Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan, and the Fate of the American Metropolis

Event Details

PBS World Channel National Broadcast: Virginia, May 8, 2016/Nationally, May 11, 2016

Andrew R. Highsmith is an assistant Professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is a specialist in modern U.S. history with particular interest in policy, racial and economic inequalities, and public health. His first book, Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan, and the Fate of the American Metropolis, explores the spatial and structural barriers to racial equality and economic opportunity in metropolitan Flint from the early 20th century to the present. An in-depth case study of the political economy of racial and economic inequality in modern America, Demolition explains how the perennial quest for urban renewal—even more than white flight, corporate abandonment, and other forces—contributed to mass suburbanization, racial and economic division, deindustrialization, and political fragmentation.