White City Research Articles

A Hot Season for Winterdale

The Winterdale School District sits within a majority White and progressive city, which sits within a majority White and conservative state. Students in the district voiced their concerns about the racially biased treatment they experienced or witnessed. This revelation prompted the formation of the Winterdale Equity Community (WEC) to address the district’s leadership. A very public and embarrassing exposé of the district’s biased practices resulted in a change in leadership. The case prompts students of educational leadership to consider how a new leader will create a systemically more racially conscious and equitable district for students and families despite being located in a state that has adopted anti-critical race theory (CRT) legislation.

White City pedestrian Bridge –structural design of the cable‐stayed future landmark, Baku (AZ)

AbstractOnce constructed, the Baku White City pedestrian bridge will be a landmark for the newly developed White City district in the east of the Capital. Designed by UNStudio, the bridge crosses the highway of 8th November Avenue and connects the newly build city to the seaside, forming a wide promenade.Due to the pending construction of the mall as future bridge support, the bridge had to be redesigned. A cantilevering viewing platform will highlight the bridge's ending.This paper covers the structural design of the architecturally shaped cable stayed bridge, supported through a 46 m high A‐shaped, slightly curved pylon. Based on 3‐D modelling in Rhino® and Grasshopper®, the FE‐software SOFISTIK® is used both for cable force finding and bridge design.The structural system, steel structure's specific detail for cable connection and its design approach have been documented.

A sociocultural approach to understanding collective trauma in Indigenous communities.

Research on the effects of collective trauma tends to take a psychocentric approach, focusing on the impact of being geographically near the traumatic event (physical proximity) or personally knowing a victim (social proximity). We theorize that this approach falls short in describing the effect of collective trauma among interdependent cultural groups, such as Indigenous Peoples, for whom the self and one's group are inextricably tied. Using a concurrent embedded mixed-methods design (N = 545), the current study explores the influence of cultural proximity (having a shared cultural connection to victims) in the wake of a fatal school shooting involving students from both a Native American tribe and a predominantly White city. After controlling for physical and social proximity, student distress behaviors and staff support behaviors, but not staff members' own psychological distress, were significantly higher in schools with higher Native student populations, where a larger proportion of students shared cultural connections with the victims. We discuss implications regarding the importance of providing adequate support for Indigenous Peoples, and interdependent cultural groups in general, following collective trauma.

“Race Women” in the “White City”: Race, Space, Gender, and Chicago's Red Summer of 1919

“Race Women” in the “White City”: Race, Space, Gender, and Chicago's Red Summer of 1919

“Old-Time Negroes”: Nostalgic Ex-Slave Narratives in New York Newspapers of the Gilded Age

In the field of social memory of slavery, a growing body of scholarship on the Jim Crow North has complicated the notion of white supremacy as a specifically Southern ideology, locating what historians view as a “missing link” in the history of race in America. This study examines a corollary gap in American journalism history—the role that white Northern newspapers played a generation after Emancipation in softening white memory of slavery and hardening discourse toward African Americans. This article applies narrative analysis to sample five large-circulation white New York City newspapers from 1889 to 1910, along with a contemporary Black city newspaper. The study concludes that white newspapers, by perpetuating racist tropes upstreamed from literature, cultivated Jim Crow ideology beyond the former Confederacy. The findings shed light on the timeline of Black Americans’ struggle for mass media representation and demonstrate journalism’s intertextual role in shaping social memory.

Visually Attending to black Senses of Place Through “Everyday Things” in White City, West London

AbstractThis paper shares a practice‐related rendering of Katherine McKittrick's conceptional notion “a black sense of place” by reflecting on visual practices adopted in my research project, “Everyday Things: Visualising Young Black Adults’ Experiences in White City”. In this article, I advance a black sense of place to be a conceptual lens that is capable of zooming in and out of the embodied perceptions and practices of resistance routinely created by Black people. I link black senses of place with the audio‐visual motif of “the rose that grew from concrete”. This motif acts as a metaphor, for the ways of being that Black people practice in overcoming the struggles of anti‐blackness. Providing snapshots of audio‐visual practices advanced in White City, West London with a kinship collective of young Black adults, I explore how black senses of place may be visually attended to through a combined methodological adoption of visual ethnography and photography.

