Disable All Advertising
Image
EAN-139780226385082   EAN-13 barcode 9780226385082
Product NameDowntown America: A History Of The Place And The People Who Made It (Historical Studies Of Urban America)
LanguageEnglish
CategoryBook / Magazine / Publication
Short DescriptionPaperback
Amazon.comA Buy on Amazon ~ 0226385086
SKUACOMMP2_BOOK_USEDVERYGOOD_0226385086
Price New25.00 US Dollars    (curriencies)
Price Used10.98 US Dollars    (curriencies)
Width1.7 inches    (convert)
Height9 inches    (convert)
Length6 inches    (convert)
Weight25.92 ounces    (convert)
AuthorAlison Isenberg
Page Count464
BindingPaperback
Published06/01/2005
Long DescriptionDowntown 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.      
Similar Items9780262560221: Sprawl: A Compact History
9780252071966: Global Chicago
9780231065559: Manliness And Civilization: A Cultural History Of Gender And Race In The United States, 1880-1917 (Women In Culture And Society)
9780226891897: Nature's Metropolis: Chicago And The Great West
9780226076911: Sprawl: A Compact History
9780226041391: Manliness And Civilization: A Cultural History Of Gender And Race In The United States, 1880-1917 (Women In Culture And Society)
9780201175998: Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, And The Remaking Of Memory
9780195178029: White On Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, And Power In Chicago, 1890-1945
9780195049831: Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization Of The United States
9780043500538: Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era (Historical Studies of Urban America)
View 15 more similar items
Created02-26-2012 6:38:13pm
Modified04-30-2020 5:06:45pm
MD575a9b12f03a4f2e85bc9b8d12ebfd7ee
SHA25658cafc47a0a15e89d5de646cd2dd38c7c74b3a10ff3a0570bf86cdc763a15027
Search Googleby EAN or by Title
Query Time0.0275700

An article of interest

Site News and Events

We are upgrading the evening of 10/5/2012

UPDATE: The upgrade completed at 7:30am. This was a little later than we had hoped but the upgrade went without any mojor issues and everything is back up and running.


We will be offline from about 8pm Pacific time on 10/5/2012 and expect to be back online by 6am on 10/6/2012.

There has been a lot of back end work done to make the database more robust and easier for company owners to use. These changes are substantial to both the database layout and the web interface.

To get all the changes in place we need to start by upgrading the database. This process alone takes several hours. While the database is being upgraded, we will move all of the web page files into place. This only takes a short time.

The site will come back online automatically as soon as the database finishes the automated upgrade sequence. Much of the data will be reformatted and that is what takes the builk of the time for this process.

Most users won't see any major change. The company block under each product will look a little different. Company owners and people using our site for automation will see drastic changes.

Things will load faster. Updating company information will be easier. Linking from a company to their products will be easier. Validating changes to company entries will be easier. In short, managing and accessing the data will be a lot easier.

It would be nice if this process could happen without taking the site down but that just wouldn't work. So we are doing it during the slowest usage time.

We put an alert link in the menu bar. Did you see this alert? Was it helpful? We will probably improve that alert process in the future as well.