Highway that divided Syracuse decades ago is set to be demolished, reconnecting a neighborhood

When Interstate 81 was built in the 1960s, it sliced right through Syracuse's Pioneer Homes — one of the nation's oldest public housing communities, which had been built some three decades earlier. But in a few years, the government is set to level a mile and a half of the highway and reconnect a neighborhood.

Bishop Bernard Alex's church is just a few miles from Syracuse, where he grew up. He says the highway stretch of I-81 sits over where people from his hometown used to plant gardens. 

"You took away a thriving, vibrant community," he said "You took away the hope and the space of a people."

Alex said he believes the highway's construction in New York state was a deliberate attempt to drive certain people out of the area.  

To this day, the highway casts a massive shadow, separating Pioneer Homes from White and affluent neighborhoods, hospitals and schools.

A CBS News review of federal records found communities that sit in the shadows of major highways suffer higher pollution rates. The people have higher asthma rates and the income levels and property values are lower.

Syracuse is one of more than 130 communities nationwide that shared $3 billion in federal awards this year to reconnect neighborhoods segregated by highway planners in the 1900s. From Portland, Oregon to Philadelphia, cities are repurposing stretches of expressways with parks and green space planted over the roadways, a process known as capping.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said his city's project is among the most ambitious, calling the soon-to-be-demolished stretch of I-81 "a scar that goes through the heart of our city."

At a cost of more than $2 billion, I-81 is being rerouted around Syracuse. The current stretch will then be demolished and replaced with a pedestrian-friendly grid of surface streets with shops, stop signs and potentially new life for Pioneer Homes

"We can't undo the wrongs of the past," Walsh said. "But we can try to get it right this time around. We have an opportunity to knit back the fabric of our cities and to bring people together."

Alex hopes the demolition will prompt people to move back to the neighborhoods near Pioneer Homes

But in other traffic-choked cities across the country, highway expansion goes on. Like in North Charleston, South Carolina, where Interstate 526, which runs through many mostly Black neighborhoods, is set to be widened.

North Charleston Mayor Reggie Burgess said the expansion is "unavoidable." 

Burgess said dozens of homeowners will need to be relocated, but the state is offering affected residents housing assistance, employment help and college grants

"Of course, we don't want to displace people. But when we have to actually improve the infrastructure, sometimes we have to make decisions that are not accepted, but I think that people understand it," he said.