Trumbull Talk: White Vernacular and the Politics of Persecution, 1953-1954

Following in the microhistory tradition, this essay draws on an unpublished report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to delve deeply into the political worldviews of working-class white mill workers in 1950s South Deering, Chicago, during their massive resistance to the racial integration of a local public housing project in the post-World War II period. A close analysis of casual conversations between members of this insular white community demonstrates that an intense fear of demographic change, exacerbated by a certainty that white city elites had “sold out their race” and were working with civil rights organizations to promote the interests of Black Chicagoans, instilled in South Deering’s whites a sense of powerlessness that failed to ease even as evidence mounted that white city leaders were giving the neighborhood segregationists much of what they wanted.

Mapping urban heatwaves and islands: the reverse effect of Salento’s “white cities”

Mapping urban heatwaves and islands: the reverse effect of Salento’s “white cities”

“Bringing Sandton into Soweto”

Over the past five decades, a vast literature on gentrification has developed. Evidence of gentrification in South African cities has been recorded in historically White neighbourhoods or city districts. The presence of gentrification in peripheral, poor, traditionally Black townships has had very little (if any) consideration in the literature, and this investigation aims to address aspects of this scholarly oversight. The paper is set in the iconic South African township of Soweto. It is argued that the Vilakazi precinct in Orlando West is an example of tourism-led gentrification. The investigation unpacks the development and gentrification of the precinct and the range of tourism roles therein. The study found that residents’ experiences were mixed; some aspects of expanded leisure and services were seen positively, while forms of economic and social exclusion were also recorded following the literature on township tourism. This unique case study connects the Global North and South experience of tourism-led gentrification, arguing that much common ground between these regions is to be found.

All That Is Solid Bursts into Flame: Capitalism and Fire in the Nineteenth-Century United States

Abstract Industrial capitalism arrived in Europe as great urban fires were already retreating. The United States, however, was generously timbered and far more reliant on wooden construction. As a result, its infernos continued, and even increased, well into its age of capital. They especially struck places of intense commodification: hastily built settler towns, slave cities, financial centres and sites of mineral extraction. Noting the connection between fire and capitalism, a class of upwardly mobile strivers came to appreciate fires for their ability to disrupt social hierarchies, reset property relations and nurture economic dynamism. Oddly, many who had suffered fires even interpreted them as ‘blessings in disguise’. This pyrophilia was not universal, however, and the richest men of the Gilded Age strenuously opposed it, seeking instead to fireproof the environment. The clash between pyrophobes and pyrophiles was between economic incumbents and economic insurgents, and it touched on many areas of late nineteenth-century culture. Familiar Gilded Age artefacts such as Chicago’s White City and L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz can be productively understood in terms of this widespread fight over the value of fire, and thus the shape of capitalism.

"So Rude and So Crude"


 The purpose of this research is to highlight the impact that urban renewal had on African American communities in Charlotte, Borth Carolina between the 1950s and 1970s, specifically the Brooklyn community. The work identifies the numerous facets of culture that existed in the Brooklyn community, and how urban renewal led to the destruction of that culture. After establishing a socially inclusive definition of culture, this work portrays the existence of a strong and vibrant culture within the Brooklyn community and how urban renewal was used in the erasure of this culture. Previous research has examined the impact that urban renewal has had on inner cities, on different ethnic groups, and the ways in which white city leaders used urban renewal to continue residential segregation. My research differs by investigating the specific impact that urban renewal had on African American culture, analyzing the effect the destruction of the physical community of Brooklyn had on the community’s culture. This paper relies heavily on my analysis of an oral history project overseen by Dr. Karen Flint, which includes over forty interviews with former Brooklyn residents. My paper concludes that Charlotte’s white leaders’ inherent racism led to the destruction of Brooklyn’s physical community, which contributed to the forced displacement of residents and to the destruction of Brooklyn’s pre-displacement culture. This research is important both to recognize the strength and significance of the Brooklyn community’s culture and to understand how racism in Charlotte’s past has shaped the current residential landscape of Charlotte.

