The "Urban Crisis" in America
Urban Studies 988-002 (Seminar in Urban Social Institutions);
History 800-002 (Colloquium in American History)

Amanda I. Seligman
seligman@uwm.edu
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Spring 2001

SYLLABUS

This course examines the period in the history of American cities that is often referred to with the shorthand phrase "urban crisis," the decades following World War II. The purpose of the course is to explore the usefulness of the idea of "crisis" for understanding postwar American cities. Readings include contemporary observations about the state of American cities as well as historical studies of the period. In the middle of the term, we will spend several weeks exploring the historiography of rioting, a phenomenon central to the urban crisis literature.

Readings

For the order of the readings assigned in this course, please see the "Schedule" section of the syllabus. The following books are required readings and have been ordered through the UWM Bookstore:

Edward C. Banfield
The Unheavenly City Revisited (Waveland Press, June 1990).
Note: this is a reprint of the 1974 edition of the book, not of the original 1970 volume.

Robert A. Beauregard
Voices of Decline (Blackwell, 1993)

Mike Davis
Ecology of Fear (Vintage Books, 1998)

Paul Gilje
Rioting in America (Indiana University Press, 1996)

Arnold Hirsch
Making the Second Ghetto (University of Chicago Press, 1983)

Gerald Horne
Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (Da Capo Press, 1995)

Jane Jacobs
The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Vintage Books; originally published 1961)

Thomas J. Sugrue
Origins of the Urban Crisis (Princeton University Press, 1996)
See H-Urban Review of this book online at
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=14964881258202

Jon C. Teaford
The Twentieth Century American City, 2nd edition

William M. Tuttle, Jr.
Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (University of Illinois Press, 1996)
Note: this edition is identical with the original version. Additional readings will be made available through the electronic and paper reserve services of the Golda Meir library. Reserve readings are noted in the schedule with an "E" (electronic) and "P" (paper).


Evaluation

All students in this course will write four short (2-3 pages) papers in response to the reading assignment for four different weeks. These papers are due on the same day as the assigned readings. It is up to you to select the pace at which you turn in these papers. I recommend very strongly against leaving them for the last four weeks of class; and I do recommend that you write at least one of the short papers before March 5, so that you can receive feedback on your writing before the midterm paper is due.

These papers should be response papers developed into formal, but brief, essays. That is, you should pick some aspect of the assigned reading which you found intriguing, provocative, wrong, or profound, and write a paper about it. You should not feel compelled to write about everything in an assigned reading that you found interesting; rather, you should pick out one feature and develop it at length. I will hand out model papers that you may use to help structure your paper. The purpose of this assignment is threefold:
  1. to ensure that each week in the course several of the students are especially well prepared for discussion;
  2. to provide for an extended conversation with each student about how to improve his or her scholarly prose;
  3. to give students an opportunity to develop the ideas with which they will work in their final paper.
All students in the course will receive a grade for their participation. Seminars depend on the willingness of all participants to give serious attention not only to their own ideas, but also to engage with the contributions of their colleagues. Listening respectfully is a part of participation. The participation grade will reflect not the overall quantity of your comments, but the quality of your contribution to class discussion.

While all students will write the four short papers and participate in discussion, you may tailor the other writing requirements for this class to your educational needs. I anticipate that most of the students enrolled will take Option 1 described below. Students who are planning to write a Master's thesis or PhD dissertation in the field of postwar United States Urban History, however, might find Option 2 more suitable.

Option 1
In addition to the short papers, write a midterm and a final paper, as described in the schedule section of the syllabus. The midterm is due on March 26, and the final paper is due on May 15. Please be aware that the midterm paper is due shortly after Spring Break, and there is also assigned reading for that class section.


Option 2
In addition to the four short papers, write a dissertation or thesis proposal. The proposal should explore some important scholarly question about the scholarship on postwar American cities, suggest the kinds of evidence from which this question could be examined, and identify sources on which the project could be based. Note that this option will require extensive reading outside the literature identified in this syllabus and periodic conferences with me about your ideas and progress. Please consult with me in the first month or so of the semester if you intend to pursue this option, so that we might discuss particulars.


