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Feb 26, 2023
Hella Town
Oakland's History of Development and Disruption
Summary
Oakland grew up on the shadow of the dynamo of the nineteenth century West, always the "other" city on San Francisco Bay.
But as Mitchell Schwarzer, Professor Emeritus of art history and visual culture at California College of the Arts, argues in Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption (University of California, 2021), the city also has much to tell us about the history of urban development, inequality, and the role of transit in shaping city life. In this way, Oakland is every city in the United States, a synecdoche for 20th century urban renewal, American car culture, and recent trends in labor such as remote work. From sports to cable cars, the story of 20th century Oakland is both tragedy and triumph, and its center, the story of people and a culture changing and creating change in the inherently dynamic urban American West.
Your Host
Stephen Hausmann
Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is a Mellon Fellow with the National Park Service working for Mount Rushmore National Monument, is the Acting Executive Director of the American Society for Environmental History. Starting in 2025, he will begin teaching as an assistant professor of American environmental history at Appalachian State University.