The Politics of Racism and Urban Decline in the American Rust Belt

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Thursday, November 21st, 2019
7:30 PM to 9:00 PM

This Fall 2019 series marks the 10th anniversary of the City Talks. This Fall 2019 series is themed around Politics and the city. This three-part lecture series focuses on a panelist of Victoria Electoral District candidates, ethnicity and conflicts as well as the politics of racism.

On November 21st, Jackson Hackworth, a Professor of Geography and Planning from the University of Toronto will be presenting on the Politics of Racism and urban decline in the American Rust Belt. Despite the considerable overlap between the presence of non-white people and generalized population (and capital) flight in a variety of national contexts, the urban decline literature almost entirely ignores race and racism as active causes of urban shrinkage. Most literature focuses on conventional economic explanations (e.g. levels of deindustrialization) and solutions (e.g. reinvention of the economy around a creative class paradigm). This presentation, which is based on material from the book Manufacturing Decline: How Racism and the Conservative Movement Crush the American Rust Belt (2019, Columbia University Press), explores the role of racism as an active cause of urban decline. More than simply being the cause of economic distress, declining cities, and their often non-white citizens are actively constructed as virtual bêtes noires to advance conservative political interventions.