Braddock America': building a narrative on a mayor's charisma

Abstract

Urban decline has become a highly mediatised subject with the diffusion of images of urban destitution following the sub-primes crisis of 2008. The primary focus on the great industrial cities has left the smaller satellite towns in the shadows. This chapter retraces the urban narrative of one such small town, Braddock, on the outskirts of the industrial district dominated by Pittsburgh. The chapter presents the construction of a new narrative by the mayor elected in 2005. The narrative attempts to situate the case of Braddock in the broader context of those territories left behind by the logics of global and neo-liberal capitalism. The mayor of Braddock, John Fetterman, devoted himself totally to his town, going so far as to tattoo his own body with symbols of the town's resistance and local identity. This physical incarnation gave unprecedented force to the narrative of the decline of the towns of the rust belt; for critics, however, this personification took place at the expense of the community Fetterman claimed to represent. The case serves to remind us of the interdependence between personal stories, public narratives and political outcomes.