One important symbol in Savage Inequalities is Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway. Built in the mid-20th century, the stated purpose of the expressway was a means to give those in the outer suburbs the ability to commute into the downtown area of the city. The expressway is large and imposing, and one of the most important elements of Chicago. Kozol highlights a more negative intention of the expressway—enacting the segregation and isolation of poorer, Black communities in Chicago. This secondary intention however, is difficult to prove directly, but becomes clear when examined in context with unofficial renting practices in the surrounding areas. The result is a picture of the kind of segregation Kozol wishes to highlight: seemingly innocuous on the surface, and for all intents and purposes, officially true, but in fact conceived and constructed in this way, in order to allay suspicion. Furthermore, because edifices like the Dan Ryan Expressway are as integral and indispensable to the city's architecture, they cannot be immediately changed or removed. In these respects, the Dan Ryan Expressway is a metaphor for the US educational system.

The Dan Ryan Expressway was not constructed to meet any explicitly segregationist demands, and the demands met by the city, in its construction of the expressway, do not make mention of racial concerns.