Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie: Race, Urban Planning, and Cosmopolitanism in Chattanooga, Tennessee

What can local histories of interracial conflict and collaboration teach us about the potential for urban equity and social justice in the future? Courtney Elizabeth Knapp chronicles the politics of gentrification and culture-based development in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by tracing the roots of racism, spatial segregation, and mainstream "cosmopolitanism" back to the earliest encounters between the Cherokee, African Americans, and white settlers. For more than three centuries, Chattanooga has been a site for multiracial interaction and community building; yet today public leaders have simultaneously restricted and appropriated many contributions of working-class communities of color within the city, exacerbating inequality and distrust between neighbors and public officials. Knapp suggests that "diasporic placemaking"--defined as the everyday practices through which uprooted people create new communities of security and belonging--is a useful analytical frame for understanding how multiracial interactions drive planning and urban development in diverse cities over time. By weaving together archival, ethnographic, and participatory action research techniques, she reveals the political complexities of a city characterized by centuries of ordinary resistance to racial segregation and uneven geographic development.

Author: Courtney Elizabeth Knapp
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 05/07/2018
Pages: 262
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.59d
ISBN: 9781469637273

About the Author
Knapp, Courtney Elizabeth: - Courtney Elizabeth Knapp is assistant professor of urban and regional planning at California State Polytechnic University.