A World More Concrete by N.D.B. Connolly

Sugrue's The Origin of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton University Press, 2005) touch on specific walls in Miami and Detroit respectively, I found that there is no comprehensive study of these structures, and whenever certain walls are discussed, it is usually in passing.

Though such books as Connolly's A World More Concrete and Thomas J. In a political climate saturated in rhetoric of walls and racial exclusion, this topic felt especially timely and necessary. I saw these physical structures as an overt reminder of how racism and real estate interests have intersected to shape the built environment, as well as a potent entry point to discuss other, more invisible forms of systemic discrimination. While not the primary focus of his book, Connolly discusses “race walls” (as he refers to them) several times, at one point stating that a 1930s era wall in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood “would serve as a model for other builders who, by the end of the 1940s, began including concrete walls as standard features of larger concrete, black-occupied housing projects.”Īs an artist/designer who often creates works that subvert urban objects of exclusion (like walls and fences) into places where community members can gather, discovering the existence and pervasiveness of segregation walls spurred me to investigate further. Connolly’s book, A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida (University of Chicago Press, 2014), that I learned of these structures and their prevalence throughout the United States. Within a 10-mile radius from where I grew up in Miami, FL, remnants of at least two segregation walls still stand yet, it wasn’t until late 2015 while reading N.

A World More Concrete by N.D.B. Connolly