This story was originally published by Capital B.
Nearly 45 years ago, the Acres Homes area north of Houston was the largest unincorporated Black community in the South, a thriving 9-square mile area where homeownership was the norm. That was until the city of Houston annexed it, and the Interstate 45 highway was built through its heart.
In the aftermath, the community’s poverty rate has jumped to almost double the city’s average, and health ailments from pollution have increased.
President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, one of the nation’s most significant investments in curbing climate change, was supposed to consider the history of areas like Acres Homes in an attempt to make communities whole again.
By creating a pathway to building the clean energy economy, from expanding electric school bus fleets to subways…