“The Revolutionary Idea Behind America’s Urban Trails” and Why We Need More Visionaries Like Olmsted Now
December 2, 2021
Do you ever flag or bookmark an article that you intend to read, forget about it, only to rediscover it months later? It happens all the time for me - too much to read, too little time. Here’s one I rediscovered this week from National Geographic: https://lnkd.in/eAQYJ59U
The section that caught my attention in particular was about the neighborhood I live in Boston, Jamaica Plain, or as locals call it “JP.” “In 1969, local activists in Boston showed how underserved communities could change consensus and take ownership of Olmsted’s vision of connective green spaces. They stopped a highway project that would have cut through multiracial communities in South Boston, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain. In its place, they persuaded the state to build a winding greenway of bike and pedestrian paths. It was dubbed the Southwest Corridor, and today it links more Boston neighborhoods to southernmost gems of the Emerald Necklace.”
I ride my bike (sometimes with my two year old son), walk, and run along the Southwest Corridor weekly. I think about how much my neighborhood would be different today if local activists did not stand up to the highway plan that would have torn apart JP. However, the highway development in underserved and disproportionately black and brown communities in major cities across the U.S. and their negative impact is still very present and visible today; the JP story is an exception. There is progress being made with many cities removing expressways, and more emphasis on building public spaces, bike lanes, trails, and the like, but now is another crucial time with the influx of infrastructure spending coming, and ensuring that we don’t prioritize the private automobile above people.
Main takeaway: When we prioritize the automobile as the primary form of transportation in cities, it takes several decades to dig ourselves out. Olmsted was a visionary and we need more visionaries to plan for the future of our cities.
