Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee
What can local histories of interracial conflict and collaboration teach us about the potential for urban equity and social justice in the future? Courtney Elizabeth Knapp chronicles the politics of gentrification and culture-based development in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by tracing the roots of racism, spatial segregation, and mainstream "cosmopolitanism" back to the earliest encounters between the Cherokee, African Americans, and white settlers. For more than three centuries, Chattanooga has been a site for multiracial interaction and community building; yet today public leaders have simultaneously restricted and appropriated many contributions of working-class communities of color within the city, exacerbating inequality and distrust between neighbors and public officials. Knapp suggests that "diasporic placemaking"—defined as the everyday practices through which uprooted people create new communities of security and belonging—is a useful analytical frame for understanding how multiracial interactions drive planning and urban development in diverse cities over time. By weaving together archival, ethnographic, and participatory action research techniques, she reveals the political complexities of a city characterized by centuries of ordinary resistance to racial segregation and uneven geographic development.
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Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee
What can local histories of interracial conflict and collaboration teach us about the potential for urban equity and social justice in the future? Courtney Elizabeth Knapp chronicles the politics of gentrification and culture-based development in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by tracing the roots of racism, spatial segregation, and mainstream "cosmopolitanism" back to the earliest encounters between the Cherokee, African Americans, and white settlers. For more than three centuries, Chattanooga has been a site for multiracial interaction and community building; yet today public leaders have simultaneously restricted and appropriated many contributions of working-class communities of color within the city, exacerbating inequality and distrust between neighbors and public officials. Knapp suggests that "diasporic placemaking"—defined as the everyday practices through which uprooted people create new communities of security and belonging—is a useful analytical frame for understanding how multiracial interactions drive planning and urban development in diverse cities over time. By weaving together archival, ethnographic, and participatory action research techniques, she reveals the political complexities of a city characterized by centuries of ordinary resistance to racial segregation and uneven geographic development.
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Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee

by Courtney Elizabeth Knapp
Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee

by Courtney Elizabeth Knapp

Paperback

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Overview

What can local histories of interracial conflict and collaboration teach us about the potential for urban equity and social justice in the future? Courtney Elizabeth Knapp chronicles the politics of gentrification and culture-based development in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by tracing the roots of racism, spatial segregation, and mainstream "cosmopolitanism" back to the earliest encounters between the Cherokee, African Americans, and white settlers. For more than three centuries, Chattanooga has been a site for multiracial interaction and community building; yet today public leaders have simultaneously restricted and appropriated many contributions of working-class communities of color within the city, exacerbating inequality and distrust between neighbors and public officials. Knapp suggests that "diasporic placemaking"—defined as the everyday practices through which uprooted people create new communities of security and belonging—is a useful analytical frame for understanding how multiracial interactions drive planning and urban development in diverse cities over time. By weaving together archival, ethnographic, and participatory action research techniques, she reveals the political complexities of a city characterized by centuries of ordinary resistance to racial segregation and uneven geographic development.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469637273
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 05/07/2018
Pages: 262
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Courtney Elizabeth Knapp is assistant professor of urban and regional planning at California State Polytechnic University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

By critically examining Chattanooga as one of the most widely accepted examples of Southern 'exceptionalism,' Knapp has revealed the complexities of revitalization within communities characterized by extreme inequities of wealth and power. This will be an important source in urban planning and development studies for years to come." —Kenneth Reardon, University of Massachusetts Boston

Knapp's tightly wound narrative marries urban development to community building, affording the reader valuable cultural and historical insight into the 300-year growth of a modern city. Equally engrossing and moving." —Andrew Wood, University of Kentucky

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