Alabaster Cities: Urban U.S. Since 1950

by John Rennie Short

With keen insight and exhaustive research John Rennie Short narrates the story of urban America from 1950 to the present, revealing a compelling portrait of urban transformation. Short chronicles the steady rise of urbanization, the increasing suburbanization, and the sweeping metropolitanization of the U.S., uncovering the forces behind these shifts and their consequences for American communities.

Drawing on numerous studies, first-hand...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815631057
• ISBN13: 9780815631057
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Alabaster Cities is thoroughly accessible to lay readers as well as scholarly readers.

Written by John Rennie Short (Professor of Geography and Public Policy, University of Michigan), Alabaster Cities: Urban U.S. Since 1950 is an in-depth, scholarly study of urban America since 1950, with especial focus on "urban renewal" that all too often demolished working-class city zones that were not slums, failed to provide adequate public housing, and therefore left too many poor and lower-income people with no place to go; the positives and negatives of increasing suburbanization; and political and social fallout from changing urban and suburban dynamics. Though serious-minded, drawing heavily on research, and careful not to mistake correlation for causation (are suburbs often more conservative politically because conservatives tend to move there, or because life there tends to give residents a more conservative perspective?), Alabaster Cities is thoroughly accessible to lay readers as well as scholarly readers. Highly recommended.