Luxury brand cars, racial profiling, and citations: Testing the social conditioning model and illusory correlation

Abstract This study considers the issue of racial profiling in traffic stop citations for young Hispanic male citizens (YHM), young Black male citizens (YBM), and young White male (YWM) citizens stopped while driving a luxury brand car in either majority white cities or majority Hispanic cities. The current study utilized two different datasets: the Illinois traffic stop data (2016–18) and the 2016 LEMAS. The authors used the social conditioning model and illusory correlation as a theoretical explanation for police officer decision-making. The current findings show evidence of racial profiling only for stops involving YHM drivers stopped in majority white cities while driving a luxury brand car for either a safety stop or an investigatory stop ending in a citation. No evidence of racial profiling was found for either YBM drivers stopped in majority white cities or for either YBM drivers or YWM drivers stopped in majority Hispanic cities.

Populism and the Africanists in East London in the 1940s and Early 1950s

This article considers popular political mobilisation in East London prior to the launch of the Defiance Campaign in the city in 1952, which ignited a racial war. It suggests that the failure of the municipal authority to assimilate urbanising Africans from regional mission stations and schools, especially in the 1940s, created a crisis of legitimacy for the white city fathers, who had previously promised to find a place for educated and ‘civilised’ Africans. As young, educated African elites were blocked from climbing the class ladder, despite the growth and prosperity of the city, and were prevented from escaping the congestion and filth of its neglected African locations, a strong sense of affinity was forged between them and the urban poor despite their cultural and class differences. This was intensified when apartheid-style laws were introduced that treated and prosecuted all Africans in the same racialised ways. After the African National Congress Youth League was established in the city, educated elites and ordinary people participated in a single set of protests against the municipal leadership around living conditions and their right to urbanise. This was framed by a strongly Africanist ideology, analysed here through a discussion of populism.

Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Food Access in Two Predominantly White Cities: The Case of Lansing, East Lansing, and Surrounding Townships in Michigan

Access to fresh, healthy, affordable foods is a pressing concern in cities worldwide. American cities are no exception. Although many scholars study food access in large cities, small and mid-sized American cities can provide valuable information about inequities in the food system. This paper focuses on two adjoining, racially mixed Mid-Michigan cities—Lansing and East Lansing. It examines the extent to which different food outlets exist in the cities and surrounding townships. It probes the following questions: (1) How are food outlets distributed throughout the cities and suburbs? (2) What is the relationship between neighborhood demographic characteristics and the distribution of food outlet types? We collected data on food outlets from September 2020 to June 2022 using Data Axle as our primary source of information. We used ArcGIS 10.8.1 for the spatial mapping and SPSS 28 for statistical analyses. We conducted regression analyses to identify the difference in the likelihood of finding food retailers in census tracts where 0–20% of the residents were People of Color (VL-POC), 20.01–40% of the inhabitants were People of Color (L-POC), 40.1–60% of the residents were People of Color (H-POC), and more than 60% of residents were People of Color (VH-POC). There were 1647 food outlets in the study area: 579 were in Lansing, 220 were in East Lansing, and the remaining 848 were in the surrounding townships. Restaurants dominated the food landscape, while small groceries and convenience stores were the grocery sector’s most common food outlet types. Supermarkets and large grocery stores comprised only 5.6% of the study area’s food outlets. The study finds a nonlinear relationship between the racial composition of census tracts and the prevalence of food outlets. The VH-POC census tracts had very few food outlets. For instance, the tracts had no supermarkets, mass merchandisers or supercenters, small grocery or convenience stores, pharmacies or drug stores, or farmers’ markets. The findings illustrate the diversity and complexity of the Lansing–East Lansing metropolitan area’s food landscape.

