Chapter 7 - Health Reform in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York Periodical Press

Summary

This chapter examines gentirifcation within New York’s literature, through testimonies of loss, recollection, contestation, reflection and organised opposition. It establishes authenticity as the political project of those who are displaced from their own neighbourhoods, symbolically and spatially, at times violently. This study proposes a critical bird’s-eye-view of such testimonies, both non-fictional and fictional, in order to reinforce the argument that cultural scripts of urbanisation are as compelling and useful in our understanding of cities like New York.