ePub Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South; 1930-1970 (The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture) by Luther Adams in History

Description

In this eye-opening cultural history; Brian Tochterman examines competing narratives that shaped post–World War II New York City. As a sense of crisis rose in American cities during the 1960s and 1970s; a period defined by suburban growth and deindustrialization; no city was viewed as in its death throes more than New York. Feeding this narrative of the dying city was a wide range of representations in film; literature; and the popular press--representations that ironically would not have been produced if not for a city full of productive possibilities as well as challenges. Tochterman reveals how elite culture producers; planners and theorists; and elected officials drew on and perpetuated the fear of death to press for a new urban vision. It was this narrative of New York as the dying city; Tochterman argues; that contributed to a burgeoning and broad anti-urban political culture hostile to state intervention on behalf of cities and citizens. Ultimately; the author shows that New York's decline--and the decline of American cities in general--was in part a self-fulfilling prophecy bolstered by urban fear and the new political culture nourished by it.