Week of April 8

Chapter 6:

Chapter Six continues some of the themes of Chapter Three (especially the section following p. 107) and Chapter Five. To the degree that suburbanization was a response to integration (the idea of “white flight”), Downtown was abandoned by the very commercial forces which changed its identity in the first place. This may be the saddest chapter in the book, especially for those who lived through the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. If too much investment can hurt city areas, then so can disinvestment. We’ll see some of the results of that here.

Note the subtitle of the chapter: Black Buyers, Racial Violence, and the Riot Renaissance.

Note too, that there are at least a few signs of hope in the concluding pages.

The Lower East Side in New York City in the 1970s. The picture and many more can be found at an intriguing website, http://www.filthymess.com/filthymess.html

It seems that this site has not been updated since 2001, but there is an active discussion board at http://www.filthymess.com/msgboard/ Check it out when you have time.

Aftermath of the Detroit Riot of 1967, For an extensive report on the riot, including access to video clips, click on the image above. The website is a service of Rutgers University

Chapter 7:

Though Chapter Seven mentions several examples of urban regeneration, it focuses most of its energy on a comparison of two seemingly similar attempts: Gas Light Square in St. Louis, and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. One succeeded, one failed, (and if you’ve eaten Ghirardelli chocolate, then you know which did which). Knowing isn’t explaining, however. So that’s what your focus needs to be.

What differentiated these two very similar attempts?

Also, what characterizes the other successful attempts to reinvigorate downtown mentioned in this chapter. (One of them may be a favorite of many of you... Quincy Marketplace in Boston).

Pioneer Square, Seattle, is one of the revitalized downtown areas which Isenberg discusses. Many similar areas are found in Cities of all sizes. Is there one in the city on which you're working? Click on either image to investigate Pioneer Square further.

As you read this, you might ask yourself “could this chapter also be subtitled “Jane Jacobs was Right?” The point I’m making is that Nostalgia alone doesn’t seem to be enough to revive and vitalize a healthy downtown. Look for hints that many of Jacobs’ observations either occurred naturally in the revived areas, or, perhaps, were re-introduced into the downtowns by careful planning.

For the purposes of Discussion. . .

I’d like to have you all see if you can find evidence of the trends or occurrences in both of these chapters in the cities you’re investigating. Were there incidents of racial unrest, perhaps including rioting, in your city in the period between 1960 and 1980? If so, how did they turn out? What was the aftermath? Is there an area of your city which has used “nostalgia” or something like it to revitalize itself? Note here, that this nostalgia brings affected areas in cities to look more like the pre-modern city before the 20th Century reforms refashioned it. You may not find these things... but give yourself a few google and live maps minutes to look.

Looking Ahead

You can see that this week’s assignment completes the second of our first two books. The rest of the semester, aside from time spent sharing what we’ve all found, will be devoted to the other two books. Conceptually, the first half of the course has provided a very broad overview, part theoretical (Jacobs) and part historical (Isenberg). The second half returns to some of the same ground, but looking in more detail. For example, we’ll be able to look more closely at ethnic, racial, and class divisions in cities by reading and thinking about examples in The Old Neighborhood. We’ll also be able to fantasize about what kind of urban areas would suit us (and what kind of urbanites we’d make) through exploring Get Urban. We will not be reading all of either of these books, nor will everyone in the class be reading the same sections. Morea bout this later.