Prominent White House officials visited the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods in Denver last week. The visitors saw what they called a community left behind, underserved and over-polluted – reminding them why they provided $35.4 million in federal assistance to revitalize the area.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff and U.S. Intergovernmental Affairs Director Tom Perez on Thursday toured the neighborhoods with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

The neighborhoods – north of downtown Denver – are surrounded by the South Platte river, multiple factories, railroad tracks and the National Western Stockyards.

Federal assistance helps better connect the underserved Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods, according to Johnston.

Based on what he saw during the visit, Emhoff pointed to “the devastating impact that redlining in the creation of highways that just bisected communities and rise in these brownfield sites, polluted plots have had on this area,” he said during a press conference at Argo Park in the Globeville neighborhood.

Highways and rail lines, Emhoff added, “have disproportionately torn through low income neighborhoods, as well as communities of color, displacing residents from their homes and shattering businesses.”

Emhoff also described the area as “one of if not the most polluted ZIP codes in the entire country.”

The $35.4 million grant addresses future developments including bridges over railroad tracks and the river, area improvements and environmental remediation, according to the mayor’s office and U.S. officials.

Also, grant assistance impacts such critical services as childcare, schools, grocery stores and projects to reduce methane and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the mayor’s office.

Particularly, Johnston said, the grant “allows us to do exactly what we want to do in this neighborhood,” which, he added, “reconnects communities that have historically been disconnected.”

The mayor cited the Globeville Elyria-Swansea neighborhood’s historic significance to the city, a community he believes has become “underserved.”

Johnston insisted the grant will “fundamentally serve the neighbors who have been in this community for decades and for centuries.”

During and following the Civil War, the neighborhood was a marketplace for settlers looking for gold. It became home to smelters, packing plants and stockyards.

In 1906, Denver’s renowned National Western Stock Show began. The event draws 650,000 people from around the world each year.

“We know there is a tremendous opportunity with the redevelopment of the stock show and the stockyards to bring new visitors, new tourists, new workers to this neighborhood,” said Johnston.

The administration and the National Western Center have “worked closely” together during collaboration, creating a “healthier, more vibrant, and better-connected community,” the mayor’s office said.

The city plans to work with residents to improve future investment and public health, the mayor’s office added.

The mayor also emphasized new infrastructure to provide equal access across all three neighborhoods.

In the eyes of Perez, one of President Joe Biden’s senior advisors, infrastructure projects either “unite communities, or they can divide communities,” he said Thursday.

He also calls the grant an example of what is an “equity agenda.”

Perez sees unprecedented opportunities “to rebuild communities,” he said, adding “that’s why the equity agenda in the equity executive order is so important, because the President and the Vice President firmly believe that we should never live leave any zip code behind.”

The large federal grant directly impacts District 9 neighborhoods.

The Globeville Elyria-Swansea is “disconnected based on rail, we’re disconnected based on highways and so we have the double whammy,” District 9 Councilmember Darrell Watson told The Denver Gazette.

The grant, he added, helps the three neighborhoods “to be able to connect over rail and be able to walk and not have to drive to places within all three communities.”

District 9 neighborhoods receiving federal help comes “through the lens of equity,” Watson said.

“This money could have gone to many other neighborhoods, it came here and that’s why I’m proud,” he said.

Without federal assistance for the Globeville Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods, the councilmember added, Denver’s budget would have likely “not have been able to get to it for 10 more years.”

Denver garnered the $35.4 million grant by way of the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper.

“When Colorado built the I-70 corridor, Globeville and Elyria-Swansea – diverse, working-class neighborhoods – were cut off from one another and from central Denver,” Hickenlooper previously said in a statement.

The federal investment, he added, ”will right this wrong and reconnect them both.”

“Today’s the day that the White House heard,” said Johnston on Thursday. “Today’s the day The White House said ‘we see Globeville, we see the opportunity.’”