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Sunday tra�ic from New York City to the Jersey Shore in 1941  (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS )

Editor’s Note: is article is adapted from remarks delivered by the author on March 16 at

the University of Arkansas’s Clinton School of Public Service, in Little Rock.

Little Rock is a fascinating city. With its river and renovated warehouses and bustling

River Market district, it reminds me a little bit of Pittsburgh, where I lived a decade ago

when I was starting my journalism career. At that time, Pittsburgh was still the butt of

many jokes, though determined city planners were starting to drive the transformation

that’s made it so popular. Today, there’s a growing population downtown and tech

companies are locating in the city once known for steel.

It’s a funny thing about cities: ey’re all unique, but they sometimes experience busts

and booms in the same way. Just look at all the cities across the country that are

experiencing a craft-beer renaissance and have condos in renovated warehouses

downtown.

Perhaps that’s why policymakers in the 1940s and 1950s thought of cities as human

bodies, bodies that had sicknesses and required cures. Bodies that got sick from the

same diseases and would improve from the same medicine.

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e postwar years were a time of unprecedented prosperity, when Americans were

buying refrigerators and televisions and homes, and wanted to leave the crowded heart

of city centers for space to put all their new belongings. e rise of the automobile

helped them do this. In 1940, 60 percent of Americans owned cars. In 1960, 80

percent did. Today, 95 percent of Americans own cars.

is increase of people heading to the suburbs in their cars caused something else new:

lots and lots of traffic. And to city planners, this was making communities unhealthy.

By the 1950s, highways were being recommended as “the greatest single element in the

cure of city ills,” according to Joseph DiMento, an Irvine professor who has studied

highway construction during that era. To keep cities healthy, planners said, regions

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e Role of Highways in American Poverty ey seemed like such a good idea in the 1950s.

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What Motivates Companies to Do Good—Altruism, or Guilt?•

e False Promise of Last Year's Wage Gains•

e Folly of State-Level Tax Cuts•

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needed unclogged arteries for a working circulatory system. In short, cities needed

highways to carry people out of the heart and to the rest of the body.

Luckily for city planners who wanted to keep their cities healthy, there was federal

money available to anyone who wanted to put in modern highways. While the 1944

Federal Highway Act only offered to cover 50 percent of construction costs for

highways, by 1956, the federal government had upped that share to 90 percent. So if

you’re a city planner in the 1950s, you can put in roads from your city to the fast-

growing suburbs for almost no cost at all.

Of course, there were people who couldn’t move to the suburbs. African Americans

were denied home loans by the federal government in certain areas, a practice called

redlining. Restrictive covenants prevented homeowners from selling to certain types of

people, often including African Americans. And they were also denied jobs and other

opportunities that would have allowed them to afford to buy a home in the �rst place.

When I was in Syracuse, I met a man named Manny Breland, who received a

scholarship to play basketball at Syracuse, graduated with a teaching degree, and was

denied job after job because he was black.

In many cities, these restrictions left African Americans crowded into small

neighborhoods. ey essentially weren’t allowed to move anywhere else.

City planners had a solution for this, too. ey saw the crowded African American areas

as unhealthy organs that needed to be removed. To keep cities healthy, planners said,

these areas needed to be cleared and redeveloped, the clogged hearts replaced with

something newer and spiffier. But open-heart surgery on a city is expensive. Highway

construction could be federally funded. Why not use those federal highway dollars to

also tear down blight and rebuild city centers?

e urban planner Robert Moses was one of the �rst to propose the idea of using

highways to “redeem” urban areas. In 1949, the commissioner of the Bureau of Public

Roads, omas MacDonald, even tried to include the idea of highway construction as a

technique for urban renewal in a national housing bill. (He was rebuffed.) But in cities

across America, especially those that didn’t want to—or couldn’t—spend their own

money for so-called urban renewal, the idea began to take hold. ey could have their

highways and they could get rid of their slums. With just one surgery, they could put in

more arteries, and they could remove the city’s heart.

is is exactly what happened in Syracuse, New York. e city had big dreams of

becoming an East Coast hub, since it was close to New York City, Pittsburgh,

Cleveland, and Boston. (In the early days of the car, close was relative.) Use federal

funds to build a series of highways, planners thought, and residents could easily get to

the suburbs and to other cities in the region. After all, who wouldn’t want to live in a

Syracuse that you could easily leave by car? And, if they put the highway in just the

right place, it would allow the city to use federal funds to eradicate what they called a

slum area in the center city.

at neighborhood, called the 15th Ward, was located between Syracuse University and

the city’s downtown. It was predominantly African American. One man who lived there

at the time, Junie Dunham, told me that although the 15th Ward was poor, it was the

type of community that you often picture in 1950s America: fathers going off to jobs in

the morning; kids playing in the streets; families gathering in the park on the weekends

or going on Sunday strolls. He remembers collecting scraps from the streets and

bringing them to the junkyard for pennies, which he would use to buy comics.

