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Overview"Downtown America was once the vibrant urban center romanticized in the Petula Clark song—a place where the lights were brighter, where people went to spend their money and forget their worries. But in the second half of the twentieth century, ""downtown"" became a shadow of its former self, succumbing to economic competition and commercial decline. And the death of Main Streets across the country came to be seen as sadly inexorable, like the passing of an aged loved one. Downtown America cuts beneath the archetypal story of downtown's rise and fall and offers a dynamic new story of urban development in the United States. Moving beyond conventional narratives, Alison Isenberg shows that downtown's trajectory was not dictated by inevitable free market forces or natural life-and-death cycles. Instead, it was the product of human actors—the contested creation of retailers, developers, government leaders, architects, and planners, as well as political activists, consumers, civic clubs, real estate appraisers, even postcard artists. Throughout the twentieth century, conflicts over downtown's mundane conditions—what it should look like and who should walk its streets—pointed to fundamental disagreements over American values. Isenberg reveals how the innovative efforts of these participants infused Main Street with its resonant symbolism, while still accounting for pervasive uncertainty and fears of decline. Readers of this work will find anything but a story of inevitability. Even some of the downtown's darkest moments—the Great Depression's collapse in land values, the rioting and looting of the 1960s, or abandonment and vacancy during the 1970s—illuminate how core cultural values have animated and intertwined with economic investment to reinvent the physical form and social experiences of urban commerce. Downtown America—its empty stores, revitalized marketplaces, and romanticized past—will never look quite the same again. A book that does away with our most clichéd approaches to urban studies, Downtown America will appeal to readers interested in the history of the United States and the mythology surrounding its most cherished institutions. A Choice Oustanding Academic Title. Winner of the 2005 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians. Winner of the 2005 Lewis Mumford Prize for Best Book in American Planning History. Winner of the 2005 Historic Preservation Book Price from the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation. Named 2005 Honor Book from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. " Full Product DetailsAuthor: Alison IsenbergPublisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 1.60cm , Height: 0.30cm , Length: 2.30cm Weight: 0.737kg ISBN: 9780226385082ISBN 10: 0226385086 Pages: 464 Publication Date: 10 June 2005 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsAmerica's downtowns, if the daily papers and local chambers of commerce are to be believed, are tottering on the brink of destruction once again....Isenberg holds out a ray of hope in Downtown America. Her endlessly fascinating book argues that Main Street has always been an idealized dreamscape, a kind of Shangri-La of perfect civic bliss that never did quite measure up to its own image. - Karal Ann Marling, Chicago Tribune Isenberg exploits conference reports, maps, real estate appraisals, marketing studies, and federal guidelines to show the social and cultural effects of deliberate actions in reshaping nonrural America....[Her] ample use of illustrations is exemplary, as is her inclusion of representative cities throughout the North and South. Her optimistic perspective on downtowns as democratic meeting places of diverse elements of the population makes one want to find out even more about the revitalizers of urban spaces. - Library Journal Author InformationAlison Isenberg is associate professor of history at Rutgers University. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |