Shreveport's Highway Emperors’ New Clothes
How did Shreveport, Louisiana get to its current condition? If the state of our city is the result of past and present "leadership" vision, wisdom and determination, then did leaders (business, civic and political / governmental), entrusted to shepherd citizens into the future, intend that Shreveport reside at or near the bottom of most city well-being indicators? Did leaders intend that 56% of 2019 city households live in poverty? Was neglecting infrastructure maintenance part of the growth strategy envisioned by past leaders? EPA citations resulted in a $1.1 billion consent decree for sewer repairs that are part of a likely $3 billion infrastructure maintenance deficit. How did we get here? Misinformed good intentions, or perhaps well-informed greed? Or both?
The Shreveport story is reminiscent of the Hans Christian Anderson fable about the emperor that fell victim to two swindlers who sold him clothes made from a "magnificent fabric," invisible to the unfit for office and those unusually stupid. While the swindlers pretended to make the emperor’s new outfit, word about the fabric spread through the ministry and townspeople. A new community belief emerged from a lie. With great industry and promotion, the swindlers proudly showed the emperor’s new clothes. Convinced of the myth, everyone who could not see the fabric was afraid of consequences from confessing their unworthiness or stupidity as judged by what they could not see, including the emperor. Fear and self-doubt created a fake reality; everyone participated in perpetuating the lie, believing others could see what they could not. Looking in the mirror, even the emperor chose to cowardly conceal that his newly fabricated reality judged him lacking intelligence and fitness. Rather than question, he embraced the lie, proclaiming that what did not exist was ‘Magnificent! Excellent! Unsurpassed! A remarkable fit!’ All the townspeople lining the streets exclaimed the success of the fine new clothes... until a curious child in the crowd expressed the truth: “But he hasn’t got anything on.”
The Highway Emperors Buy Into a Swindle
Shreveport’s Emperors story begins in 1950. The kingdom of Shreveport certainly was not perfect, but it was a vibrant city of 127,000 people living within 24 square miles (5,300 per square mile). Shreveport’s population was 67% of its 2018 population but lived in only 20% of its current land area. During this 1950’s era Shreveport was appropriately branded ‘a city on-the-grow.’ Downtown thrived, with approximately 35,000 people living within walking distance. Although not understood by the city's leaders at the time, inner-city African American neighborhoods were also among the vibrant places in Shreveport.
Over thousands of years humanity had learned how to build successful cities. But during the 1960s, Shreveport's leadership embraced a new vision for its future that was untested but promised to increase the beauty and virtue of cities across the U.S. The ‘magnificent fabric’ narrative— freedom and increased prosperity by reshaping the city as automobile-centric — was made more compelling by the federal government paying 90% of the cost. President Eisenhower’s original vision for the interstate system was to connect cities across the US, not cut through their downtowns. The curious expansion of his vision to include cutting through cities was the swindle that seduced countless cities across America, including Shreveport.
Shreveport’s leaders bought in, not wanting to be left behind or to miss out on the promises of prosperity and big federal dollars. Reorganizing the growth of cities required selecting cut-through freeway routes which were strategically placed through the homes of citizens with the least ability to resist. The urban sections of Interstate 20 were routed to cut through the heart of Shreveport running east to west, wiping out ‘Crosstown’ and severing other vibrant African American neighborhoods. A new modern era of growth began.
In retrospective, a story of tragic irony was emerging. Shreveport and the country were struggling with civil rights at the same time that city, state and federal governments were wiping out vibrant, economically viable African American neighborhoods. Clearing paths for urban freeways did irreparable harm to the communities the civil rights movement hoped to empower.
The new Shreveport was leaving the old behind. City growth pushed outward. Our once high quality and economically efficient growth patterns conceded to the new cut-through highway culture. Shifting policies sent a clear message: the inner city will be abandoned.
In recent years this shift in growth patterns has been exposed as a "Growth Ponzi Scheme" by groups including the Strong Towns organization and movement. This swindle creates an illusion of public wealth generated in the short term from new development that extends city infrastructure outward. The illusion is created by ignoring long-term accumulating infrastructure maintenance deficits, an unfortunate long-time standard practice of municipal accounting. All aspects of city operations and finances increasingly stress toward a breaking point. Although counterintuitive, Strong Towns research shows that neglected inner-city neighborhoods are subsidizing the freeway-induced residential enclaves on the outskirts.
Growth fueled by the construction of I-20 and I-49 spread out Shreveport’s development far to the south and west of the original, compact city. (Click to explore on Google Maps.)
