Overview

According to popular media and scholarship, Detroit, the once-vibrant city that crumbled with the departure of the auto industry, is where dreams can be reborn. It is a place that, like America itself, is gritty and determined. It has faced the worst kind of adversity, and supposedly now it s back. But what does this narrative of new Detroit leave out? ""Beautiful Wasteland"" reveals that the contemporary story of Detroit s rebirth is an upcycled version of the American Dream, which has long imagined access to work, home, and upward mobility as race-neutral projects.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rebecca J. Kinney
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
Imprint:   University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.295kg
ISBN:  

9780816697571

ISBN 10:   0816697574
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   18 October 2016
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Table of Contents

Contents Introduction: Building a Beautiful Wasteland 1. It’s Turned into a Race Thing: White Innocence and the Old Neighborhood 2. Picturing Ruin and Possibility: The Rise of the Postindustrial Frontier 3. Fanning the Embers: Branding Detroit as a Phoenix Rising 4. Flickers of the American Dream: Filming Possibility in Decline 5. Feeding Detroit’s Rise: Provisions for Urban Pioneers Conclusion: The Strait: A Tale of Two Cities Acknowledgments Notes Index

Reviews

Rebecca J. Kinney's sophisticated and compelling study demonstrates the centrality of race-making to contemporary narratives of urban decline and revitalization. David M. P. Freund, University of Maryland

It's part personal memoir, part reporting, part academic dissection, drawing on life history, pop culture, photojournalism, architecture, TV news, and more. -Detroit Metro Times While modest in length and scope, Beautiful Wasteland provides a fascinating analysis of the cultural narratives that underpin both public policy and our everyday depictions of postindustrial cities. -The Michigan Historical Review Kinney's book is a valuable contribution to the growing body of research on Detroit in that it makes visible the banal ways in which racism occurs through a cultural lens. -Urban Geography Kinney's insistence that neoliberal market strategies cannot resolve structural inequities raises this succinct contribution to the critique of 'ruin porn' above the fray. -Indiana Magazine of History Crucially woven into this analysis is Kinney's sensitivity to the persistence of race in narrative tropes, and the significance of what is unsaid and what is forgotten, as much as what is said and remembered. -Environment & Urbanization Historical and cultural geographers plus scholars with an interest in the US Midwest, manufacturing history, or urban history will likely find this a welcome addition to their shelves - or night stands: the book was a compelling read and difficult to put down. -Historical Geography Rebecca J. Kinney's sophisticated and compelling study demonstrates the centrality of race-making to contemporary narratives of urban decline and revitalization. -David M. P. Freund, University of Maryland This is a welcome addition to studies in race and political economy. -Katherine B. Hankins, Georgia State University In Beautiful Wasteland Rebecca Kinney offers a sweeping cultural analysis of the images and symbolic landscapes that have made and remade our imaginary of the city of Detroit. -Jessa M. Loomis, University of Kentucky Beautiful Wasteland is a superb analysis of the role of popular culture in the production of Detroit as a 'postindustrial frontier'. -Sara Safransky, Vanderbilt University Beautiful Wasteland adds greatly to our understanding of why nostalgia is such a central part of how white working and middle class Americans construct their sense of self and the world. -Patrick Vitale, Eastern Connecticut State University

Author Information

Rebecca J. Kinney, who grew up in metropolitan Detroit, is assistant professor in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies and Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University.

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