Alison Isenberg – författare

Downtown America transcends the archetypal story of downtown's rise and fall and offers a dynamic new story of urban development in the United States. Moving beyond conventional narratives, Alison Isenberg shows-that downtown's trajectory was not dictated by inevitable free market forces or natural life-and-death cycles. Instead it was the product of human actors - the contested creation of retailers, developers, government, leaders, architects, and planners, as well as political activists, consumers, civic clubs, real estate appraisers, and even postcard artists. Throughout the twentieth century, conflicts over downtown's mundane conditions - what it should look like and who should walk its streets - pointed to fundamental disagreements over American values.

Downtown America was once the vibrant urban center romanticized in the Petula Clark song—a place where the lights were brighter, where people went to spend their money and forget their worries. But in the second half of the twentieth century, "downtown" became a shadow of its former self, succumbing to economic competition and commercial decline. And the death of Main Streets across the country came to be seen as sadly inexorable, like the passing of an aged loved one. Downtown America cuts beneath the archetypal story of downtown''s rise and fall and offers a dynamic new story of urban development in the United States. Moving beyond conventional narratives, Alison Isenberg shows that downtown''s trajectory was not dictated by inevitable free market forces or natural life-and-death cycles. Instead, it was the product of human actors—the contested creation of retailers, developers, government leaders, architects, and planners, as well as political activists, consumers, civic clubs, real estate appraisers, even postcard artists. Throughout the twentieth century, conflicts over downtown''s mundane conditions—what it should look like and who should walk its streets—pointed to fundamental disagreements over American values. Isenberg reveals how the innovative efforts of these participants infused Main Street with its resonant symbolism, while still accounting for pervasive uncertainty and fears of decline. Readers of this work will find anything but a story of inevitability. Even some of the downtown''s darkest moments—the Great Depression''s collapse in land values, the rioting and looting of the 1960s, or abandonment and vacancy during the 1970s—illuminate how core cultural values have animated and intertwined with economic investment to reinvent the physical form and social experiences of urban commerce. Downtown America—its empty stores, revitalized marketplaces, and romanticized past—will never look quite the same again. A book that does away with our most clichéd approaches to urban studies, Downtown America will appeal to readers interested in the history of the United States and the mythology surrounding its most cherished institutions.   A Choice Oustanding Academic Title. Winner of the 2005 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians. Winner of the 2005 Lewis Mumford Prize for Best Book in American  Planning History. Winner of the 2005 Historic Preservation Book Price from the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation. Named 2005 Honor Book from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.      

A major new urban history of the design and development of postwar San Francisco Designing San Francisco is the untold story of the formative postwar decades when U.S. cities took their modern shape amid clashing visions of the future. In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Alison Isenberg shifts the focus from architects and city planners--those most often hailed in histories of urban development and design--to the unsung artists, activists, and others who played pivotal roles in rebuilding San Francisco between the 1940s and the 1970s. Previous accounts of midcentury urban renewal have focused on the opposing terms set down by Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs--put simply, development versus preservation--and have followed New York City models. Now Isenberg turns our attention west to colorful, pioneering, and contentious San Francisco, where unexpectedly fierce battles were waged over iconic private and public projects like Ghirardelli Square, Golden Gateway, and the Transamerica Pyramid.When large-scale redevelopment came to low-rise San Francisco in the 1950s, the resulting rivalries and conflicts sparked the proliferation of numerous allied arts fields and their professionals, including architectural model makers, real estate publicists, graphic designers, photographers, property managers, builders, sculptors, public-interest lawyers, alternative press writers, and preservationists. Isenberg explores how these centrally engaged arts professionals brought new ideas to city, regional, and national planning and shaped novel projects across urban, suburban, and rural borders. San Francisco's rebuilding galvanized far-reaching critiques of the inequitable competition for scarce urban land, and propelled debates over responsible public land stewardship. Isenberg challenges many truisms of this renewal era--especially the presumed male domination of postwar urban design, showing how women collaborated in city building long before feminism's impact in the 1970s. An evocative portrait of one of the world's great cities, Designing San Francisco provides a new paradigm for understanding past and present struggles to define the urban future.

A riveting, deeply moving account of a Black college student’s killing by police during one of the most explosive periods of the civil rights eraIn the volatile week following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, protests erupted in cities across the United States. More than forty people were killed by police in what was called the Holy Week uprisings, or the King riots. Police claimed that victims like Harlan “Bruce” Joseph, a nineteen-year-old Black college sophomore shot by a white policeman in Trenton, were looters, troublemakers, or arsonists. Uprisings uncovers a different story.Drawing on dozens of original in-depth interviews, Alison Isenberg revisits the causes of the unrest, placing Joseph, his family’s history, and his city at the center of that momentous week. She corrects the record about Black anger, protest, and peacemaking in cities like Trenton, showing how misinformation about the uprisings resulted in entire communities being written off as dangerous and too risky for investment. In the aftermath, young men like Harlan Joseph and their ideals were eclipsed. Isenberg’s epic begins in South Carolina where Joseph’s grandparents endured terrifying racial attacks that led families north in search of peace in the Great Migration. Joseph’s life unfolded against the backdrop of his family’s rise in a city confronting deindustrialization and escalating tensions around desegregation and educational inequality. To understand Joseph’s death, Isenberg poignantly tells the story of his life and what brought young people onto the streets in that tumultuous week. His killing by police was never fully investigated—until now.Uprisings paints an unforgettable portrait of a young man’s passion to make a better Trenton, and whose life and tragic death reflect the enduring power of youth to drive change.

A major urban history of the design and development of postwar San FranciscoDesigning San Francisco is the untold story of the formative postwar decades when U.S. cities took their modern shape amid clashing visions of the future. In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Alison Isenberg shifts the focus from architects and city planners—those most often hailed in histories of urban development and design—to the unsung artists, activists, and others who played pivotal roles in rebuilding San Francisco between the 1940s and the 1970s.Previous accounts of midcentury urban renewal have focused on the opposing terms set down by Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs—put simply, development versus preservation—and have followed New York City models. Now Isenberg turns our attention west to colorful, pioneering, and contentious San Francisco, where unexpectedly fierce battles were waged over iconic private and public projects like Ghirardelli Square, Golden Gateway, and the Transamerica Pyramid.When large-scale redevelopment came to low-rise San Francisco in the 1950s, the resulting rivalries and conflicts sparked the proliferation of numerous allied arts fields and their professionals, including architectural model makers, real estate publicists, graphic designers, photographers, property managers, builders, sculptors, public-interest lawyers, alternative press writers, and preservationists. Isenberg explores how these centrally engaged arts professionals brought new ideas to city, regional, and national planning and shaped novel projects across urban, suburban, and rural borders. San Francisco’s rebuilding galvanized far-reaching critiques of the inequitable competition for scarce urban land, and propelled debates over responsible public land stewardship. Isenberg challenges many truisms of this renewal era—especially the presumed male domination of postwar urban design, showing how women collaborated in city building long before feminism’s impact in the 1970s.An evocative portrait of one of the world’s great cities, Designing San Francisco provides a new paradigm for understanding past and present struggles to define the urban future.