The cut-through freeways proved ideal infrastructure to provide non-resident-owned, corporate business models a competitive advantage over smaller, locally-owned business. Regional commerce changed. The percentage of business that was locally owned declined in cities and their surrounding towns. Local entrepreneurship has also declined. Formula businesses result in "me-too" cities: our new centers of regional commerce, publicly subsidized by freeway spending, are monotonously characterized by interchangeable big-box businesses with even bigger parking lots.
The Illusion of Wealth Unravels
By 1980 Shreveport's population peaked at 207,000 people living in approximately 90 square miles—nearly four times the land extent of a mere generation earlier, for only 63% more people. Employment also peaked at 193,000 non-farm jobs (Scott 2019). To accelerate the Growth Ponzi Scheme development pattern, the Highway Emperors added the I-49 Inner-City cut-through route south of I-20. After this, the rate of wealth moving from the city's core to the edges south of Shreveport dramatically increased. Shreveport continued its outward infrastructure expansion strategy, reaching an area of approximately 120 square miles in 2018.
But somewhere during the timeframe from 1980 to 2019, the Growth Ponzi Scheme began to completely uncoil. No longer could we sustain an illusion of growth through outward expansion. Shreveport’s population declined to 189,000 by 2018, with signs the trend will continue. This was accompanied by the loss of 13,000 jobs (Scott 2019). Somehow, Shreveport’s Highway Emperors, completely committed to the swindle, could not see or understand what was happening to the city.
The growing body of research is spurring increasing numbers of cities to regenerate their future by tearing down cut-through freeways, a trend which is becoming a tidal wave. It has become clear that the 70-year experiment with cut-through urban freeways failed cities.
Yet Shreveport’s Highway Emperors have yet to see the truth. They are insisting on reviving the once dead I-49 ‘connector’ cut-through freeway project that will cost $1 billion for 3.5 miles. Many local, state and federal elected officials are parroting the public misinformation that surrounds this project. Some of these elected officials have never experienced cities without cut-through freeways and seem unwilling to envision a different future.
Shreveport's Highway Emperors have yet to look in the mirror and question their position. Their determination seems destined for a processional mourning: Shreveport’s suicide by its leadership's ignorance and greed. Will those sitting in the wings, held back by self-doubt and fear of reprisal, summon the courage to tell our Emperors they are exposed?
Speaking Truth to Power
The inner-city neighborhood of Allendale is an area of concentrated disadvantage. But it's in Allendale that a small and growing group of residents and friends formed a learning-doing community in 2012. This was their bold response to the Highway Emperors’ manipulative, deceitful public engagement campaigns. AllendaleStrong started with faith, relationships, and a willingness to learn and take action. For almost 8 years AllendaleStrong has stood for Shreveport and against the interests of Shreveport’s Highway Emperors whom control all the powerful influence, political will, paid consultants and resources. These Emperors are determined to advance the "Growth Ponzi Scheme."
“Will those sitting in the wings, held back by self-doubt and fear of reprisal, summon the courage to tell our Emperors they are exposed?”
AllendaleStrong leaned into the complexity of Shreveport's needs and situation, and is standing for a smarter alternative: (1) a business boulevard as I-49 Inner-City-Connector that incorporates existing infrastructure for local traffic and (2) use of the existing interstate loop for through traffic. Overwhelming evidence backs their wisdom and position. A growing number of citizens are recognizing AllendaleStrong’s learning-doing community as a trustworthy source of information. Their influence is growing. They are like the child who boldly spoke truth about the emperor’s new clothes.
Yet Shreveport’s Highway Emperors are unwilling to accept their role in the harmful cut-through freeway swindle. While citizens wait for the Emperors to hear and see truth, responsible civic leadership is growing in Allendale. Don’t be surprised if Shreveport’s move toward an equitably prosperous future emerges from Allendale. Please join AllendaleStrong in growing public support to act on their reasonable and informed requests for a business boulevard.
(Cover photo: Thomas Hawk via Flickr)
About the Author
Kim Mitchell is an architect and city planner. He has served as “planner advocate” and adviser to AllendaleStrong’s learning-doing community since 2012. He is also the Director of The Center and Institute for Community Renewal in Shreveport and Senior Adviser to Purdue Agile Strategy Lab. Community Renewal International connects neighbors and residents to restore the foundation of safe and caring communities. Its model is now being replicated in communities around the U.S. and around the world.