Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is facing criticism after alleging that New York City’s roads and bridges were designed with racist intentions, singling out renowned urban planner Robert Moses for his purportedly discriminatory approach. The Congresswoman highlighted her belief that the city’s infrastructure is intended to “disconnect, disempower, and isolate people,” specifically citing communities like her own in the Bronx.

“There is a psychic weight to living in communities that are designed to be disconnected. It affects your social life,” Ocasio-Cortez claimed. “My neighborhood that I’m from in the Bronx, in Parkchester, we have some of the longest commutes in all of New York City. It is a commute not just to work. It is a commute to do anything.”

“It is a commute to connect socially. It is a commute to connect spiritually. These decisions are designed to disconnect, disempower, and isolate people. And when you layer that with a lot of Robert Moses’s racist intent… to a very specific kind of people, Black, Brown, low-income, poor, et cetera… You can really see how it actually builds in organizing challenges to communities who actually want to empower themselves.”

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The controversial remarks quickly drew widespread criticism that Ocasio-Cortez’s comments were beyond parody and an attempt to inject identity politics into urban planning.

Last year Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made some similar comments, arguing that minorities are more likely to die in vehicle-related accidents as a result of discrimination. “We’ve got a crisis when it comes to roadway fatalities in America. We lose about forty thousand people every year. It’s a level that’s comparable to gun violence, and we see a lot of racial disparities,” Buttigieg said.

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