To outsiders, though, the 15th Ward was the scene of abject poverty close to two of

Syracuse’s biggest draws—the university and downtown. ey worried about race riots

because so many people were crowded into the neighborhood and prevented from

going anywhere else. ey decided that the best plan would be to tear down the 15th

Ward and replace it with an elevated freeway.   

e completion of the highway, I-81, which ran through the urban center, had the

same effect it has had in almost all cities that put interstates through their hearts. It

decimated a close-knit African American community. And when the displaced residents

from the 15th Ward moved to other city neighborhoods, the white residents �ed. It was

easy to move. ere was a beautiful new highway that helped their escape.

But this dynamic hurt the city’s �nances, too. As suburbs grew, they broke off from

cities, taking with them tax revenues, even though their residents still used city services.

Although the Syracuse region was relatively healthy, the city started to get very sick.

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Between 1940 and 2000, the population of the city of Syracuse shrank 30 percent, from

about 205,000 to 147,000. e population of Onondaga County, where Syracuse is

located, grew 55 percent, from 295,000 to 458,000.

Even today, the region is continuing to sprawl. e population of Onondaga County

peaked in 1970 and has stayed even since then. But residents are moving farther and

farther out. e county has added 7,000 housing units, 147 subdivisions, and 61 miles

of new roads since 2000. Developers build 160 units a year in areas that were once

rural. at’s costing the county money and resources as it adds sewer systems, water

pipes, and stormwater drainage to far-�ung subdivisions. As the county spends money,

the city is struggling to come up with enough revenue for essential things like mass

transit and schools.

What’s more, as the suburbs grow, they’re continuing to make sure that only wealthy

people can live there. ey pass zoning laws that restrict multifamily units. ey require

minimum lot sizes so that their only residents are people who can afford to live in big

houses. It’s a different kind of discrimination than half a century ago, but

discrimination nonetheless.

Today, the city of Syracuse has the highest concentration of poverty in America. What

that means is that large proportions of its population live below the federal poverty line,

and that they’re surrounded by other poor people, too. Nearly two-thirds of the black

poor live in high-poverty neighborhoods in Syracuse. Around 62 percent of the

Hispanic poor live in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Of course, the highway isn’t the only reason there’s so much concentrated poverty in

Syracuse. e economy has changed, and big employers such as the Carrier

Corporation and other manufacturing companies have left for overseas. Wages in

Syracuse and across America have remained stagnant, so even those people who are

employed are �nding it is much harder to make ends meet than it used to be.

Ironically, the people who are left in Syracuse now live in more concentrated poverty

than the people of the 15th Ward, which city leaders saw as so blighted decades ago.

is is bad for the health of the region. We know that people who live in concentrated

poverty have a much harder time succeeding because they’re surrounded by other poor

people. e economist Raj Chetty made this very clear in a series of papers he’s

published in the last two years through the Equality of Opportunity project. He found

that neighborhoods matter, and that a low-income child who is born in certain low-

income neighborhoods has a much smaller shot of achieving upward mobility than a

low-income child born in a better neighborhood.

Now, there are programs that move poor families from areas of concentrated poverty to

wealthy suburbs. I’ve written about some of them. Children thrive when they’re taken

out of housing projects and moved to condos where there are trees, parks, places to ride

their bikes, and good schools nearby. But it’s not realistic to move every family to a

different neighborhood, and besides, many people don’t want to move.

What does work, though, is bringing cities together so that poverty isn’t so

concentrated, so that the rich can’t just leave or wall themselves off from the poor, so

that the poor aren’t trapped in areas of concentrated poverty—what people used to call

slums.

* * *

In the last decade, Americans’ ideas of where they want to live have been changing.

Young professionals and Baby Boomers are moving back to inner cities, fueled by the

desire to live somewhere walkable, near restaurants, bars, and offices, where they don’t

need to have cars. A freeway passing through the heart of a city does not jibe very well

with an urban renaissance.

