system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do communities in America adjacent to interstate  exits tend to be more economically poor?

This may just be perspective bias, but it always seems that you come right into the ghetto at the worst but just generally seedy surroundings as you get off the interstate, and it gets better as you get farther away?

Just an observation, and I figured you guys could shed some light.
gpt
There are many many urban historians who have written on this. Highway exits have massively different impacts on property values depending on their particular location. Things prized in suburbs are anathema to property values in cities. In most large cities the location of highways near poor neighborhoods is because planners dumped interstates into areas with the least political clout or economic power--most commonly heavily minority areas. Putting an interstate here was the most "economical" from the State's perspective of land acquisition and dovetailed nicely with vogue of slum clearance. Once built highways tended to further reinforce the existing segregation and economic depression in those communities.

The end result is that today those communities are often even more devastated than they were prior to having their physical neighborhoods ripped apart so suburban commuters could get downtown faster in their cozy, private, cars. 

If you want to read about the machinations of how this happened Caro's book on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, is a good place to start.