We are talking about reimagining the urban landscape and reconnecting communities through bold highway infrastructure initiatives Upstate, in this week’s In Focus. JoDee Kenney spoke with Restore Our Community Coalition Chair Stephanie Barber Geter, as plans to redesign the Kensington Expressway in Buffalo move forward. Geter said the project aims to reverse the injustice done to Black communities decades ago, pointing to plummeting property values and economic decline when the Humboldt Parkway was razed to construct a six-lane highway in the 1950s. Geter pointed to the less-visible impact the Kensington has had on East Side neighborhoods. Over the past 30 years, Geter said, emissions from the 20,000 vehicles using the highway each day were responsible for the deaths of at least one person living in each home along its route, due to an upper respiratory disease.

You can watch the full interview with Stephanie Barber Geter, chair of Buffalo’s Restore Our Community Coalition via the video player above. And be sure to tune in for a look inside the biggest issues impacting Upstate New York, on In Focus with JoDee Kenney — every Sunday on Spectrum News 1.