The spatial containment of democracy: Reform, restructuring, and citizenship in Progressive Era New York City, 1882-1924

This dissertation revisits the history of urban America during the Progressive Era through a fresh examination of the activities of urban reformers and their efforts to restructure urban neighborhoods. Utilizing urban social and spatial theory, and combining these with a case study of a classically under-served urban region in New York City, the Middle West Side, or “Hell's Kitchen, my research suggests new ways of understanding spatial and urban terms such as community, place, neighborhood and development. Through a synthesis of theory and archival evidence, I show how the urban spatial process, what Henri Lefebvre termed the production of space, is a constant process in which resident populations play an active, if structured role. In so doing I also trace the urban history of U.S. progressivism and urban planning, the history of New York City, and the development of modern forms of understanding and knowledge, particularly where concerned with urban development and the activities of civic authorities, with a particular focus on housing, workplaces, recreation, and urban policing.;My dissertation research on spatial restructuring in Hell's Kitchen between 1882 and 1924 draws on a variety of archival sources, placing special emphasis on photographic images, maps, urban planning sketches and plans. My study also utilizes the vast material collected by the city of New York on government and planning commissions, and the writings and reports of social workers. I have also looked at local ethnic presses, labor publications, church pamphlets and social work surveys to determine the attitudes and outlook of the local population. I combine this empirical study with spatial and social theory to examine how the wants, desires and self-conceptions of Hell's Kitchen residents changed over time in relation to spatial restructuring. What my research shows is that the efforts of urban reformers to create “community” through spatial restructuring operated in areas where forms of community were in a constant process of fluctuation. I show how the static notions of place, community and neighborhood that reformers and urban planners conceptualize can never capture the shifting boundary lines of solidarity and fragmentation that always already exists in aggregate populations. Within the restructuring process I show how internal and external factors produce an ever-shifting spatial environment where processes of appropriation, use and sometimes non-use of local space work to frame the self-conceptions of residents. Ultimately, my research demonstrates the geographic or spatial nature of urban citizenship and expands our understanding of the relationship between urban spatial restructuring and human agency.