Credit: WDET 101.9 fm
In the latest installment of Detroit Today’s special series, Reckoning 375, we continue our look at the plans to replace I-375 with a six-lane boulevard, and how the city is engaging community members affected by the freeway’s initial construction — which tore through the predominately Black communities of Paradise Valley and Black Bottom.
Host Stephen Henderson spoke with Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, chief executive and equity officer with the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans — another city that saw vibrant Black neighborhoods destroyed by highway construction — about what the City of Detroit can learn from New Orleans’ community outreach efforts during its removal process of that highway.
Later on in the show, Henderson was joined by Regan Patterson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss why community engagement during highway removal projects is so important.