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The roosevelt boulevard subway a century of promise, politics, and persistence 1913-2026 Jay Arzu
- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- Arzu, Jay, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Transportation.
- Urban planning.
- History.
- Political science.
- 0709.
- 0999.
- 0578.
- 0615.
- Local Subjects:
- Transportation.
- Urban planning.
- History.
- Political science.
- 0709.
- 0999.
- 0578.
- 0615.
- Genre:
- Academic theses
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (256 pages)
- Contained In:
- Dissertations Abstracts International 87-12A
- Place of Publication:
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2026
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- The Roosevelt Boulevard Subway, proposed in 1913 and still unbuilt after more than a century, exemplifies how unbuilt infrastructure shapes urban development through what this dissertation terms "infrastructural shadows"-persistent influences on spatial patterns, political coalitions, and planning decisions that endure long after abandonment. Through analysis of archival records, planning documents, and advocacy materials, this dissertation traces how the project's repeated failures resulted not from technical infeasibility but from complex interactions between racial politics, institutional fragmentation, and transit planning paradigms. From racial exclusion and highway competition in the early decades, through investment in racialized political symbols as Northeast Philadelphia underwent demographic transition, to defeat despite approved funding and partial construction, the project's trajectory unfolded even as peer cities successfully built new metro systems with federal support. Throughout, elaborate planning processes became mechanisms for managing democratic legitimacy while avoiding implementation. More recently, sustained community advocacy transformed the project from dormant plan to active priority through the 2040 Alternatives project. This analysis challenges conventional infrastructure studies by showing how unbuilt projects operate as active forces rather than mere absences, creating development patterns through anticipated connections, maintaining political possibilities across generations, and accumulating meanings that shape future debates. Rather than representing planning failure, perpetual infrastructure planning serves functions beyond construction, preserving future options, managing conflict, and maintaining legitimacy, while revealing how historical deferrals create path dependencies that persist even when conditions become favorable. Understanding these infrastructural shadows becomes essential as cities confront contemporary infrastructure crises, suggesting that what cities repeatedly imagine but never build shapes urban development as profoundly as completed projects
- Notes:
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-12, Section: A.
- Advisors: Guerra, Erick Committee members: Drake Rodriguez, Akira; Servon, Lisa
- Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2026
- Vendor supplied data
- Local Notes:
- School code: 0175
- ISBN:
- 9798247979623
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license
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