This Area Was a Thriving Area...

It's almost as if people wanted to introduce a lot of traffic (by selling cars, and creating 'suburbs' instead of new cities). Make it a 'favor' that they were putting a highway right next to five or so catholic churches ('the only alternative is to go right through'), saying to themselves, 'we're not destroying the buildings, but they'll fall into disrepair, now.'
Hark Jane Jacobs, I've seen some light.

Edit: I've been ruminating further on this - was there a legitimate alternative?
What about widening extant roads?
What might that have done?
How would property values have been affected in this area?
Some structures were destroyed as it was; the owners of that land given a predetermined (token?) sum.
If certain of the extant roads had been widened (more than they have been) would that have made abutting lots smaller, yet, eventually, higher in values, without the complication of  raised circulatory structures.
Raised roadways can then overload inadequate circulation by introduction of extra traffic, which has both benefits, and disadvantages. Obviously, if the disadvantages weren't prevalent, in would not be an overload.
Anyway, in New York City, there was not a project like this put across Manhattan.
It would be interesting to understand better what would, or might, have happened had a larger part of local geography been left free of highways.
I know the highways are not a question, and have to start somewhere, but the main area 'served' by the highways, might have been larger, and differently refined than it had been.
Also, the original Chicago location is less accessible than is Manhattan, but whether or not those freeways created needed to come so close, and to connect, is arguable.
Notably, I think there was even a "Marshfield" train line on the North-side, which was taken down.