Believing in Cleveland

"In tracing the evolving production of images designed to confirm Cleveland's continued vitality in spite of the urban crisis that enveloped it in the mid-twentieth century, J. Mark Souther unveils the complex relationship between revitalization and decline. By penetrating the unified façade of the city's growth coalition, he reveals how competing approaches and contested perceptions complicated both recovery and public confidence in its success. Believing in Cleveland tests our understanding of how urban stakeholders reacted to decline and offers considerable insight into the perils of addressing revitalization in an important Rust Belt city."—Howard Gillette Jr., Professor Emeritus of History, Rutgers University, and author of Camden after the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-industrial City

"Believing in Cleveland makes an important contribution to urban policy scholarship. Instead of starkly alternating accounts of revitalization or decline, Souther shows that decline and resurgence have always coexisted in post–World War II metropolitan life. By including the downtown, residential neighborhoods, and industry in the same history—one that foregrounds citizens' best and worst efforts on behalf of their entire metropolis—this book upends clichés of monolithic, hollow boosterism and an artificial center/suburb divide. Cleveland offers a powerful story in its own right, but most U.S. cities will see themselves reflected in this illuminating mirror."
—Alison Isenberg, Professor of History, Princeton University, and author of Designing San Francisco: Art, Land, and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay

"Believing in Cleveland is a powerful antidote to the simplistic, unidirectional narrative of decline that too often attends accounts of Rust Belt cities. Souther deftly interlaces stories of urban decay and revitalization, civic pessimism and optimism, despair over past mistakes and hope for a brighter future. Best of all, Souther traces these stories through real material spaces of the city. In the process, we see a wide range of actors at work and a city constantly grappling with its status in an urban nation. In this way, Believing in Cleveland sets a new standard for how we tell the story of postwar urban governance, municipal policy, and community development—a story where the richly layered interests of real people manifest in the streets, parks, plazas, and homes of the city."—Joseph Heathcott, Associate Professor of Urban Studies, The New School, and co-author (with Angela Dietz) of Capturing the City: Photographs from the Streets of St. Louis, 1900–1930

"Historian Souther's meticulously researched book reexamines and, in his own word, 'complicate[s]' the understanding of the efforts expended by city politicians, civic leaders, and economic development professionals in their attempts to slow or reverse urban decline since WWII.... Readers will wonder if any of the projects proposed but abandoned would have produced different outcomes. Throughout, Souther maintains a balanced, dispassionate tone.... Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice

"[A] dense, exhaustively researched history of simultaneous growth and decline in Cleveland from the 1940s to the 1980s.... [Souther's] considered findings make for multiple valuable contributions to the understanding of mid-century urbanism.... Souther's focus on the importance of perceptions of a city, by its citizens and by outsiders, is one of the prime contributions of this book.... By investigating perceptions and their influence, Souther excels in illuminating Cleveland’s recent history."—Journal of Urban Affairs

"Souther deals with Cleveland’s sad transformation and the attempts to reverse its fortunes in this deeply  researched and well-written book.... [He] presents a nuanced and complex account of the city’s attempts at rebirth over several decades.... highly recommended."— Journal of American History

"In his finely detailed and meticulously researched study, [Souther] expertly traces the story of one beleaguered midwestern city’s initiatives to manage decline.... Souther’s work is a valuable resource. It deserves the serious attention of all students of urban America."—Indiana Magazine of History

"This kind of project offers important contributions to several subfields of U.S. urban historical scholarship. At one level, Souther’s book provides a rich survey of local economic and policy history, including a source-intensive demonstration of the fractured rather than monolithic nature of postwar metropolitan growth coalitions. At another and perhaps more innovative level, it adds marvelously to the growing scholarly turn toward issues of urban representation and narrative. Indeed, Believing in Cleveland is, in large measure, a sustained close reading of a particular cluster of representational texts (growth coalition revitalization narratives) and the conflicted ways in which various interpretive communities—among others, business tycoons, white suburbanites, downtown theatergoers, and African American neighborhood activists—responded to them."—American Historical Review