DETROIT: I-75/375
Posted 31 May 2025
According to official sources, highway construction and “urban renewal” in Detroit displaced roughly 43,000 people during the 1950s/60s (1). Historians estimate the number to be far higher—closer to 100,000 (2). Nearly all sources agree that Black Detroiters were disproportionately impacted, accounting for roughly 70-75% of those displaced, despite only making up 16% of Detroit’s total population (3)(4).
Along with adjacent urban renewal/slum clearance, construction of I-375/75 (seen here) in particular devastated Black Detroit. These projects resulted in the destruction of the Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods, the residential/commercial core of the city’s Black community. The neighborhoods formed in the early 1900s, as the city’s Black population exploded from 4k in 1900, to 120k in 1930 (with Detroit’s total population growing from 285k to 1.5m)(5). The ascendance of the automobile industry fueled this growth, anchored by GM, Ford, & Chrysler. For Black residents, migration to Detroit was within the context of the larger Great Migration, as millions fled the Jim Crow south looking for opportunities in northern/western cities (6).
As in other cities, those escaping the de jure racism of the south found new forms of institutional discrimination in the north. In Detroit, the widespread adoption of restrictive covenants and other racist housing practices resulted in the concentration of the city’s Black population in a linear pattern, with Hastings St. (now the Chrysler Freeway) as the central axis; covenants hemmed in the neighborhood to the west, while rail lines acted as eastern and northern borders, resulting in a narrow strip (7). Despite the institutional barriers, residents built a self-sufficient community anchored by hundreds of Black-owned businesses, churches, schools, &c.
As the white population of central Detroit began to leave for the (deed-restricted) suburbs after WW2 (along with much of the auto industry), city leaders viewed highways as a means to better connect those growing suburbs with Downtown jobs (and to retain employers from also moving to the suburbs), while removing “undesirable” populations in the process (8).
To connect the suburbs of Oakland and Macomb Counties to Downtown, highway planners needed to cut through the “inner city.” Choosing the Hastings route would enable the city both to create the suburban connection, while also erasing what city leaders viewed as “slums,” and providing an opportunity for large-scale redevelopment. Mayor Albert Cobo, in office from 1950-1957, advocated for these “urban renewal” projects as a means to stem what he called the “negro invasion” (9).
I-375 would destroy the densest portion of Hastings, near the river in Black Bottom; while adjacent urban renewal projects seized residential properties through eminent domain, replacing the working class Black neighborhood with housing aimed at middle and upper-class white residents (designed by Mies van der Rohe). The highway continued north into Paradise Valley, reducing Hastings St. to a frontage road along the majority of its route, before continuing its path of destruction north through the linear corridor of Black Detroit.
As in other cities, “slum clearance” largely resulted in the reproduction of slum conditions elsewhere in the central city. Virtually no assistance was provided to displaced residents—the vast majority of whom were renters and received no compensation whatsoever—who were forced to relocate to other, already overcrowded neighborhoods (and were prevented from moving to the suburbs due to racial covenants)(10).
The community that remained has been forced to deal with barriers to mobility and economic opportunity, as well as the persistent public health impacts that result from highway pollution. Today, many of the structures of I75/375 have reached the end of their useful life and are in need of significant repair. The sunken trench of I-375, separating former Black Bottom from Downtown, in particular is crumbling. Rather than replace the highway as is, promisingly, MDOT is considering converting the right of way into a smaller boulevard. Less promisingly, as designed the new boulevard will be up to 9 lanes, constituting yet another barrier.
From Outlier Media: “It’s a real missed opportunity for the city because the road is so wide that it’s going to effectively feel like a highway by another name,” said Bryan Boyer, a resident of nearby Lafayette Park and professor at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. “Instead of reconnecting communities, it is going to make a bigger gulf between downtown and the eastside.” (11).
Endnotes
Whitaker, David (2023). “Understanding the Impact of I-375 Construction.” City of Detroit City Council, Legislative Policy Division. https://detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitmi.localhost/files/2023-09/Impact%20of%20I%20375%20ek%202.pdf (accessed 21 May 2025).
Yen, Hope (2022). “Buttigieg Awards Grant to Tear Down Divisive Detroit Highway.” Associated Press.
Detroit Future City (2023). “A Call for Reparative Investment in Black Bottom Paradise Valley.” https://detroitfuturecity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/DFC_BBPVBrief_FINAL_8_28_2023.pdf (accessed 21 May 2025).
Susaneck, Adam Paul (2022). “Mr. Biden, Tear Down This Highway.” New York Times.
Rector, Josiah. “Detroit: Context.” Mapping Inequality, Redling in New Deal America. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/map/MI/Detroit/context#loc=12/42.3532/-83.0503&mapview=polygons (accessed 21 May 2025).
Wilkerson, Isabelle (2010). The Warmth of Other Suns. Random House.
“Detroit Demographic Map, 1940” University of Michigan Department of History. https://policing.umhistorylabs.lsa.umich.edu/s/detroitunderfire/item/4256 (accessed 21 May 2025).
Archer, Deborah N. (2025). Dividing Lines. W.W. Norton.
Sugrue, Thomas (1998). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. University of Princeton Press. Pp 249.
Archer, Deborah N. (2025).
Mondry, Aaron (2023). “Highway By Another Name: I-375 Redesign Plan Disappoints Many Detroiters.” Outlier Media. https://outliermedia.org/i375-detroit-freeway-redesign-removal/ (accessed 31 May 2025).