Interstate Highways

Highway construction stopped during World War II. During this interim Cleveland’s demographics changed. As servicemen left for war, industrial workers migrated to the city of Cleveland seeking work. Cleveland’s black population grew exponentially as southern rural blacks came to the city to find work and to escape racism and violence in the south. Prior to 1950 Cleveland’s black population was proportionally small compared to the white population; the ratio of white to black was approximately 9:1 in 1940. Between 1940 and 1950, Cleveland’s black population grew by over seventy percent. And, by 1950 the ratio of whites to blacks was roughly 5:1. Though the black population remained proportionately small, white middle class inhabitants did not see it as such.

Unable to afford housing many migrant blacks moved into tenements. Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood alone witnessed over a fifty percent increase in the black population.[1] Illegal tenements dotted Cleveland’s poorer neighborhoods “beginning a pattern of overuse and overcrowding, and laying the groundwork for future decay.” [2] Many single-family homes bulged to overflowing with up to seven different families.[3] At the end of World War II returning servicemen came home to an overcrowded city.

The changing demographics of the city, overcrowding, and the GI Bill may have all contributed to suburbanization and the resuming of highway construction.[4] Suburbs grew rapidly in the post-war years. With the loans provided by the GI Bill, many returning soldiers hoped to buy houses and shape new communities away from the city. Unfortunately, those communities were built for whites only.