Samuel Zipp, “Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York” (Oxford UP, 2010)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Sep 22, 2011 · 1h 17m

If you’ve ever lived in New York City, you know exactly what a “pre-war building” is. First and foremost, it’s better than a “post-war building.” Why, you might ask, is that so? Well part of the reason has to do with wartime and post-war “urban renewal,” that is, the process by which the Washington, big city governments, big city banks, and big city developers came together to clear “slums” and erect modern (really “modernist”) apartment blocks and complexes of apartment blocks. Think “the projects” (or, more generally, “public housing“). In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the New York City…