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The Phoenix Keepers: An Anthropology of Futurity in Detroit City Hall

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dc.contributor.authorMacmillen, James Joseph
dc.contributor.chairForester, John F.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberPinch, Trevor J.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberSmith, Adam Thomas
dc.date.accessioned2018-10-23T13:35:44Z
dc.date.available2020-08-22T06:00:59Z
dc.date.issued2018-08-30
dc.description.abstractUrban planning is a progressive endeavor. Planners strive to improve cities, to make them more equitable, beautiful, sustainable, and resilient. This aspirational quality reveals a particular orientation towards time—a culture of ‘progressive futurity’ at the core of the profession, animated by visions of desirable urban futures and strategic claims about how these might be reached. Although planners in the United States rarely talk openly about ‘progress,’ an intrinsic progressivism remains in American planning. Without it, planning’s identity and legitimacy would disappear. This dissertation examines how this progressive futurity confronts a slow crisis of urban decline. It follows the City of Detroit’s urban planners as they grapple with the consequences of population loss, economic collapse, and infrastructural decay. I suggest that the magnitude and duration of Detroit’s decline—stretched across the planners’ careers—has steadily eroded their capacity for, and their faith in, effective planning interventions. As a result, their working relationship to the future bears little resemblance to the progressive futurity of the wider profession. Instead, Detroit’s planners routinely engage with the future in deeply personal, human ways, through a ‘phenomenological futurity’ of uncertainty, fate, despair, and hope.
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.7298/X4J38QS9
dc.identifier.otherMacmillen_cornellgrad_0058F_10943
dc.identifier.otherhttp://dissertations.umi.com/cornellgrad:10943
dc.identifier.otherbibid: 10489843
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1813/59746
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subjectPlanning
dc.subjectethnography
dc.subjectSociology
dc.subjectCultural anthropology
dc.subjectUrban planning
dc.subjectDetroit
dc.subjectFuturity
dc.subjectHope
dc.subjectProgress
dc.titleThe Phoenix Keepers: An Anthropology of Futurity in Detroit City Hall
dc.typedissertation or thesis
dcterms.licensehttps://hdl.handle.net/1813/59810
thesis.degree.disciplineCity and Regional Planning
thesis.degree.grantorCornell University
thesis.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy
thesis.degree.namePh. D., City and Regional Planning

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