Infrastructures at the service of racial and social segregation

Here is another enlightening excerpt from The Whale and the Reactor: in search of limits in the age of high technology (1987) by the engineer and technology philosopher Langdon Winner. Technology is never neutral and is often used to achieve detestable political results. In the example of the Long Island bridges, this is a desired and expected effect. Other infrastructures, such as the railway, have had disastrous effects — and probably more difficult to anticipate — on the countryside, as the historian François Jarrige notes:

“Rural populations and river workers are alarmed at a means of transport that calls into question their existence. Even if, before 1914, the impact of the railway was limited, and if a large part of Europe remained isolated from these upheavals, railways undeniably stimulated economic transformations. It accentuates the process of regional specialization and supports the development of intensive monoculture.^[1].”

Today, economic transformations continue with the deployment of the LGV network. For example, the price per square meter of housing is increasing in many cities connected to Paris by high-speed lines. The newspaper Les Echos notes that “by making provincial cities more accessible from Paris, the TGV has contributed to their attractiveness, with the effect of boosting the real estate market.” For example, real estate prices have increased by 53% in Rennes.^[2], a phenomenon that will harm most of the population.

This short excerpt from Langdon Winner's book tells the story of how public infrastructures designed to promote social and racial segregation could be built in a supposedly democratic and liberal country.

“Anyone who has traveled on American roads and who knows the usual height of highway bridges would notice something strange looking at those who cross the highways on Long Island, New York. Some of these bridges are extremely low, with a height of barely two meters seventy meters above the roadway. Those who notice it probably don't feel the need to infer any particular meaning, as such formal details are usually considered trivial.

However, it turns out that the approximately two hundred relatively low footbridges on Long Island have a very specific reason for being. They were deliberately designed and constructed in this way by someone who sought, in this way, to produce a determined social consequence. Robert Moses, who designed roads, parks, bridges, and other public infrastructure in New York between the years 1920 and 1970, built these particularly low footbridges to prevent bus traffic on these highways. According to evidence gathered by his biographer, Robert A. Caro, this was the result of Moses' social and racial prejudices. White “upper” and “middle class” motorists, as he called them, would have no problem using these highways for leisure or to get to work. On the other hand, poor and black people, who frequently used public transport, would not be able to use it because the almost four-meter-high buses did not pass under the bridges. One of the consequences of this arrangement was to limit the access of racial minorities and the underprivileged classes to Jones Beach, a park that was the flagship of Moses's achievements. Moses strengthened the effectiveness of his device by opposing an extension of the Long Island railroad to Jones Beach.

The life of Robert Moses provides us with a particularly fascinating history of recent American politics. Its relationships with mayors, governors and presidents, its systematic manipulation of legislators, bankers, unions, the press, and public opinion would deserve to be studied in depth by political scientists. But the most important and lasting effects of his work are technologies, the gigantic engineering projects that today's New York owes much of its appearance to. Because long after the death of Moses and the dissolution of the alliances he had forged, the city continued to depend on his public works, in particular the highways and bridges that he built in order to favor the automobile at the expense of public transport. Some of these monumental concrete and steel structures embody a system of social inequalities, materialize human relationships that, since time, have been part of the landscape. The New York urban architect Lee Koppleman told biographer Robert Caro, about Moses and the highway bridges on Wantagh Parkway: “The old bastard managed so that buses could never use his dirty highways.”

The history of architecture, urban planning and public works is full of examples of physical devices responding to explicit or implicit political projects. For example, we can mention the wide avenues of Paris, laid out by Baron Haussmann at the request of Napoleon III, in order to prevent the reproduction of popular riots such as those of the Revolution of 1848. Or all the grotesque buildings and huge esplanades built on American university campuses at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, in order to defuse student demonstrations. The study of industrial machines and tools also exposes very interesting political stories, some of which completely contradict what we think we know about why certain technological innovations are developed. Those who believe that new technologies are being introduced in order to achieve greater efficiency will sometimes be disappointed by the history of technology. Technological change comes from a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the desire of some humans to dominate others, even if that means making some sacrifices in terms of cost and overall profitability.”