around the world. Recently, cities have begun to undo this destruction by removing highways. Several projects, most notably the Central Artery Tunnel Project in Boston, have begun to bring awareness of what has become a new urban revitalization tool. With Boston's completion near, and San Francisco's Embarcadero standing as a successful completed example, cities around the world are beginning to acknowledge the problems elevated highways continue to create today, leading them to plan for their removal. Despite the abundance of projects, none of the municipalities currently undertaking highway removal have used past precedent to guide their design processes. This has occurred because cities see their projects as unique and individual, when they actually belong to a larger set of urban highway removal projects. To the contrary, I argue that urban highway removal and redevelopment projects represent a new urban design typology.