Option 1:
4 short papers (40%)
Midterm paper (20%)
Final Paper (30%)
Participation (10%) 		OR Option 2:
4 short papers (40%)
Thesis or Dissertation Exploratory paper (50%)
Participation (10%)


Notes

If you need special accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course, please contact me as soon as possible.

All students are expected to observe UWM's standards of academic honesty, explained at http://www.uwm.edu/SAHP//administrationinfo/acadmisc.html. For a useful explanation of what constitutes plagiarism, see http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html. If you have any questions at all about this matter, please do not hesitate to consult with me.

To receive full credit, the midterm and final exam must be turned in at or before the beginning of the class period on the day they are due. Late papers will be graded for their quality, but will be reduced by one step of a letter grade for each day they are late. In the event of an emergency, please contact me about the possibility of an extension. There are no extensions on the short papers in this course; pace yourself accordingly. Failure to complete all required components of the course may result in a failing grade for the course as a whole.



Schedule

January 22. Introduction

January 29. Review of 20th Century Urban History
Read:
Teaford, The Twentieth Century American City

THE URBAN CRISIS LITERATURE

February 5. The most recent classic on the Urban Crisis
Read:
Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis Recommended:
William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: the inner city, the underclass, and public policy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987).

February 12. The classic classic on the Urban Crisis
Read:
Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto
Note: the 1983 and 1998 editions of this book are the same, except for the addition of a new preface. If you are reading from a copy of the 1983 edition, please be sure to see the 1998 preface, available in the reserve copy.

February 19. Rioting in the 1960s
Read:
Horne, The Fire This Time

Recommended:
Sidney Fine, Violence in the model city: the Cavanagh administration, race relations, and the Detroit riot of 1967 (Golda Meir call number: F574 D49 N4394 1989)

UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY OF RIOTING

February 26. European Riot Historiography
Read:
(E) E. P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century," Past and Present 50 (1971): 76-136.

(E) Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Rites of Violence," chapter 6 (pages 152-187), in Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1975).

(E) Suzanne Desan, "Crowds, Community, and Ritual in the Work of E. P. Thompson and Natalie Davis," chapter 2 (pages 47-69) in Lynn Hunt, editor, The New Cultural History (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1989).

March 5. American Riot Historiography
Read:
Gilje, Rioting in America

Note: If you have not already turned in one short paper, you should do so this week.

March 12. Other American Riots
Read:
Tuttle, Race Riot Recommended:
Michael A. Gordon, The Orange Riots : Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871 (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1993).

March 19. Class does not meet (spring recess), but you should work on the midterm.

OTHER INTERPRETATIONS OF THE URBAN CRISIS

March 26. Literature Review I
Read:
Beauregard, Voices of Decline, preface and chapters 1-6

Midterm paper due (5-7 pages):
Consider how the authors thus far assigned approach the history of rioting. Which one or two offer the most useful approach to understanding the internal dynamics and overall causes of rioting? Discuss what works about this approach and how it might be used to improve the deficiencies of some of the other writings.

April 2. Contemporary Commentary I
Read:
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

April 9. Contemporary Commentary II
Read:
Banfield, The Unheavenly City Revisited

April 16. Literature Review II
Read:
Beauregard, Voices of Decline, chapters 7-12

April 23. Crisis in Infrastructure?
Read:
(P) Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), Part III (pages 283-426).
See the H-Urban Review of this book online at
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=13074983817017.
Note: This book is available for sale in hardcover, but sells for approximately $60, so I have opted to place it on reserve.

April 30. Crises in Culture?
Read:
(E) Robert Self, "'To Plan Our Liberation': Black Power and the Politics of Place in Oakland, California, 1965-1977," Journal of Urban History (September 2000), 759-792.

(E) Harvey Kantor and Barbara Brenzel, "Urban Education and the 'Truly Disadvantaged': The Historical Roots of the Contemporary Crisis, 1945-1990," chapter 11 (pages 366-402), in Michael B. Katz, editor, The "Underclass" Debate: Views from History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

May 7. Crisis as the Culture?
Read:
Davis, Ecology of Fear

May 15, 5 p.m.:   Final paper due
Write a 15-page paper with the title "The Urban Crisis in American Cities."



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Syllabus prepared for archive 15 February 2001.