This Wall Wasn’t Dead: Public Art in Atlanta

From New York's graffiti wars of the 1980s to the political street art of Banksy in the 2000s, the role of art in public space continues to stir controversy and debate.  Under the divine tutelage of Mayor Ed Koch (such a singular historical figure that NYC lamely attempted to rebrand the great Queensboro Bridge in his honor), New York spent millions trying to eradicate the menace of spraypainted tags and murals from subway cars, adding to the myriad ways that young people, mostly of color, were criminalized amid the urban crisis of deindustrialization, unemployment, and drug addiction.  (See Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop for more on this history.) Due in part to the pioneering …

Tropics of Meta Featured on Curbed.com

This is a little old, but we wanted to flag a post on the real estate and urban issues website Curbed that cited our April essay, "Is the Beltline Bad for Atlanta?"  In the post, Josh Lindenbaum described the piece as an "exquisitely-contextual" look at the "semi-taboo, usual suspect issues of race and class" surrounding the Atlanta Beltline.  As enthusiastic supporters of the Beltline, the writers at Curbed remained open-minded about critiques of the project but were nonetheless glad to see that we concluded the good of light rail in in-town Atlanta ultimately outweighs the bad.  In metropolitan Georgia the debate goes on unabated, but we are delighted that both supporters and critics …

Is the Beltline Bad for Atlanta?

Class has always been the shadow cast by New Urbanism.  The idea of curbing sprawl and promoting greater urban density runs up against material realities time and time again.  Consider Oregon’s much-lauded urban growth boundary system, which set a limit for growth around the state’s cities beginning in the 1970s.  The policy was put in place by a liberal Republican governor, Tom McCall, who hoped to prevent “grasping wastrels” from gobbling up Oregon’s farms and scenic countryside.  It has since promoted infill – intensive reuse of existing urban space, in lieu of expansion – and contributed to the famously walkable and bike-friendly urban culture of cities such as …

Teaching the New Deal in the Occupy Era

During a graduate seminar this Fall, we discussed Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore’s excellent article on the New Deal, “The Long Exception,” and our thoughts inevitably turned to comparisons of the 1930s and the present moment.  These were the early days of the Occupy movement, when the protests were first beginning to confuse those who believe every political action needs to come with a bullet-point policy platform, and critics of the Left were already sharpening their critique of the smelly, lazy folks who had nothing better to do than sit around in the park all day.  To me, the protest seemed to function so beautifully because of its aimlessness.  The inertia of its …

Our Day of Social Engineering: A Middle Class Experiment Arrives in Reynoldstown

On Saturday, several friends and I got to witness the birth of a new community amid the fanfare of what was basically a very expensive raffle. The Lofts at Reynoldstown Crossing were making their units available to pre-qualified buyers, offering $60,000 of downpayment assistance to Atlantans who made less than $68,000/year. The idea was to rehabilitate a failed condo project in the Reynoldstown neighborhood, an old industrial, working-class community, as an anchor for the ambitious new Beltline project, which ultimately aims to encircle Atlanta’s in-town neighborhoods in a network of light rail, parks, and bike and walking trails. My friend Jeena applied to get this subsidy from the …

Not Your Parent’s Gentrification: Clybourne Park’s Uncomfortable Take on Neighborhood Change

Few developments in the 21st century conjure up as many economic and racial ghosts as gentrification. For urban denizens of all persuasions, debates regarding gentrification unfold like a typical over the top episode of HBO’s True Blood, complete with bloodletting and sacrifice. The problems and issues raised by this process remain complex and contradictory. While race certainly continues to be a factor, reducing the issue to black vs. white oversimplifies what has become a truly mind bending dialogue. For example, in Chicago, as public housing projects were razed, resentments toward whites moving into new “affordable” housing provided only one source of tension. Working class Blacks …

Over 140 Educators, Students, and Allies Sign Letter Opposing HB 87

A coalition of students, staff, faculty members and alumni of Georgia’s colleges and universities have signed a letter to Governor Nathan Deal, urging him to veto HB 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011. The letter, which circulated online from Monday through Wednesday this week, lays out moral and practical arguments against the anti-immigration measure. The signers suggest that the bill unfairly targets immigrants and could lead to racial profiling of Georgia residents who are suspected of being undocumented migrants based on their physical appearance. The letter questions the constitutionality of the bill, and warns that it will cost the state business and …

Teachers and Students in Georgia Speak Out Against HB 87

In recent months, legislators in Georgia have aspired to imitate their peers in Arizona by passing a bill that allows state and local authorities to police the immigration status of state residents.  These measures have raised serious concerns about the possibility of racial profiling and the power of state governments to regulate immigration, which has traditionally been a function of the federal government.   The current anti-immigrant agenda among conservatives portends a worrying trend toward the politics of scapegoating in the United States, as immigrants are held to blame for problems such as budget deficits, unemployment, healthcare costs and so forth. Governor Nathan Deal has …

Mountain Goats and the Music of Survival

Sometimes we’re not prepared for adversity. When it happens, sometimes we’re caught short… Sometimes, we don’t know just what to do when adversity takes over. And I have advice for all of us, I got it from my pianist Joe Zawinul who wrote this song, and it sounds like what you’re supposed to say when you have that kind of problem. And it’s called “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” - Cannonball Adderley This line comes from the opening of one of my favorite records of all time, and it sums up one musical and philosophical response to suffering – to recognize one’s own insufficiency and turn to a greater power for some kind of relief. Whether Joe Zawinul was himself a religious man …

Looking for the City of Knowledge

For at least the last twenty years, scholars have proposed that the rise of a post-industrial economy led to the reinvention of urban life -- the so-called "informational city."  What is the relationship between cities, on one hand, and high-technology industries such as computers, media, and pharmaceuticals, which seem to cluster in metropolitan areas like Silicon Valley?   Numerous historians, geographers, sociologists, planners, and theorists have tried to understand the “geography of innovation,” searching for the factors that turn some places into centers of advanced scientific and technological work instead of others. Why, for instance, did Boston become a haven for cutting edge …