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by kchoze 3809 days ago
SJWs and identity politcs get on my nerves too... but on this case, it's hard to deny that the decisions of which neighborhood to raze were likely influenced by the racial majority of these neighborhoods. Though one could argue that this was more about political convenience than racial animosity... poor black neighborhoods put up much less of a fight against eminent domain and "urban renewal" than rich, well-connected white neighborhoods.
1 comments
ryandrake 3809 days ago
While it may be true, it's off-topic for an article called "Why urban highways destroy wealth". Inserting a discussion about race here is like going into an article about how Company XYZ is a bad investment and pointing out that their hiring practices discriminate against women. Even if true, it's off-topic trolling, but apparently this kind of trolling is OK here. Live and learn.
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grardb 3809 days ago
>Someone posts a tl;dr about the article and says that the issues caused by creating urban highways are trade-offs that come with a solution to a different problem.

>Someone asks what problem urban highways are meant to solve.

>Someone answers the question, and the answer happens to involve race.

Would you have preferred if the question wasn't answered, so as to avoid a discussion on race? This isn't trolling, and it isn't off-topic. Very rarely do comments on the third level stay 100% relevant to the article being discussed. It sounds like you just don't like talking about race, and I bet it's easy to figure out why.

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kbenson 3808 days ago
> Very rarely do comments on the third level stay 100% relevant to the article being discussed.

Thank goodness. Some of the best, most interesting and informative comments come from discussions that digress into tangents. HN would be much less interesting without these.

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ethbro 3809 days ago
It doesn't happen a lot here, and it's absolutely relevant. You may not have a background in urban design / planning (I'm assuming), but racial politics has been a huge force historically.

It's not like people are bringing race into opinions about the primary colors here: this is relevant to the topic.

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