Interstate Highways

Between 1940 and 1950 Parma, the quintessential Cleveland suburb, saw over a fifty percent increase in the white population. Parma’s black population was comparatively smaller. In 1940 African Americans comprised of only 0.01 percent of Parma’s entire population. In 1950 the black population, though increasing from 2 to 30, still only comprised 0.01 percent of Parma’s entire population.[1] The decision to move into strictly white neighborhoods was no accident. Since many African Americans residing in the city lived in poverty there is some debate whether whites moved to get away from blacks specifically or poor people in general. Though, there is apparent “heterogeneity in the willingness to pay for racial homogeneity, driven by events like riots and school desegregation.”[2]

 Though whites moved out of Cleveland they still heavily relied on the city for jobs and goods. Since Cleveland lost valuable tax payer revenue to the suburbs, the city became dependent on the suburbs to supply consumers and workers. Highway construction provided the necessary link between the suburbs and Cleveland.

Suburbs were not a new phenomenon. They were usually comprised of the upper middle class and sprang up around cities along street car lines. The advent of the car and the construction of highways gave the working class the chance to get out of the city as well. Where streetcars had offered mobility to the upper middle class, cars offered it to nearly everyone else, as long as they were white.[3] Between 1940 and 1950 Cleveland lost over thirty-five percent of its white population.[4] Cleveland’s new interstate highway plan was designed to provide suburbanites the luxury of living away from the crime and overcrowding of the city while still being able to commute to their jobs in the city without the inconvenience of traffic and urban menaces.