This Thursday at 2pm in Hancock 100, Assistant Professor Elizabeth Keslacy from the WAAC will be delivering her lecture, "Recreating the City".

American cities experienced a well-known “urban crisis” in the 20th century, in which an exodus of white, middle-class residents and industrial jobs led to a corresponding decline in downtown central business districts and historic cores. Many cities, however, were resourceful, taking advantage of newly available land along their riverfronts and new sources of federal funding to invest in public spaces of recreation. Beyond playgrounds or sports fields, cities built fantastical hardscape parks, plazas, amphitheaters, and fountains that redefined the urban landscape. This talk will highlight several of these sites in Detroit, Memphis, Cleveland, and Flint to explore how racial politics, business interests and a nascent ecological consciousness produced a new form of urban public space.