After all, walkable cities where people want to live probably don’t also have noisy

highways that create physical and psychological rifts that are extremely difficult to

bridge.

In some cities, planners have decided to help that urban renaissance and tear down the

freeways that seemed like a good idea in the 1950s.

Boston tore down its Central Artery in its famous Big Dig, turning a waterfront area of

the city that had long been clogged with traffic into a popular park and walking area.

Milwaukee demolished the Park East freeway in 1999 and urban development has

blossomed in the neighborhoods created by the highway’s removal. Manpower

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Corporation moved its headquarters to the area, and the average assessed land value

there grew 45 percent. e economically depressed town of New Haven is in the midst

of a project called Downtown Crossing, which has removed parts of Route 34 and is

creating a business district in an area of town bisected by the freeways.

Even some people in Syracuse want to tear down I-81. Like many highways built by

idealistic planners in the 1950s, I-81 is reaching the end of its useful life, according to

engineers. It isn’t wide enough to meet current highway standards, and parts of it are

literally falling apart. Some urban planners want to tear it down to create an urban

boulevard. For more than half a century, the road has divided the city, they say, and it’s

time to knit it together back again.

Some cities are taking the opposite approach. Alabama’s highway department is seeking

to widen parts of a highway that bisect Birmingham, Alabama, though the proposal

faces opposition from business leaders. Florida’s highway department declined to tear

down a highway in Miami called the Overton Expressway.

In the 1950s, when so many highways were built, planners across the country wanted to

help citizens access the prosperity that seemed accessible to everyone in the postwar

years. But starting with the exodus to the suburbs around that time, and continuing to

this day, prosperity has been out of reach for many Americans.

If part of a body is sick, the whole body can’t be healthy, and many cities across America

have parts that aren’t doing very well. But there are regions that are trying to become

healthier by coming together, rather than pulling apart. Tearing down a highway can be

one way to do this. But it’s not the only way. My colleague Derek ompson has

written about the miracle of Minneapolis, where high-income communities share tax

revenues and real estate with lower-income communities to spread prosperity. A year

ago, I visited Louisville, where a court ordered the county and city to combine their

school districts in order to integrate their schools. Today, Louisville is still trying to keep

its county and city schools integrated, even after the Supreme Court told the city it no

longer had to do so. In Chicago, a regional housing authority that covers eight counties,

including Cook County, is working to move families from the inner city to higher-

opportunity neighborhoods. Some cities use inclusive zoning, in which all new

construction must include a certain percentage of housing for low-income residents,

which means that the wealthy can’t separate themselves from the poor.

ese cities have tried to tear down barriers that prevent all of their residents from

reaching their full opportunity. Sometimes those barriers are highways. Sometimes

they’re something else entirely. Tearing down a highway isn’t the only way to make a

city healthy again. But building a new one—or expanding an existing one—seems a

sure�re way to make a city sick.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to

[email protected]

Special RepoRt 17

January 2010

Traffic-Related Air Pollution: A Critical Review of the Literature on

Emissions, Exposure, and Health Effects

A Special Report of the HEI Panel on the Health Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution

ExECuTIvE SummARy

ABOuT HEI

The Health Effects Institute is a nonprofit corporation chartered in 1980 as an independent research organization to provide high-quality, impartial, and relevant science on the effects of air pollution on health. To accomplish its mission, the institute

• Identifies the highest-priority areas for health effects research;

• Competitively funds and oversees research projects;

• Provides intensive independent review of HEI-supported studies and related research;

• Integrates HEI’s research results with those of other institutions into broader evaluations; and

• Communicates the results of HEI research and analyses to public and private decision makers.

HEI receives half of its core funds from the u.S. Environmental Protection Agency and half from the worldwide motor vehicle industry. Frequently, other public and private organizations in the united States and around the world also support major projects or certain research programs. Additional work for this report was funded by the u. S. Federal Highway Administration.

HEI has funded more than 280 research projects in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, the results of which have informed decisions regarding carbon monoxide, air toxics, nitrogen oxides, diesel exhaust, ozone, particulate matter, and other pollutants. These results have appeared in the peer-reviewed literature and in more than 200 comprehensive reports published by HEI.

