People before Highways: Boston Activists, Urban Planners, and a New Movement for City Making

by Karilyn Crockett

In 1948, inspired by changes to federal law, Massachusetts government officials started hatching a plan to build multiple highways circling and cutting through the heart of Boston, making steady progress through the 1950s. But when officials began to hold public hearings in 1960, as it became clear what this plan would entail—including a disproportionate impact on poor communities of color—the people pushed back. Activists, many with experience in the civil rights and antiwar protests, began to organize.

Linking archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and oral history, Karilyn Crockett in People before Highways offers ground-level analysis of the social, political, and environmental significance of a local anti-highway protest and its lasting national implications. The story of how an unlikely multiracial coalition of urban and suburban residents, planners, and activists emerged to stop an interstate highway is one full of suspenseful twists and surprises, including for the actors themselves. And yet, the victory and its aftermath are undeniable: federally funded mass transit expansion, a linear central city park, and a highway-less urban corridor that serves as a daily reminder of the power and efficacy of citizen-led city making.

Genres: Urban Planning, History, Nonfiction, Urban Studies, Cities, Urbanism, Politics

224 pages, Paperback

Published February 2, 2018

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very academic and dry. What could have been a wonderfully woven tale of communities and government moving from protests to cooperation loses any feeling and emotion in this book. Would love to see this subject matter approached with more flair and storytelling.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a fascinating read! I've lived right off of the Southwest Corridor for the past 15 years, first by Stonybrook (where we moved to due to rising rents in Mission Hill in college) and for the past 12 years near Jackson Square. I loosely knew the history of the eight-lane highway that was planned to rip through the neighborhood before activists put a stop to it, but this book - part oral history, part ethnography, and part archival research - detailed the antihighway movement from start to finish in a very effective way. I kept going back to the maps of the proposed Southwest Expressway and Inner Belt, imagining what might have been! I took one star off my rating because I did fall asleep while reading this once or twice, and I wish there were more maps and images. Regardless, I loved reading about the history of the movement, the activists and planners, Mildred Hailey and Anna Mae Cole (the namesake of the community center that graciously houses our neighborhood's free COVID-19 test site), and the origins of things like the Wake Up the Earth festival I attend every year, Roxbury Community College, and even the community farm across the street.

I walk and/or bike and/or take the Orange Line along the Corridor Park almost every day, and I am so grateful to be able to do so. Cities (and streets) are for PEOPLE! So glad to now know some of the stories of the people who made it possible. I hope I can afford to stay here another 15+ years!

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Bostonian who lives a block from SW Corridor Park (and has always enjoyed walking along it) and someone who heard a lot about the anti-highway movement when organizing against the city's 2024 Olympic bid, I was immediately intrigued by this book. Crockett does a great job at showing the power of an organized citizenry and deconstructing the self-professed neutrality of disciplines like urban planning. The book serves as an always timely reminder that urban space is a place of contestation and that activists should never assume that bureaucratic experts inherently have more knowledge than the community their projects will be affecting. She also shows how important it is for activists to forge coalitions across neighborhoods and demographic groups, and the value of making opportunity costs clear to the public (and how to radicalize and organize new constituencies).

That said, my biggest complaint is one that may seem small but is quite big in context: there are very few maps. To fully explain a battle about urban space, you need maps. Lots of them. It makes the story far more real.

Building on this point, I was struck by the lack of discussion about the politics around rerouting the Orange Line. I know people who remember well when it used to run to Dudley Square and how residents were promised that their old station would be replaced by something at least as good when the Line was rerouted (to now go through Roxbury Crossing). Telling that story would help flesh out the themes Crockett discusses. Beyond that, the chapter that was written in first person was weak as it veered from the tone and authorial voice in the other chapters (although it was certainly still enlightening to read).

All that being said, this is a great read for Bostonians looking to learn more about their city, activists seeking to organize around the use of public space (a friend of mine once said, in a simplistic but not untrue way, that all urban politics come to real estate--and the rest is commentary), and scholars interested in social movements, urban politics, and the politics of space and the built environment.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me a long time to read (like multiple starts and restarts since June of 2018), but despite its adjacency to my professional work, I think I needed to read it now.

While it has the word “highways” in the title, this book is not so much about the roadway designs or the trains that came later, this book is about multiracial collation building, cross-class community building, neighborhood collaboration, finding unexpected allies, and understanding just how long it takes to build a great city when you’re trying to change the underlying status quo assumptions.

Whether you focus on stopping the construction of the Inner Belt through Cambridge (mid-1960’s) or altering the design of the turnpike realignment in Allston (today’s bad MassDOT decision), it’s so very hard to convince the people in power that the better future does not mean more space for cars, that transit isn’t some trivial second-class option, that progress is not about speed for suburbanites.

I was inspired by so many people and actions documented in this book (many of whom I know), but I was most excited to read/learn about the Black United Front and their bold move to build an information house on cleared land to reclaim it for their community (p. 74).

Most recommended for Bostonians who fear a lack of imagination is stifling the creation of a more equitable and climate sensitive future for our city. Also recommended for urban planning nerds and interested space-shaping advocates nationwide.

Full disclosure: I know and admire Karilyn and her civil service and academic work.

[Charles Denison IV · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about the anti-highway movement in the Boston area, and how it led to the cancellation of the Inner Belt and extension of I-95 into Boston, and the first ever flex of Federal highway funds to public transit. The author does a great job discussing how people from all of the affected communities banded together to fight that state's plans and ultimately won. This series of events largely changed the conversation around transportation planning to be more locally focused.

My only criticism of the book is that it would have been great to have more photos and illustrations of the area, before during and after the highway was proposed and the Orange Line and Southwest Corridor Park were built.

[Leslie Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've lived in the Boston area since the mid-1990's and this book illuminated some unknown history for me. What will stick with me are the following: (1) how information about the highways (e.g., use of street-level maps) were effectively communicated to communities; and (2) grassroots organizing vs. "experts" in planning highways (e.g., whom do they benefit?). The book may not be as actor-driven as other social science books I've been reading, but it isn't dry either. Now, I want to bike along the Southwest Corridor.

[Nadav David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a brilliant and humbling book to read as a Boston-based organizer. Reminds me how much we have to learn from the past about building multiracial, cross class movements.

[Harneen]

Great history of urban development in Bosotn -- and the power of fighting back.
Very relevant to all urban struggles today.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was wonderful. For a long time, I’ve been looking forward to reading Dr. Crockett’s work on the Boston anti-highway activists and the people (“People”) behind the park and transit system I use several times a week to commute and recreate. This is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in public policy in the Boston region. I learned a ton about my community, and am grateful for it.

The book vacillates a bit between scholarly literature review and more direct fieldwork. Gets way better toward the end.