Highways by definition disenfranchise those who live around them for the "greater good". Hurting people for the "greater good" is not unique. Think of the hundreds of thousands of people that lost their jobs because they refused to get vaccinated for moral or religious reasons. Like interstates, these mandates had a disproportionate impact on a specific group of Americans, those with specific religious convictions against vaccines... does that make them "evil" and discriminatory? (I happen to think they were wrong, but not because of their disproportionate impact, but because they served no purpose).

Inner-city communities represented the path of least resistance and generally, the lowest "valued" property. And as noted, poor people of any color have less political clout than other groups.

An example of what happens when you target middle class communities, just played out in my city. The highway group responsible for building toll roads tried to run a highway through the middle of town. Impacting not the poor, but the middle-class families that lived there and whose children attended the local high school along which the new highway would run.

By doing so, the highway commission took on the "soccer moms" and had their heads handed to them. The highway commission tried to run these "moms" over and instead got steamrolled by the most powerful force in America... moms. Just look at the last Virgina governor's race.

https://patch.com/california/sanclemente/toll-road-extension-through-san-clemente-shot-down-maybe-forever

I am not making the argument that taking advantage of the urban poor was ethical or fair, only that it was "pragmatic" and it served the "greater good" at the expense of those impacted.

As an aside, my family personally experienced significant loss when Interstate 78 was built and the government seized a sizable portion of our property and paid us a small fee, while dramatically impacting the remaining property which now was adjacent to an 8-lane interstate. So, people of color were not the only ones impacted, nor the only ones who suffered economic loss.

So, the legacy of the highway system is...

1) The construction of the Interstate system was perhaps one of the greatest infrastructure projects ever done and it did link our country together in a way that has facilitated a great deal of good.

2) individuals got hurt along the way, including people of color living in urban areas. Farmers got hurt and anyone who did not have the political power to divert the highway. I doubt if our land was owned by the Kennedy's, it would have been taken by the government.

3) Therefore, from a purely economic and political perspective, it made sense for the interstate commission to avoid groups with political power to block construction. No matter how unfair it was.

4) Having observed what happens when you take on groups with greater political power, the question becomes is the nation better off or worse off because of the interstate system, since it may well not have been built if it tried to push through highways in communities and individuals with political leverage.

5) As someone that uses an interstate highway several times a week and virtually 100% of the time when I take vacation. I can see the benefits, even as my family suffered loss. Yes, we were "victims", but it's time to move on and not live in the past. Furthermore, while I do live in an upper middle-class community within our city, I also live adjacent to an interstate, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. Crime is higher, due to the easy on and easy off access of the interstate to criminals from outside our community. But so is commuting, people living in a comparable neighborhood have a 20 minute longer daily commute (10 minutes each way) because they have to "get to the interstate" first.