Bulldozer revolutions : a rural history of the metropolitan South / Andrew C. Baker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baker, Andrew C., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban-rural migration--Southern States--Case studies.

Urban-rural migration.

Sociology, Rural--Southern States.

Sociology, Rural.

Human ecology--Southern States.

Human ecology.

Metropolitan areas--Southern States.

Metropolitan areas.

Loudoun County (Va.).

Montgomery County (Tex.).

Southern States--Rural conditions.

Southern States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (255 pages)

Place of Publication:

Athens : The University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Summary:

"With Montgomery County, Texas and Loudoun County, Virginia as case studies, this book integrates rural, environmental, and agricultural history into the history of the southern metropolis in a way that calls urban historians to explore the city's impact beyond suburbia and that challenges rural historians to allow these dynamic metropolitan rural areas to destabilize their larger narrative of a rural America left behind. The work examines the gentlemen farmers, historical preservationists, and nature-seeking suburbanites who abandoned the city to live in this countryside. These privileged white newcomers formed the vanguard of the anti-growth movement that defined metropolitan fringe politics across the nation. In the rural South, these activists obscured the troubling legacies of racism and rural poverty and celebrated a refashioned landscape whose historical and environmental authenticity implicitly critiqued of the alienation and ugliness of suburbia. Using a source base that includes the records of preservation organizations, local, state, and federal government agencies, and oral histories, this project explores the distinct roots of the environmental politics and the shifting relationship between city and country within these metropolitan fringe regions"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Foreword / by James C. Giesen

Introduction : a more rural metropolitan history

Clearing the backwoods

Cultivating the fringe

Damming the hinterlands

Settling the forest

Enshrining the countryside

Conclusion : a tale of two villages.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780820354156

0820354155

OCLC:

1080646766