University of Utah

Amnesia, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Place Memory

Author(s): Margaret E. Farrar
Source: Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 4 (DECEMBER 2011), pp. 723-735
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of Utah
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 Political Research Quarterly
64(4) 723-735
Amnesia, Nostalgia, and © 201 I University of Utah
Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1 177/1065912910373553

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Margaret E. Farrar1

Abstract

This article examines two seemingly opposed modes of place-making, urban sprawl and historic pre
their relationship to memory. The author contends that urban sprawl creates a landscape of either will
amnesia, where the powers of place are neutralized by ignoring them or removing them from hist
preservation, however, can have equally depoliticizing effects by conjuring up peculiar, selective, o
imaginary pasts. Despite their apparent opposition, both practices often work against a meaningful
of the relationship between identity, memory, and place. Rather than accept the false choice betwe
nostalgia, the author advocates for an ethos of what Walter Benjamin calls "porosity" in creating, m
evaluating the vitality of our urban spaces.

Keywords
memory, place, urban planning, nostalgia, amnesia, porosity

Without the enduring permanence of human artifact, fostering sustainability and vitality in American cities,
there "cannot be any remembrance of things that are to sprawl is an anathema: a twenty-first-century topogra
come with those that shall come after." phy of distinctly unmemorable landscapes characterized
by endless, homogeneous stretches of drive-by scenery,
—Hannah Arendt, quoting Ecclesiastes, drive-through eateries, and stunningly forgettable architec
The Human Condition ture. Yet many of the popular, academic, and practitioner
responses to sprawl come uncomfortably close to what one
This article is written at the intersection of place, memory, might call landscapes of nostalgia; the rarefied remem
and politics. My broad claim is that urban planning prac brances celebrated by historic preservationists are one
tices should be of interest to political theorists, and not such example. As sprawl has proliferated over the past
only for the role they play in creating and sustaining eco five decades, the reclamation of past spaces for preserva
nomic and racial injustice (Bickford 2000; Farrar 2008; tion and beautification has proceeded apace. In direct con
Hayward 2003), or for their ability to influence practices trast to placeless places, designated historic sites attempt to
of citizenship (Kohn 2004; Kogl 2007; McBride 2005). shore up memory, putting it at the front and center of pub
Urban planning practices are certainly important to politi lic consciousness.
cal theorists for these reasons, but they have an additional This article, then, is motivated by the question, What
political dimension: specifically, they help to cultivate or effects do these recent, and seemingly opposed, trends in
diminish our understanding of the past and our place in it. place-making have on our relationship to the past, and on
How we choose to build history into or eradicate history our capacity for politics? My answer is grounded in recent
from our cities and towns shapes our understandings of accounts of memory that emphasize its visceral and embod
identity, community, and responsibility. In short, how we ied qualities, as opposed to locating it solely within the
attend to the past through the medium of the built environ realm of consciousness. At the same time, however, I take
ment has political implications for our future.
Recognizing the political power inherent in the con 'Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, USA
struction of landscapes makes it easy to be critical of the
Corresponding Author:
state of contemporary American urban planning. By any Margaret E. Farrar, Augustana College, 639 38th Street,
measure, the most pervasive form of planning is what its Rock Island, IL 61201, USA; phone: 309-794-7313
detractors call "urban sprawl." For anyone interested in Email: margaretfarrar@augustana.edu

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 724 Political Research Quarterly 64(4)

