Public Space And The Ideology Of Place In American Culture

We typically take public space for granted, as if it has continuously been there, yet public space has always been the expression of the will of some agency (person or institution) who names the space, gives it purpose, and monitors its existence. And often its use has been contested. These new essays, written for this volume, approach public space through several key questions: Who has the right to define public space? How do such places generate and sustain symbolic meaning? Is public space unchanging, or is it subject to our subjective perception? Do we, given the public nature of public space, have the right to subvert it? These eighteen essays, including several case studies, offer convincing evidence of a spatial turn in American studies. They argue for a re-visioning of American culture as a history of place-making and the instantiation of meaning in structures, boundaries, and spatial configurations. Chronologically the subjects range from Pierre L’Enfant’s initial majestic conceptualization of Washington, D.C. to the post-modern realization that public space in the U.S. is increasingly a matter of waste. Topics range from parks to cities to small towns, from open-air museums to airports, encompassing the commercial marketing of place as well as the subversion and re-possession of public space by the disenfranchised. Ultimately, public space is variously imagined as the site of social and political contestation and of aesthetic change.

We typically take public space for granted, as if it has continuously been there, yet public space has always been the expression of the will of some agency (person or institution) who names the space, gives it purpose, and monitors its existence. And often its use has been contested. These new essays, written for this volume, approach public space through several key questions: Who has the right to define public space? How do such places generate and sustain symbolic meaning? Is public space unchanging, or is it subject to our subjective perception? Do we, given the public nature of public space, have the right to subvert it? These eighteen essays, including several case studies, offer convincing evidence of a spatial turn in American studies. They argue for a re-visioning of American culture as a history of place-making and the instantiation of meaning in structures, boundaries, and spatial configurations. Chronologically the subjects range from Pierre L'Enfant's initial majestic conceptualization of Washington, D.C. to the post-modern realization that public space in the U.S. is increasingly a matter of waste. Topics range from parks to cities to small towns, from open-air museums to airports, encompassing the commercial marketing of place as well as the subversion and re-possession of public space by the disenfranchised. Ultimately, public space is variously imagined as the site of social and political contestation and of aesthetic change.

This book interprets popular American belief and sentiment about cities, suburbs, and small towns in terms of community ideologies. Based on in-depth interviews with residents of American communities, it shows how people construct a sense of identity based on their communities, and how they perceive and explain community problems (e.g., why cities have more crime than their suburban and rural counterparts) in terms of this identity. Hummon reveals the changing role of place imagery in contemporary society and offers an interpretation of American culture by treating commonplaces of community belief in an uncommon way--as facets of competing community ideologies. He argues that by adopting such ideologies, people are able to "make sense" of reality and their place in the everyday world.

In Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces Andrew Estes examines ideas about the land as they emerge in the later fiction of this important contemporary author. McCarthy's texts are shown to be part of larger narratives about American environments. Against the backdrop of the emerging discipline of environmental criticism, Estes investigates the way space has been constructed in U.S. American writing. Cormac McCarthy is found to be heir to diametrically opposed concepts of space: as something Americans embraced as either overwhelmingly positive and reinvigorating or as rather negative and threatening. McCarthy's texts both replicate this binary thinking about American environments and challenge readers to reconceive traditional ways of seeing space. Breaking new ground as to how literary landscapes and spaces are critically assessed this study seeks to examine the many detailed descriptions of the physical world in McCarthy on their own terms. Adding to so-called 'second wave' environmental criticism, it reaches beyond an earlier, limited understanding of the environment as 'nature' to consider both natural landscapes and built environments. Chapter one discusses the field of environmental criticism in reference to McCarthy while chapter two offers a brief narrative of conceptions of space in the U.S. Chapter three highlights trends in McCarthy criticism. Chapters four through eight provide close readings of McCarthy's later novels, from Blood Meridian to The Road.