HEI’s independent Board of Directors consists of leaders in science and policy who are committed to fostering the public–private partnership that is central to the organization. The Health Research Committee solicits input from HEI sponsors and other stakeholders and works with scientific staff to develop a Five-year Strategic Plan, select research projects for funding, and oversee their conduct. The Health Review Committee, which has no role in selecting or overseeing studies, works with staff to evaluate and interpret the results of funded studies and related research.

All project results and accompanying comments by the Health Review Committee are widely disseminated through HEI’s Web site (www.healtheffects.org), printed reports, newsletters, and other publications, annual conferences, and presentations to legislative bodies and public agencies.

special report 17

INTRODUCTION

Motor vehicles are a significant source of urban air pollu- tion and are increasingly important contributors of anthropo- genic carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. As awareness of the potential health effects of air pollutants has grown, many countries have implemented more stringent emissions controls and made steady progress in reducing the emissions from motor vehicles and improving air quality. However, the rapid growth of the world’s motor-vehicle fleet due to population growth and eco- nomic improvement, the expansion of metropolitan areas, and the increasing dependence on motor vehicles because of changes in land use has resulted in an increase in the fraction of the popu- lation living and working in close proximity to busy highways and roads — counteracting to some extent the expected benefits of pollution-control regulations and technologies.

This Special Report, developed by the Health Effects Institute (HEI) Panel on the Health Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollu- tion, summarizes and synthesizes information linking emis- sions from, exposures to, and health effects of traffic sources (i.e., motor vehicles). The term traffic-related exposure is used in this report to refer to exposure to primary emissions from motor vehicles, not to the more broadly dispersed secondary pollutants such as ozone (O3) that are derived from these emis- sions. The report focuses on specific scenarios with a high aggregation of motor vehicles and people — that is, urban set- tings and residences in proximity to busy roadways.

EMISSIONS FROM MOTOR VEHICLES

Motor vehicles emit large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), nitrogen oxides (NOX), particulate matter (PM), and substances known as mobile- source air toxics (MSATs), such as benzene, formaldehyde, acet- aldehyde, 1,3-butadiene, and lead (where leaded gasoline is still in use). Each of these, along with secondary by-products, such as ozone and secondary aerosols (e.g., nitrates and inor- ganic and organic acids), can cause adverse effects on health and the environment. Pollutants from vehicle emissions are

related to vehicle type (e.g., light- or heavy-duty vehicles) and age, operating and maintenance conditions, exhaust treatment, type and quality of fuel, wear of parts (e.g., tires and brakes), and engine lubricants used. Concerns about the health effects of motor-vehicle combustion emissions have led to the introduc- tion of regulations and innovative pollution-control approaches throughout the world that have resulted in a considerable reduc- tion of exhaust emissions, particularly in developed countries. These reductions have been achieved through a comprehensive strategy that typically involves emissions standards, cleaner fuels, and vehicle-inspection programs. Recognizing the likely continued growth in the vehicle fleet and the remaining prob- lems in traffic-related air quality, the United States, European countries, Japan, and other countries are continuing to push for even stricter emissions controls in coming years.

Resuspended road dust, tire wear, and brake wear are sources of noncombustion PM emissions from motor vehicles. As emissions controls for exhaust PM become more widespread, emissions from noncombustion sources will make up a larger proportion of vehi- cle emissions. Noncombustion emissions contain chemical com- pounds, such as trace metals and organics, that might contribute to human health effects. However, current estimates of these emis- sions are highly uncertain. Thus, although they are not regulated in the way exhaust emissions are, noncombustion emissions will need to be considered more closely in future assessments of the impact of motor vehicles on human health.

The quantification of motor-vehicle emissions is critical in estimating their impact on local air quality and traffic-related exposures and requires the collection of travel-activity data over space and time and the development of emissions inven- tories. Emissions inventories are developed based on complex emissions models (of which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s MOBILE6 has been the most widely used) that pro- vide exhaust and evaporative emissions rates for total HC, CO, NOx, PM, sulfur dioxide (SO2), ammonia (NH3), selected air tox- ics, and green house gases (GHGs) for specific vehicle types and fuels. The quality of the travel-activity data (such as vehicle- miles traveled, number of trips, and types of vehicles) and the complex algorithms used to derive the emissions factors sug- gest the presence of substantial uncertainties and limitations in the resulting emissions estimates (NARSTO 2005). It should be noted that estimates of PM emissions have had very limited field valuation and verification.

The actual measurement of motor-vehicle emissions is critically important for validating the emissions models. Studies that have sampled the exhaust