City in a Garden: Environmental Transformations and Racial Justice in Twentieth-Century Austin, Texas

Description

The natural beauty of Austin, Texas, has always been central to the city's identity. From the beginning, city leaders, residents, planners, and employers consistently imagined Austin as a natural place, highlighting the region's environmental attributes as they marketed the city and planned for its growth. Yet, as Austin modernized and attracted an educated and skilled labor force, the demand to preserve its natural spaces was used to justify economic and racial segregation. This effort to create and maintain a "city in a garden" perpetuated uneven social and economic power relationships throughout the twentieth century. In telling Austin's story, Andrew M. Busch invites readers to consider the wider implications of environmentally friendly urban development. While Austin's mainstream environmental record is impressive, its minority groups continue to live on the economic, social, and geographic margins of the city. By demonstrating how the city's midcentury modernization and progressive movement sustained racial oppression, restriction, and uneven development in the decades that followed, Busch reveals the darker ramifications of Austin's green growth. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. The Trouble with Green 1. A Mighty Bulwark against the Blind and Raging Forces of Nature: Harnessing the River 2. A Distinct Color Line Mutually Conceded: Race, Natural Hazards, and the Geography 3. A Mecca for the Cultivated and Wealthy: Progressivism, Race, and Geography after World War I 4. The Playground of the Southwest: Water, Consumption, and Natural Abundance in Postwar Austin 5. Industry without Smokestacks: Knowledge Labor, the University of Texas, and Suburban Austin 6. Building a City of Upper-Middle-Class Citizens: Urban Renewal and the Racial Limits of Liberalism 7. More and More Enlightened Citizens: Environmental Progressivism and Austin’s Emergent Identity 8. Technopolis: The Machine Threatens the Garden 9. Of Toxic Tours and What Makes Austin, Austin: Battles for the Garden, Battles for the City Epilogue. From Garden to City on a Hill: The Emergence of Green Urbanity Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U W Z