The Modern Chișinău in the painting of Yurii Shibaev

Yurii Shibaev approached all genres of easel painting, but he established himself with the urban landscape. The plastic artist fell in love with Chișinău. This fact is attested by the numerous works dedicated to the city. In the custody of the Fund of the National Art Museum of Moldova are several urban landscape paintings by Yurii Shibaev: „Chișinău under construction. Râșcani Sector”, „Renewed Chișinău. Circus under construction”, „Râşcanii renewed”, „After the rain”, „The New Chișinău” etc. In his paintings we can see the representations of the old city, but also of the areas with modern elements, which are in constant evolution. The artist wanted to present the beauty of the city with lots of vegetation, populated with people, crowded with public transport: everything being in constant motion. The artist of realistic training tends to work with large decorative spots that are meant to give expressiveness to the painting. The predominant colors in his creation are white, green and gray. Thus, the artist resorts to a limited range of colors, using colored accents in the representation of people and cars. In the paintings „Old Chișinău”, „Chișinău under construction. Râşcani Sector”, „Chișinău is being built”, „The New Chișinău”, „After the rain”, etc. Yurii Shibaev confirms the image of Chișinău as a „white stone city”. Residential, ecclesiastical and cultural buildings are elevated above the rich city with abundant vegetation.

The Political Ecology of Archaeology and the Archaeological Imagination in the Honduran Frontier

ABSTRACT Integrating political ecology and archaeology has resulted in innovative approaches for reconstructing past human-environment interactions and understanding the legacies that shape environmental degradation and resource struggles today. This paper contributes to this emerging interdisciplinarity by proposing a political ecological approach to investigate how archaeological remains are assigned value as resources, drawing on interpretive theories in both archaeology and political ecology. This article applies this approach to examine the archaeological imagination driving expeditions in eastern Honduras that aimed to find the remains of a site of monumental importance associated with the legend of the White City. Through a political ecological lens, it becomes clear that the interpretation of the region’s archaeological heritage within the context of a legend is the result of displacement and resource control dynamics. Although archaeologists reject the legend as a credible source, actors continue to exploit its symbolism for prestige and profit. This approach highlights the disjuncture between profit-driven narratives of archaeological heritage and the socio-natures that underpin our imagination of such sites. The paper suggests that engaging with the socio-nature of archaeological sites may lead to more inclusive and nuanced interpretations of the past, showing how political ecology can contribute to public archaeology.

Unsound Judgments

This aural history surveys two parallel developments in the postwar United States: the commercial popularization of the white noise or “white sound” machine in the 1960s and ’70s; and the raising up of “noise pollution” as an environmental ill. Finding that marketing around the white noise machine cast it as an antidote to noise pollution, I query the paradox underlying the device’s “solution” to the noise problem, observing, as did its contemporary critics, that it proposed to fight noise with more noise. Examining advertisements, legislative documents, and the popular press, I argue that the device exploited the confusion surrounding attempts to define noise and classify it as a pollutant. I show that new anti-noise measures, far from clarifying the nature of noise for the public, rendered it more ambiguous; and I suggest that the rhetoric buoying the white noise machine leveraged this ambiguity, manufacturing distinctions between the purportedly ameliorative noise of the device’s “white sound” and the noxious noise of “noise pollution.” Finally, I locate noise pollution and the white noise machine relative to postwar race relations in the United States, and particularly, the “flight” of white city residents into suburbs. Observing that the newly trumpeted noise problem was localized in cities, I reveal the latent racism of noise pollution discourse and reexamine the commercial imaginary of the white noise machine in connection with racial and spatial politics. I conclude that these entwined narratives constitute an instructive episode in noise’s cultural history and pose still-relevant questions regarding privilege and environmental justice.

