What started as a self-funded project from New York-based architect Adam Paul Susaneck is gaining attention over its unique ability to paint a picture of the effects of racial segregation in the 180 American cities included in the controversial Federal Highway Act of 1956. 

Inspired by Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, Susaneck launched his Segregation by Design project in early 2021 to "reveal the extent to which the American city was methodically hollowed out based on race."

Susaneck is in league with others who have been calling on the Biden Administration to dismantle the legacy of race-based discrimination laden in America’s aging highway network and says the trifold goal of the project is to: 1. Create an "Atlas of Urban Renewal" in book form; 2. Create digital materials for local groups opposing ongoing freeway expansion; and 3. Continue to grow the followership of Segregation by Design’s social media channels (which to date number some 132,000).

"As an architect, I’m visually minded and what he’s describing was so visual, I just thought there could be a lot of value in providing that context and those images," Susaneck recently told Paste. "I thought the skills I gained in school could be useful."

Indeed. Susaneck is now one of the many architecturally-trained activists using similar tools to enable in-depth representations of issues such as the growing threat of wildfires, Israeli archaeological exploitation, the impacts of sea-level rise, and the unlawful imprisonment of religious minorities in China (for which architect Alison Killing was awarded the Pulitzer Prize last year). The content featured on his project website includes interviews with urban planning experts and community members, supplemented by visual aids like satellite imagery, historical maps and photos, and spatial analysis in order to create what he calls "easily digestible graphics to spread awareness."

That awareness has thus far been turned onto proposed interstate expansions in Houston, Portland, and Southern California. Projects in other states are sure to follow, with the aim of completing an analysis of every metropolitan area impacted by the Eisenhower-era legislation. Susaneck said he is working on a crowdfunding campaign that recently got up and running and has received an Incubator Prize grant from Columbia University, among other institutional awards he hopes will grow the project as time goes on.

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"Seeing it in photos open’s people eyes a bit since not everyone has the time or desire to read The Color of Law," he said bluntly. "It’s important that we continue to engage with this kind of stuff because the specific policies may not still be around but their legacy is."