During the 1950s, the Lodge Freeway was proposed to run from Detroit as far as the Fenton–Clio Expressway (US 23) at Fenton and was to play a significant role in the city’s greater plan for urban renewal. Ardent supporters of freeway construction, such as Mayor Albert Cobo, argued that improved access to the city's downtown from the suburbs and outer residential areas would allow for the easy transportation of goods, services, and workers, ultimately bolstering the city's economy. Although Detroit city planners were careful to not disrupt middle-class white residential areas in construction, they showed little concern for black neighborhoods, especially those that stood in the way of the main thoroughfare into downtown. In fact, the destruction of black communities in many cases was seen to be positive, "a handy device for razing slums". The first stretch of the Lodge Freeway leveled large portions of the densely populated Lower West Side, the increasingly black area bordering Twelfth Street, and the heavily black neighborhoods bordering Highland Park. The construction of the freeway partitioned communities in half and by 1950, 423 single family residences, 109 businesses, 22 manufacturing plants, and 93 vacant lots had been condemned. By 1958, from its terminus in downtown Detroit to Wyoming Ave (about ), 2,222 more buildings had been destroyed.