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Index. Bibliographical notes: p. 285-300.
A behind-the-scenes look at the most significant art exhibit of the year.
Interrogates the connections between a city’s physical landscape and the poverty and social problems that are often concentrated at its literal lowest points. In Urban Lowlands, Steven T. Moga looks closely at the Harlem Flats in New York City, Black Bottom in Nashville, Swede Hollow in Saint Paul, and the Flats in Los Angeles, to interrogate the connections between a city’s actual landscape and the poverty and social problems that are often concentrated at its literal lowest points. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective on the history of US urban development from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Moga reveals patterns of inequitable land use, economic dispossession, and social discrimination against immigrants and minorities. In attending to the landscapes of neighborhoods typically considered slums, Moga shows how physical and policy-driven containment has shaped the lives of the urban poor, while wealth and access to resources have been historically concentrated in elevated areas—truly “the heights.” Moga’s innovative framework expands our understanding of how planning and economic segregation alike have molded the American city.
At the turn of 20th century, University Avenue emerged as a major transportation corridor, connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul. At the center of the corridor, the Midway district became one the Twin Cities' most prominent industrial hubs. And all along the 13-mile roadway, businesses serving the adjacent neighborhoods clustered around key intersections. But University Avenue fell into decline starting in the 1960s when a new interstate freeway, I-94, provided a speedier and more convenient way of moving between the two cities. I-94's economic blow was offset, at least in part, when new arrivals to Minnesota, many from Southeast Asia, injected fresh entrepreneurial energy into this aging transportation corridor. Today, University Avenue's historic role has been restored now that it serves as the route of a light-rail transit line connecting the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
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