This innovative study looks at the formation of ethnic and racial identities in relation to the development of urban culture. The concept of urban space provides the means of organization for comprehensive illustrations of a series of themes, including white paranoia and urban decline; imagined urban communities; urban crime and justice; the racialized underclass; globalization; and new ethnicities. Race and Urban Space in American Culture focuses on a wide range of contemporary film and literature (including works by African-American, Irish-American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, and Iranian-American authors), and examines the ways in which representations of urban space define issues of rights, community and citizenship.

Liam Kennedy

Introduction: The Miasma of Urbanisation, Postmodern Urbanism and the Crisis of Urbanity, Urban Space and Representation, 1. White Noise 2. Once Upon a Time in America 3. Between Pathology and Redemption 4. Spatial Justice Conclusion: Citizens and Strangers