Book Description

This dissertation examines the role that alleys play in urban development. Based in Washington, D.C., it examines the impacts of historical transformations to the cultural, physical, and legal status of alleys from the 1950s to the present. It contends that understanding changes to alleys in the past is essential for critically evaluating the broad impact of alley transformations today. Chapter One focuses on the integral role that alleys played in the 1950s in urban renewal in the Southwest neighborhood, and in historic preservation in the Georgetown neighborhood. In both locations, the presence of alleys as historically racialized and classed spaces influenced federal and private investment for slum clearance, spurring processes of racial displacement. Chapter Two highlights the role of alleys in social, political, and economic reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Emergent Black leaders in Washington, D.C.-from Youth Pride, Inc., the federal War on Rats, and the 1970 sanitation strike-centered their activities in the rat- and garbage-filled spaces of alleys, thereby making their impacts felt both citywide and in the intimate domestic realm of residents. Chapter Three demonstrates how the legal status of alleys as public land sparked intense debate in the 1970s over whether residents or real estate developers could claim these spaces. In neighborhoods like the West End and Dupont Circle, preserving low-rise housing or constructing high-rise buildings depended on the ability of residents and developers to navigate municipal bureaucracy and the intricacies of land-use laws regarding alleys. Chapter Four uses the insights from the historical chapters to make sense of present-day alley initiatives, at a time when Washington, D.C. is younger, whiter, and wealthier than it has ever been. City government, commercial investors, and residents are turning to D.C. alleys to meet a range of goals including affordable housing, green infrastructure, and economic development. As in the past, attention to the small scale of alleys reveals who has the ability to make claims to urban space and how they are leveraging this power to make decisions about the future of city neighborhoods.