Research
My book, From Steel to Slots: Casino Capitalism in the Postindustrial City (Harvard University Press, 2016), examines experiences of economic change in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a former steel town now host to an industrial-themed casino. I combine archival and ethnographic methods to argue that community residents, corporate investors, and politicians regularly use the built environment to embrace, grapple with, and interpret urban redevelopment initiatives and their unequal effects.
This small city's local landscape -- a hyper example of a shift from manufacturing to an economy based on service and entertainment -- is laden with memories of Bethlehem Steel's former commitments to the community. I argue that stakeholders use this material history to create continuities that push back on the forward-looking cultural narratives sustaining market-led development policies today.
In addition to using participant observation and ethnographic interviews, I ground my understandings of postindustrial community in archival materials related to early-twentieth-century European immigration and Catholic churches, Great Depression-era cultural tourism, postwar urban renewal and preservation efforts, and ongoing Latino and Asian migrations.
The project is relevant far beyond Bethlehem, as cities across the country and world respond to economic change by adjusting manufacturing identities to service- and entertainment-based industries; as urban, suburban, and rural communities face sustained demographic shifts and inequalities; and as legislation that turns to casino gambling to fill budget shortfalls is rapidly spreading both domestically and internationally.
From Steel to Slots began as my dissertation, which won the Urban History Association Michael Katz Award for best dissertation and the Society for American City and Regional Planning History John Reps Prize for best dissertation in 2015.
Research interests beyond this book include the growing impact of casino-led urban development in postindustrial communities, histories of corporate land reclamation, and the ways in which uneven impacts of business decisions are made "natural" via the landscape.
This small city's local landscape -- a hyper example of a shift from manufacturing to an economy based on service and entertainment -- is laden with memories of Bethlehem Steel's former commitments to the community. I argue that stakeholders use this material history to create continuities that push back on the forward-looking cultural narratives sustaining market-led development policies today.
In addition to using participant observation and ethnographic interviews, I ground my understandings of postindustrial community in archival materials related to early-twentieth-century European immigration and Catholic churches, Great Depression-era cultural tourism, postwar urban renewal and preservation efforts, and ongoing Latino and Asian migrations.
The project is relevant far beyond Bethlehem, as cities across the country and world respond to economic change by adjusting manufacturing identities to service- and entertainment-based industries; as urban, suburban, and rural communities face sustained demographic shifts and inequalities; and as legislation that turns to casino gambling to fill budget shortfalls is rapidly spreading both domestically and internationally.
From Steel to Slots began as my dissertation, which won the Urban History Association Michael Katz Award for best dissertation and the Society for American City and Regional Planning History John Reps Prize for best dissertation in 2015.
Research interests beyond this book include the growing impact of casino-led urban development in postindustrial communities, histories of corporate land reclamation, and the ways in which uneven impacts of business decisions are made "natural" via the landscape.