Publications

@techreport{nokey,

title = {Further Implications of Freeway Siting in California: Freeway Development and Communities of Color in Colton, Fresno, and San Diego},

author = {Paul M. Ong and Chhandara Pech and Jacob L. Wasserman and Andres F. Ramirez and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Leila Ullmann and Megan Riley},

url = {https://knowledge.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/eScholarship-UC-item-0b31t9sf-1-1.pdf},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-02-01},

abstract = {This study examines the consequences of freeway construction on neighborhoods of color across California, with a focus on socioeconomic changes, route selection, community reactions and resistance, and the disruptions to residents, businesses, and other assets. Expanding on three prior case studies conducted by the research team, this study incorporates three additional case studies: South Colton, West Fresno, and City Heights in San Diego. The construction of freeways was a contributing mechanism to the perpetuation of racial inequality, weakening social institutions, disrupting local economies, and physically dividing neighborhoods. However, the outcomes varied across locations. In South Colton, a freeway was ultimately not built through its community of color, though largely for reasons of construction costs. City Heights, initially a predominantly non-Hispanic white neighborhood, underwent a demographic transformation driven by white flight during a decades-long pause in freeway construction. West Fresno did face consequences from freeway development but was also unique in its diversity of residents pre-freeway, including people of color and non-Hispanic white immigrant communities. Freeway development contributed to transforming West Fresno into an overwhelming community of color. Across these cases, freeways fragmented communities, displaced residents, and reinforced pre-existing racial divides. These racialized impacts stemmed from systemic socioeconomic marginalization and exclusion of people of color in the planning process. Today, public investments aimed at reconnecting communities offer an opportunity to address the enduring harms caused by freeways. However, achieving meaningful progress will require the integration of restorative justice principles into the planning and decision-making processes.},

keywords = {demographics, equity, neighborhoods, transportation},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {techreport}

}