The Ghost Neighborhoods of Columbus project is working to bring back communities once lost due to the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. Credit: Logan Nowlin | Lantern Reporter
When President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 into law, thousands of Americans’ lives were forever impacted, Harvey Miller, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis, said.
Miller said the act allowed the U.S. government to repossess land by compensating the owners for public use and displace any residents and businesses located in the impacted area. The affected communities were divided, or sometimes even destroyed, causing them to be lost when highways were constructed directly through them.
Nearly 70 years later, the Ghost Neighborhoods of Columbus project brings these communities back to life virtually and share the forgotten stories. Miller said the main focus of the group has been Hanford Village, a site popularized in the 1940s for African American veterans returning from World War II. Hanford Village was almost fully destroyed less than 20 years later during the construction of Interstate 70.
“The highways were built with racist intent,” Miller said. “They were built through primarily Black neighborhoods either because they had to build them somewhere there were people with little political power or, in some cases, they actually wanted to clear out what they believed to be slums.”
From 1945-47, 146 homes were constructed in the “vibrant” community of Hanford Village, according to the project’s website. But as the highway was built through the center of the neighborhood in the ‘60s, 67 homes were moved or demolished to make way.
Miller said the effects of these decisions can still be seen today — the remnants of these communities are plagued with noise pollution and poor air quality. In addition, Miller said many of the current residents live in impoverished conditions due to not being able to share the generational wealth lost when their houses and land were repossessed.
Yue Lin, a Ph.D. candidate in geography, said the Ghost Neighborhoods of Columbus project shows people what was lost during the construction of highways. She said they are utilizing machine learning technology to create realistic virtual renderings of the destroyed communities.
“Machine learning techniques are used to detect building footprints and properties on Sanborn maps,” Lin said. “Deep learning models are used to detect building utilizations.”
Miller said most of the data supplied to the machine learning technology is extracted from Sanborn Fire Atlases. The hand-drawn fire insurance maps from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are “treasure troves of information,” because the group is able to extract information, such as a building’s use, Miller said.
Miller said after more than a year of work behind them, the group has solidified the method and is producing a success rate greater than 90 percent. He said the next step for the group is to extract street addresses from the renderings. Once the group has access to street addresses for each building, they will be able to learn more about the residents and businesses that occupied them.
After Hanford Village, the project will also create 3D models of historic ghost neighborhoods in Columbus, like Flytown and Bronzeville, according to the website.
Beyond that, Miller said the group is not entirely sure what the future of the project holds, but he is excited about all the different directions it could take now that it has a proven method.
“This method we developed is really important and can be used very widely,” Miller said.