Racial Differences in Black and White Residential Outcomes in the Sundown Era

AbstractUsing publicly available census and historical records, I compare the Sundown‐era residential patterns and outcomes of Black and White residents from one small Wisconsin city between 1880 and 1930 to observe how sundown violence may have affected Black residential outcomes. Census summary data shows that while the White racial group population continued to grow at the state, county, and city levels, the Black population at the city level stalled before dropping to zero, providing evidence for sundown‐type violence and exclusion against Black households by White city residents. For the Black residents (N = 18) whose histories I could trace, three outcomes were observed: remaining in the city, internally migrating to an adjacent county, and moving to much larger metropolitan areas that were already known as Black residential destinations. In contrast, the residential outcomes for White residents (n = 42) were much more varied in their residential destinations, both at the state/regional levels, and in the size of community settled in. I suggest that sundown‐era displacement should be further considered in discussions of Black internal migration in the early 20th century, and that residents of formerly sundown towns and cities need to confront their under‐examined histories of racial exclusion.

Образы культурного ландшафта утраченного Златоустова монастыря в центре Москвы для отражения в атласной информационной системе

Zlatoust Monastery is a lost cultural heritage monument of regional significance, which received the status of a sightseeing place from the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage in 2019. It existed in the center of Moscow, in the White City, since the 14th cent. until 1918, when the monastery was closed; all its buildings were demolished by 1936, and a residential complex was built on the site of the monastery. All that remains of the architectural ensemble of the monastery is a two-story building built in 1862, fragments of walls and a decorative fence turret, which is in poor condition. On the territory of the monastery, historical research and archaeological work are carried out in the cultural layer, reaching in some places up to 4–5 m. Zlatoust Monastery is depicted on ancient maps of various times, scales, projections, content and methods of depiction. This cartographic information, as well as existing experience in reconstructing the cultural landscape in artistic, photographic and video formats, is considered. The presence of a large amount of information of various types (maps, infographics, photos, videos, works of art) requires the development of methods for their coordination, processing and storage in a multimedia atlas information system (MAIS), the main part of which are maps. In the process of research, a map of the cultural landscape for the modern period was compiled, showing preserved, lost and hidden natural and anthropogenic elements. The legend and methods of depiction with artistic signs are developed on the basis of previous studies, maps and architectural drawings reflecting real images of lost temples. The experience is interesting for studying the “historical background” of the modern cultural landscape. An idea of the main natural and anthropogenic elements of the cultural landscape of the landmark site (architectural, hydrological, plant, etc.) was obtained and systematized. Further development of the topic is seen in the creation of a series of maps of the cultural landscape of the Zlatoust Monastery for different historical periods, as well as the interaction of the monastery with the surrounding areas.

Through the bridges: the Black Cultural Association in São Paulo, urban planning and the contours of the white city

ABSTRACT In São Paulo, the presence of the Black population in urban space is not reflected in official data. However, urban plans and projects had a great impact on this group since the birth of urbanism. The city growth process throughout the twentieth century operated a silent removal of Blacks from neighbourhoods around the historical centre related to social and economic factors, without being reported or discussed. This removal was widely supported by the scarcity of official data on their location and characterisation. Segregation contributed to increasing the distance from their homes to the centre, perpetuating the difficulties of social mobility, and reproducing their state of poverty. By retrieving data contained in the archives of the Associação Cultural do Negro (Black Cultural Association), collated with the report on urban planning published by the City Hall in 1961, I will show the displacement of Black people's housing outside the wealthiest central neighbourhoods and its relationship with the urban policy implemented in the period. In the order established by this policy, bridges became elements of connection with the distant neighbourhoods, allowing segregation through the expulsion of Blacks from the most privileged areas, located between the main urban rivers.