Indianapolis: A Concise History (Heartland History)

As its name denotes, Indianapolis is without question Indiana's city. Known as the Crossroads of America, Indianapolis and the surrounding communities have and continue to play an important role in politics, logistics, and commerce for both the state and the country. Indianapolis: A Concise Historylooks at the development of the city from a frontier village to a major railroad city in the late nineteenth century and through its continued growth in the twentieth century. Author and historian Jon C. Teaford reveals the origins of the Indianapolis Speedway, the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan, the persistent racial tension in the city, and the revitalization efforts under Mayor William Hudnut and his successors. Since 1824 Indianapolis has been the state's largest city, its political center, and the home of Indiana's state government, and it continues to be a center for urban growth.

History

Teaford, Jon C.

Americas

Indiana University Press

"Recommended for all who want to learn about the origins of the contemporary urban crisis." ―Library Journal
Teaford writes a definitive history of the transformation of "America's heartland" into the "Rust Belt," chronicling the development of the cities of the industrial Midwest as they challenged the urban supremacy of the East, from their heyday to the trying times of the 1970s and '80s. The early part of this century brought wealth and promise to the heartland: automobile production made Detroit a boomtown, and automobile-related industries enriched communities; Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School of architects asserted the Midwest's aesthetic independence; Sherwood Anderson and Carl Sandburg established Chicago as a literary mecca; Jane Addams made the Illinois metropolis an urban laboratory for experiments in social justice. Soon, however, emerging Sunbelt cities began to rob such cities as Cincinnati, Saint Louis, and Chicago of their distinction as boom areas, foreshadowing urban crisis.

Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Midwestern History and Culture)

During the 1880s and '90s, the rise of manufacturing, the first soaring skyscrapers, new symphony orchestras and art museums, and winning baseball teams all heralded the midwestern city's coming of age. In Cities of the Heartland, Jon C. Teaford chronicles the development of these cities of the industrial Midwest as they challenged the urban supremacy of the East. The antebellum growth of Cincinnati to Queen City status was followed by its eclipse, as St. Louis and then Chicago developed into industrial and cultural centers. The early years of the twentieth century marked the heyday of the midwestern city. Automobile production made Detroit a boomtown, and automobile-related industries enriched communities throughout the heartland. Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School of architects asserted the Midwest's aesthetic independence, and Sherwood Anderson and Carl Sandburg helped establish Chicago as a literary mecca. At the same time, Jane Addams was making the Illinois metropolis an urban laboratory for experiments in social justice. During the second quarter of the twentieth century, emerging Sunbelt cities began to rob the heartland of its distinction as a boom area. In the last half of the century, however, midwestern cities have suffered some of their most trying times. With the 1970s and '80s came signs of age and obsolescence; the heartland had become the ""rust belt."" Teaford examines the complex ""heartland consciousness"" of the industrial Midwest through boom and bust. Geographically, economically, and culturally, the midwestern city is ""a legitimate subspecies of urban life.""

Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Midwestern History &)

The American Suburb

The American Suburb: The Basics is a compact, readable introduction to the origins and contemporary realities of the American suburb. Teaford provides an account of contemporary American suburbia, examining its rise, its diversity, its commercial life, its government, and its housing issues. While offering a wide-ranging yet detailed account of the dominant way of life in America today, Teaford also explores current debates regarding suburbia’s future. Americans live in suburbia, and this essential survey explains the all-important world in which they live, shop, play, and work.

