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Book Cover
E-book
Author Connolly, N. D. B.

Title A world more concrete : real estate and the remaking of Jim Crow South Florida / N.D.B. Connolly
Published Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2014
©2014

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Description 1 online resource (405 pages) : illustrations, maps
Series Historical Studies of Urban America
Historical studies of urban America
Contents Acknowledgments; Introduction: America's Playground; Part I: Foundation; 1. The Magic City; 2. Bargaining and Hoping; Part II: Construction; 3. Jim Crow Liberalism; 4. Pan-America; 5. Knocking on the Door; 6. A Little Insurance; Part III: Renovation; 7. Bulldozing Jim Crow; 8. Suburban Renewal; Conclusion: The Tragic City; List of Abbreviations; Notes; Index
Summary Many people characterize urban renewal projects and the power of eminent domain as two of the most widely despised and often racist tools for reshaping American cities in the postwar period. In A World More Concrete, N.D.B. Connolly uses the history of South Florida to unearth an older and far more complex story. Connolly captures nearly eighty years of political and land transactions to reveal how real estate and redevelopment created and preserved metropolitan growth and racial peace under white supremacy. Using a materialist approach, he offers a long view of capitalism and the color line, following much of the money that made land taking and Jim Crow segregation profitable and preferred approaches to governing cities throughout the twentieth century. A World More Concrete argues that black and white landlords, entrepreneurs, and even liberal community leaders used tenements and repeated land dispossession to take advantage of the poor and generate remarkable wealth. Through a political culture built on real estate, South Florida landlords and homeowners advanced property rights and white property rights, especially, at the expense of more inclusive visions of equality. For black people and many of their white allies, uses of eminent domain helped to harden class and color lines. Yet, for many reformers, confiscating certain kinds of real estate through eminent domain also promised to help improve housing conditions, to undermine the neighborhood influence of powerful slumlords, and to open new opportunities for suburban life for black Floridians. Concerned more with winners and losers than with heroes and villains, A World More Concrete offers a sober assessment of money and power in Jim Crow America. It shows how negotiations between powerful real estate interests on both sides of the color line gave racial segregation a remarkable capacity to evolve, revealing property owners power to reshape American cities in ways that can still be seen and felt today
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Liberty Legacy Foundation Award, 2015
Subject Real property -- History -- Political aspects -- Florida -- Miami
Rental housing -- History -- Political aspects -- Florida
African Americans -- Housing -- Florida -- Miami -- History
African American neighborhoods -- Florida -- Miami -- History
Urban renewal -- Florida -- Miami -- History -- 20th century
Racism -- Florida -- Miami -- History
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Infrastructure.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
African American neighborhoods
African Americans -- Housing
Racism
Urban renewal
Florida
Florida -- Miami
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780226135250
022613525X
130698033X
9781306980333
0226115143
9780226115146