AVOID THE SINS OF THE PAST BY GETTING
MEANINGFUL INPUT FROM MARGINALIZED PEOPLE
While she campaigns to remove the Claiborne Expressway — lamenting that local leaders fumbled an opportunity so badly that New Orleans received only a fraction of federal funds aimed at reconnecting communities by removing freeways that divided and partially destroyed them — Amy Stelly fears another project could cause damage.
Stelly -- a planner, designer, teacher and artist -- said
a viaduct to serve new port cargo storage could not only hurt the environment,
but also impose more concrete and pollution on lower-income, not influential
communities.
Redlining is illegal, but Stelly said it effectively
exists because banks are leery of lending money to a business virtually
underneath an ugly, noisy freeway.
And grand homes near the viaduct still may only have a
third of the value that they would enjoy if they were in a neighborhood without
a destructive freeway.
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