CONSTRUCTING AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN SPACE IN ATLANTA,GEORGIA*

Recognizing the connections between the construction of urban space and racial identity, this article explores an urban redevelopment scheme launched in 2004 by Big Bethel ame Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Known as the “Renaissance Walk,” Big Bethel's project is a $45 million dollar redevelopment plan to turn an adjacent city block into a mixed‐use development. By looking at the racialization of place from the perspective of those who live, work, and organize along Auburn Avenue, one of the most historically significant African American business corridors in the United States, I contend that Big Bethel's redevelopment project is emblematic of contemporary black counterpublic spaces and links the redevelopment project undertaken by Big Bethel with African American identity positions.     

Why there is no Detroit in Canada

Despite significant structural similarities, Canadian and American Rust Belt cities have very different levels of inner core land abandonment. Cities like Detroit and Cleveland are filled with thousands of vacant lots. No abandonment of this magnitude exists in the Canadian Rust Belt, despite significant deindustrialization, suburbanization, wealth, and localist politics—all factors theorized to be central causes for American Rust Belt abandonment. This paper considers why such a vast difference in land abandonment exists between the two contexts. It centers on the role of racialization, but in a way that challenges Canadian exceptionalist narratives about the ostensible lack of racialization. Racialization took place on both sides of the border, I argue, but only the American form contributed to land abandonment.     

Introduction

This essay introduces a collection of “think pieces”— conceptual, theoretical, editorial, normative essays on geography and race/racism. The collected essays follow from a National Science Foundation and Canadian Embassy – funded workshop on race and geography held in 1998. This introduction provides a brief background summary of the social and disciplinary context for the workshop and for scholarly work on race and geography, and a brief summary and thematic categorization of the individual essays gathered here.