The American Suburb: The Basics

Business & Money

Economics

Routledge

The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science)

In The Rise of the States, noted urban historian Jon C. Teaford explores the development of state government in the United States from the end of the nineteenth century to the so-called renaissance of states at the end of the twentieth. Arguing that state governments were not lethargic backwaters that suddenly stirred to life in the 1980s, Teaford shows instead how state governments were continually adapting and expanding throughout the past century. While previous historical scholarship focused on the states, if at all, as retrograde relics of simpler times, Teaford describes how states actively assumed new responsibilities, developed new sources of revenue, and created new institutions.
Teaford examines the evolution of the structure, function, and finances of state government during the Progressive Era, the 1920s, the Great Depression, the post–World War II years, and the post–reapportionment era beginning in the late 1960s. State governments, he explains, played an active role not only in the creation, governance, and management of the political units that made up the state but also in dealing with the growth of business, industries, and education. Not all states chose the same solutions to common problems. For Teaford, the diversity of responses points to the growing vitality and maturity of state governments as the twentieth century unfolded.

Johns Hopkins University Press

Modern cities embody America’s successes and failures―while offering hope for the future.
Throughout the twentieth century, the city was deemed a problematic space, one that Americans urgently needed to improve. Although cities from New York to Los Angeles served as grand monuments to wealth and enterprise, they also reflected the social and economic fragmentation of the nation. Race, ethnicity, and class splintered the metropolis both literally and figuratively, thwarting efforts to create a harmonious whole. The urban landscape revealed what was right―and wrong―with both the country and its citizens’ way of life. 
In this thoroughly revised edition of his highly acclaimed book, Jon C. Teaford updates the story of urban America by expanding his discussion to cover the end of the twentieth century and the first years of the next millennium. A new chapter on urban revival initiatives at the close of the century focuses on the fight over suburban sprawl as well as the mixed success of reimagining historic urban cores as hip new residential and cultural hubs. The book also explores the effects of the late-century immigration boom from Latin America and Asia, which has complicated the metropolitan ethnic portrait.
Drawing on wide-ranging primary and secondary sources, Teaford describes the complex social, political, economic, and physical development of US urban areas over the course of the long twentieth century. Touching on aging central cities, technoburbs, and the ongoing conflict between inner-city poverty and urban boosterism, The Twentieth-Century American City offers a broad, accessible overview of America’s persistent struggle for a better city.

The Twentieth-Century American City: Problem, Promise, and Reality (The American Moment)

The years shortly after the end of World War II saw the beginnings of a new kind of community that blended the characteristics of suburbia with those of the central city. Over the decades these "edge cities"have become permanent features of the regional landscape. Originally published in 1996. The years shortly after the end of World War II saw the beginnings of a new kind of community that blended the characteristics of suburbia with those of the central city. Over the decades these "edge cities" have become permanent features of the regional landscape. In Post-Suburbia, historian Jon Teaford charts the emergence of these areas and explains why and how they developed. Teaford begins by describing the adaptation of traditional units of government to the ideals and demands of the changing world along the metropolitan fringe. He shows how these post-suburban municipalities had to fashion a government that perpetuated the ideals of small-scale village life and yet, at the same time, provided for a large tax base to pay for needed municipal services. To tell this story, Teaford follows six counties that were among the pioneers of the post-suburban world: Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York; Oakland County, Michigan; DuPage County, Illinois; Saint Louis County, Missouri; and Orange County, California. Although county governments took on new coordinating functions, Teaford concludes, the many municipalities along the metropolitan fringe continued to retain their independence and authority. Underlying this balance of power was the persistent adherence to the long-standing suburban tradition of grassroots rule. Despite changes in the economy and appearance of the metropolitan fringe, this ideology retained its appeal among post-suburban voters, who rebelled at the prospect of thorough centralization of authority. Thus the fringe may have appeared post-suburban, but traditional suburban attitudes continued to influence the course of governmental development.

Post-Suburbia: Government and Politics in the Edge Cities

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Books by Teaford, Jon C.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Teaford, Jon C.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Indianapolis: A Concise History (Heartland History)

Indianapolis: A Concise History (Heartland History)

Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Midwestern History and Culture)

Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Midwestern History &)

The American Suburb: The Basics

The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science)

The Twentieth-Century American City: Problem, Promise, and Reality (The American Moment)

Post-Suburbia: Government and Politics in the Edge Cities