Two weeks in the Special Collections at UIC’s Richard Daley Library as a Short-Term Travel Fellow resulted in significant finds for my research on illegal activist-created parks in the late-1960s and early-1970s. These parks emerged at the intersection of several political forces: anti-urban renewal activism, environmentalism, hippie utopian communalism, anti-colonial land sovereignty organizing, and racial self-determinationContinue reading “Research Spotlight: Visualizing Chicago’s People’s Park in the Archives”
Category Archives: Urban Studies
Teaching Spotlight: Indianapolis Urban Design
During the summer of 2016 I worked with a handful of graduate students in Ball State University’s Master of Urban Design program advising their graduate theses. Taken together, they all tackled different sites in the Indianapolis-area that could better capitalize on existing yet underutilized waterways to accomplish the following tasks: drive job development, provide housing and socialContinue reading “Teaching Spotlight: Indianapolis Urban Design”
Inspiration: Mapping Chicago from Below
The history of cartography is often remembered as a legacy of white men. With “imperial eyes” (Pratt, 1992), cartographers granted power to largely northern white nation-states through borders and names with the stroke of a pen. From the age of exploration to mid-twentieth century redlining, maps have shaped people, places, histories, and our identities. Ultimately, maps visualizeContinue reading “Inspiration: Mapping Chicago from Below”
Research Spotlight: Skid Row and the Great Wall of LA
In November of 2015 I presented my research on Berkeley’s People’s Park at SACRPH – The Society for American City and Regional Planning History. Because the conference was based in LA, many panels that put theorists, practitioners, and historians in conversation addressed local concerns over the right of the masses to the city. One ofContinue reading “Research Spotlight: Skid Row and the Great Wall of LA”
Kera Lovell, Ph.D. 