The legal history of the United States is full of laws designed to exclude and segregate the racialized other. This reading list recommends scholarship that sheds light on that history.
Desiree Valadares presents a reading list that explores "the law’s historical role in the constitution of space, place, the body, and various other modalities of belonging in the U.S."
"The focus lies primarily on integrating legal history texts into architectural scholarship to examine race (and its intersections) and to trace changing legal notions of property, territory, nationhood, and citizenship," explains Valaderes.
Reading recommendations on two themes, exclusion and segregation, follow.
The first theme, Exclusion, is concerned with the ways in which the Right of First Possession, Trespass Laws, Vagrancy Laws, Nuisance Laws, Zoning and Eviction excludes and “others” undesirable groups.
The second, Segregation, looks at Alien Land Acts, Zoning Laws, Restrictive Covenants, Historic Districting, Redlining, Utility Easements, and Right-of-Way isolates and divides space.
Read the full story: Race, Space, and the Law
The Pseudoscientific Foundations of Racist Planning Practices
Racist and colonialist narratives in old geography textbooks help explain the prevalence of segregationist and discriminatory policies and other nasty planning practices. It’s time to understand and reconcile.
In Defense of Asian American Neighborhoods
How do you address a history of anti-Asian housing discrimination? Not by destroying Asian American communities.
Removing Urban Highways Can Improve Neighborhoods Blighted by Decades of Racist Policies
More money from the infrastructure bill now moving through Congress should go toward dismantling racist infrastructure in the United States, according to this article.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Chicago breaks ground on $3 billion megadevelopment
The new neighborhood, titled Foundry Park, will one day host 3,700 residences.
Satanic Place Names
From streams and lakes to valleys and canyons, I mapped more than 1,000 places named after the Devil.
California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO resigns after $600,000 scandal
Under Ian Choudri, the authority used taxpayer dollars to fund first class flights and trips to nightclubs.
Want to study the Missouri River? Soon, you may need unanimous approval from 10 states
Legislation would require 10 governors’ permission to study or build projects moving water outside the basin.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority