Reviews
A World More Concrete is a dense, packed tale that expands the historiography on urban racial segregation by embedding it in the history of capitalism. Connolly sharpens our understanding of the close and mutually constitutive relationships among liberalism, capitalism, and racism by placing real estate at the center of all three. Conflicts over the value of land shaped the American city in ways that policy reforms, social movements, and legal arguments could not undo. At times the density of detail somewhat obscures the larger arguments at the heart of the book. But if big points sometimes get buried in details, those details are consistently illuminating: Connolly uncovers an amazing array of perverse creativity, opportunistic alliances, and deceptive actions that shaped modern Miami., At a time when the long-term consequences of both Jim Crow and urban renewal are still painfully evident across the United States' urban landscape, studies such as A World More Concrete help understand how the contemporary structures of white supremacy and power came into being in the first place. Throughout Connolly's work, it becomes very evident that urban planning decisions do not only change the physical structure and outlook of the city (in this case Miami) but also the way in which spaces can be and are inhabited and used in the everyday sense of the term. . . . This study provides plentiful new insights into the intersections of race and place in twentieth-century Miami, but also points far beyond that. The rejection of established ideas of this intersection will certainly lead to new readings of the workings of Jim Crow in the United States at large., Connolly's sophisticated interpretation highlights ruthless white exploitation and black middle-class complicity alike, identifying entrepreneurs, landlords, elected officials, and self-styled reformers as eager participants in land control schemes that took advantage of the poor. His unsparing narrative shows how native-born whites and blacks, Cubans, Seminoles, Haitians, and other Caribbean groups all invested in segregation. . . . As these cases and a host of others make clear, the author tells us, the story of Jim Crow in South Florida turns out to be a complicated one in which few clear-cut heroes and villains emerge. Capitalism and the profit motive underwrote urban governance, preserved Jim Crow, and put real estate at the center of race relations--in Miami and throughout American society. The author's fascinating account will force planners and urban historians to challenge many of their ideas about race and cities., In this bold and brilliant book, Connolly demolishes the conventional wisdom about the relationship of race and place in modern America. Rejecting a narrative that pits the black struggle for civil rights against a white defense of property rights, he shows how--and why--some African Americans embraced the logic and laws of real estate for their own ends. Deeply researched and elegantly written, A World More Concrete does more than simply describe the landscape created by whites and blacks in a major city; it shows how contemporary America itself was constructed., A World More Concrete explodes easy assumptions about the relationship between property-holding and white political domination in segregated South Florida. Revealing the tangled connections between black and white landlords and their African American renters, Connolly argues that together, black and white landlords helped ensure Jim Crow's profitability, and its survival within state and society. His unsentimental conclusion that 'people of every complexion made Jim Crow work' will provoke spirited debate among anyone interested in African American history, racial justice, and the quest for equality in America., A World More Concrete offers a densely researched account of the spatial history of the city and tells of how city planners and landlords conspired to cordon off neighborhoods like Jenkins's Liberty City. Connolly points out the ways in which Miami is representative of other Sun Belt cities, with a local politics centered on property ownership and racism., In this bold and brilliant book, Connolly demolishes the conventional wisdom about the relationship of race and place in modern America. Rejecting a narrative that pits the black struggle for civil rights against a white defense of property rights, he shows how-and why-some African Americans embraced the logic and laws of real estate for their own ends. Deeply researched and elegantly written, A World More Concrete does more than simply describe the landscape created by whites and blacks in a major city; it shows how contemporary America itself was constructed., Connolly writes with a passion that is born of systematic and comprehensive research and in a voice that though colored with compassion and self-proclaimed 'irreverence,' is not tainted by bias., Connolly's focus on the enduring power of the social and property relationships at the heart of Jim Crow sheds new light on the unfulfilled economic promises of the civil rights movement. A World More Concrete demands we re-periodize the long history of the black freedom struggle along different axes of struggle and provides a compelling measure of its success and shortcomings., Just when scholars of the twentieth-century United States might reasonably assume we know plenty about how residential segregation in the North and South, in cities and suburbs, was created and defended, Connolly has shown us in this complex, multilayered, and engagingly written work that there is still more to learn about that story. . . . Connolly has a flair for language, metaphor, and character development that propels the narrative and renders it continually engaging. From those kids under the bridge to conflicting eulogies upon the death of Luther Brooks, the most prominent white property manager in the slums, Connolly draws out the contradictions that augment our understanding of how people built housing segregation and its impact. His A World More Concrete is a significant contribution to modern U.S. urban history and the history of race relations., There are no heroes in Connolly's A World More Concrete except, perhaps, the long-suffering black masses. There are winners and losers, however, and the big winners were whites who controlled the land and real estate in Miami and Southeast Florida., Connolly's focus on the enduring power of the social and property relationships at the heart of Jim Crow sheds new light on the unfulfilled economic promises of the civil rights movement. A World More Concrete demands we re-periodize the long history of the black freedom struggle along different axes of struggle and provides a compelling measure of its success and shortcomings., A World More Concrete marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in American political and social history. Through a fascinating history of Miami, Connolly brings together politics, culture, and economics in a riveting account of how shared understandings of property rights and real estate were central to the racial segregation that has plagued America's cities. Connolly unpacks the complex dynamics of property transactions and urban development, meticulously analyzing all the various institutional actors who shape this market in order to understand the political economy of racism., A World More Concrete explodes easy assumptions about the relationship between property-holding and white political domination in segregated South Florida. Revealing the tangled connections between black and white landlords and their African American renters, Connolly argues that together, black and white landlords helped ensure Jim Crow's profitability, and its survival within state and society. His unsentimental conclusion that 'people of every complexion made Jim Crow work' will provoke spirited debate among anyone interested in African American history, racial justice, and the quest for equality in America.
Topic
United States / State & Local / South (Al, Ar, FL, GA, Ky, La, ms, Nc, SC, Tn, VA, WV), United States / 20th Century, Discrimination & Race Relations, Real Estate, Public Policy / City Planning & Urban Development, General, Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Sociology / Urban
