The Alaskan Way Viaduct

The Alaskan Way Viaduct: 

From a highway to a public space, Seattle plans to reclaim its waterfront.

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/06/how-seattle-is-reclaiming-its-waterfront-from-an-elevated-urban-highway/397325/

It’s been a few years since the city started to demolish the double-decker From The Atlantic Alaskan Way Viaduct that severs downtown from Elliott Bay. And it’ll be several more until the job is done. But Seattle is already making progress on the multi-part, billion-dollar waterfront plan that will recapture acres of prime area that have lived in the shadows of the road for half a century.

With High Line type projects comes the concern about gentrification and low-income communities

“The Minhocão cuts through neighborhoods that were or still are relatively nice,” says Patricia Samora, a professor of architecture and urbanism at the Universidade São Judas Tadeu. “But when it was built, higher income people left and since then it’s served as a rental alternative for poorer families.”

For these families, Samora says, the idea of turning the highway into a park is complicated by fears that the new amenity would drive up real estate values and eventually, make it unaffordable for them.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/brazil-may-be-getting-its-own-high-line