Florida Historical Society Harry T. and Hariette V. Moore Award  Florida Book Awards, Silver Medal for Florida Nonfiction In May 1945, activists staged a “wade-in” at a whites-only beach in Miami, protesting the Jim Crow–era laws that denied blacks access to recreational waterfront areas. Pressured by protestors in this first postwar civil rights demonstration, the Dade County Commission ultimately designated the difficult-to-access Virginia Key as a beach for African Americans. The beach became vitally important to the community, offering a place to congregate with family and friends and to enjoy the natural wonders of the area. It was also a tangible victory in the continuing struggle for civil rights in public space. As Florida beaches were later desegregated, many viewed Virginia Key as symbolic of an oppressive past and ceased to patronize it. At the same time, white leaders responded to desegregation by decreasing attention to and funding for public spaces in general. The beach was largely ignored and eventually shut down. In White Sand Black Beach, historian and longtime Miami activist Gregory Bush recounts this unique story and the current state of the public waterfront in Miami. Recently environmentalists, community leaders, and civil rights activists have come together to revitalize the beach, and Bush highlights the potential to stimulate civic engagement in public planning processes. While local governments defer to booster and lobbying interests pushing for destination casinos and boat shows, Bush calls for a land ethic that connects people to the local environment. He seeks to shift the local political divisions beyond established interest groups and neoliberalism to a broader vision that simplifies human needs, and reconnects people to fundamental values such as health. A place of fellowship, relaxation, and interaction with nature, this beach, Bush argues, offers a common ground of hope for a better future.

The revised and updated third edition of The Making of Urban America includes seven new articles and a richly detailed historiographical essay that discusses the vast urban history literature added to the canon since the publication of the second edition. The authors’ extensively revised introductions and the fifteen reprinted articles trace urban development from the preindustrial city to the twentieth-century city. With emphasis on the social, economic, political, commercial, and cultural aspects of urban history, these essays illustrate the growth and change that created modern-day urban life. Dynamic topics such as technology, immigration and ethnicity, suburbanization, sunbelt cities, urban political history, and planning and housing are examined. The Making of Urban America is the only reader available that covers all of U.S. urban history and that also includes the most recent interpretive scholarship on the subject.

The fourth edition of Mark Hutter’s Experiencing Cities examines cities and larger metropolitan areas within a truly global framework, lending readers much to understand and appreciate about the variety of urban structures and processes and their effect on the everyday lives of people residing in cities. Beginning with the emergence of the first urban centers and continuing to examine the present day and the future of smart cities, this book explores the changing cultural and domestic character of the metropolis and offers readers a complete historical and theoretical overview of municipal life. The new edition seamlessly integrates issues of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and class in its examination of city and suburban life, and further extends the Chicago School of Sociology perspective by combining its traditions with a distinct social psychological orientation derived from symbolic interaction and macro-level examination of social organization, social change, and power in the urban context. With this strong and sweeping interdisciplinary approach, the new edition of Experiencing Cities will continue to enrich students’ understandings of urban life and offer new, forward-looking perspective to those working in the fields of urban sociology, history, politics, geography, and the arts.

This book explores the impact in Japan of the rise of global coffee chains and the associated coffee culture. Based on extensive original research, the book discusses the cultural context of Japan, where tea-drinking has been culturally important, reports on the emergence of the new coffee shop consumer experience, and reflects on the link between consumption and identity, on cultural fantasies about modern, Western, or global lifestyles, on the effects of global standardization, and on much more.

The pictorial turn in the humanities and social sciences has emphasized the political power of images and the extent to which historical, political, social, and cultural processes and practices are shaped visually. The volume gathers original articles by visual culture studies experts in the fields of Art History, American Studies, History, and Political Science from Europe and the United States. The collection explores the political function and cultural impact of images and how political iconographies interpret norms of actions, support ideological formations, and enhance moral concepts. Visual rhetorics are understood as active players in the construction and contestation of the political realm and public space. Individual essays address concepts and theories for a politics of art and perception, investigate national(ist) forms of political representation on both sides of the Atlantic, and interpret the iconographic repertoires of specific cultures and political systems from the eighteenth century to the immediate present.