issue with this line Connolly's

of thought work can be read as an example
when it of this ten
ignor
values dency, as he
the
place inself-consciously
role privileges movement and
of
the formation o
speed over place.1
identity. Instead, I suggest For Connolly,
here that a notionindivid
of "place" is
lective memory can be often inherited,
linked to a too-easy equivalence between geogra
buttressed
ued through the medium of
phy and identity, the unitarianism"
a "territorial built that enviro
requires
us to "slow time
that neither urban sprawl norto a snail's pace" (2005, 28-29).
historic It is
prese
therefore not
vides the tools necessary to surprising
make that Connolly
space links "territory"
for d
politics. with "terror" and contends that places are most often per
ceived "through the optics of political nostalgia" (Kogl
2007, 65-66). To pay attention to place, Connolly occa
Memory and Place in Political Theory sionally implies, is to advocate for an exclusionary and
I begin from the Nietzschean assertion that memory is potentially reactionary politics (Farrar 2009).
embodied and that its physicality is political. While I detail Connolly's concerns here because they are
Nietzsche's description of mnemotechnics links memory representative of a long-standing bias against place in
to pain (1887/1967, 61), his insight into the physiological philosophical writing—a bias that is not entirely without
aspects of memory can just as easily be extended to expe justification.2 Especially when coupled with an interest in
riences of intense anger, pleasure, clarity, or sorrow—not memory, attention to place might easily lend itself to par
to mention the more extreme case of psychic trauma (see, ticularly essentialist or fundamentalist forms of political
for example, Edkins 2003; Hodgkin and Radstone 2003). identity. One can certainly read this tendency in philoso
In all of these instances, we possess a "body memory" pher Edward Casey's work; if Connolly is unreasonably
of these events—a memory that exists alongside and also suspicious towards place-based politics, then Casey—
deeper than—our conscious narrative about the past. That who is probably the best-known philosopher of place—is
what is memorable is written on and in the body resonates excessively sanguine. As Casey argues, "It is the stabiliz
not only with Nietzsche's work but also with Bergson, ing persistence of place ... that contributes so powerfully
Proust, and contemporary studies in neuroscience illumi to its intrinsic memorability. . . . We might even say that
nating the specifically physical impacts of memory on memory is naturally place-oriented, or at least place
the brain (Lehrer 2007). The important point to be taken supported. . . . [Memory] thrives ... on the persistent
from these diverse sources is that the body is not simply particularities of what is properly in place: held fast there
a container for perception or a vessel to fill with our and made one's own" (2000, 186-87).
recollections but is, instead, the intermediary between Casey's language here of "stabilization," "persistence,"
thought and world, shaping and shaped by both whenever and "holding fast" is exactly the kind of sensibility that
we remember. makes some theorists—rightfully—quite nervous, because
Body memory, then, is not /^political, somethingit binds memory too tightly to place and, thus, to a poten
that happens before the "real" stuff of politics—debate,
tially restrictive conception of political identity. Indeed,
discussion, decision making—takes place. Instead, as
this equation of territory and self is at the heart of the most
William Connolly convincingly argues, an understandingvirulent forms of nationalism, which function by strictly
of memory as embodied means that politics is deep-seated limiting access to the polity, excluding outsiders, and pos
and unconscious, part of our lingering prejudices, immediiting citizenship solely as a means of expressing allegiance
ate reactions, and snap decisions (2005, 102, 36). And soto and protecting the homeland (Booth 1999,251). In other
a "memory" is never as simple as a story we tell about our
words, closely linking a certain type of memory with a spe
past; instead, it lives on in us in ways that we do not fullycific understanding of place too often can have the effect
control. When political theorists ignore this visceral regof producing of a xenophobic and bellicose "blood and
ister of being, Connolly warns, they jeopardize their abilsoil" ideology, which renders those judged outside its terri
ity to understand how politics operates in preconscioustorial borders incapable of possessing the common under
or subconscious domains and risk overlooking the moststanding required for participation in political life.
intransigent (and often, most interesting) aspects of our But does linking memory and place necessarily produce
political lives. this outcome? I posit that if we accept that as a foregone
If recognizing the embodied quality of memory is conclusion, we are left with a fairly anemic (and, I would
becoming more prevalent in political theory, though, argue, unrealistic) understanding of political identity: a
describing its emplaced quality is not. In fact, some of"neighborhood of the rootless," as W. James Booth says,
the recent work on memory neglects or disparages thenot unlike the highly abstracted, atomistic, rights-bearing
role of place in these complex relationships, and an interindividuals of Rawlsian liberalism. Instead, a nuanced
est in place becomes synonymous with a propensity for
politics of place should be tied to an understanding of mem
antimodern, or even premodern, politics. In some ways,
ory as lived viscerally. After all, being embodied requires

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 Farrar 725

that One
oneneed not be a cartographer to noticeis,how signifi
where. And
cantly urban areas have grown over the past two decades.
firstNot simplylove
in regards to population; urban areas have a
memories
grown in terms of how deep and wide a swath develop a
ment has cut through our landscape. Alternately
detached fr called
are "exurbia," "edge cities," or "boomburbs"—and most com
almost
was shot?
monly derided as "urban sprawl"3—these are the places
created as highways
Places have unfurled across farmland and
beco
places beco
small towns, connecting city centers by way of a seam
making, we
less and nearly homogenous web. These same places are
ties. To
routinely excoriated by cultural par
critics who decry the
ignoresocial, economic, ecological,this
and aesthetic tolls this sort
comprehen
of development takes on an area. And although critics
lives also regularly
and predict the imminent demise of this inmode
A sense of
of spatial practice (Kunstler 1993), the speed and scale of
ory forma
land development has only increased with each passing
formation,
decade: between 1994 and 2002, for example, real estate
(Boothdevelopers finished 1.5 million new 200 housing units each
mean that
year, the majority of which were suburban single-family
place,dwellings (Hayden or2004a, 4). th
Although its advocates insist that sprawl results from o
sentations
To beAmericans' conscious choices about where to live and
very
reasonwork, critics contend thatbe sprawl actually producesw very
Like little in the way of choice. Sprawl
all base is most often character
a fetish
ized by a housing and retail monoculture of and a landscape
that dominated
are by automobiles. This absence les of diversity in
of that
sprawling areas is evident from the ten floor plans of the indi
understand
vidual homes that are erected to the layout of the "boom
place-based
burb" itself. Especially in moderately priced developments,
essentialism
nearly identical homes are the norm; in the past ten years,
our everyd
these have been overwhelmingly beige vinyl "snout houses"
which brin
that feature a large garage that protrudes towards the street
(Hayden 2004b, 92). Even very expensive in
brought developments
ory are most often characterized by an architectural style
(that is that
senseis replicatedof
in similar class enclaves across
pl the country,
tionsoften regardlessof sp
of geography or climate; one wide, wind
ated ing, sparsely landscaped street dotted with "starter cas
with u
of tles" is endlessly repeated in countless subdivisions
much h
nationwide. Retail areas are also notoriously
capacity fo repetitive
from one city (or even one side of town) to the next, creat
ing a commercial glut of chain stores, fast food, megamul
Amnesia
tiplexes, and generic hotel rooms, all surrounded by vast
acres of blacktop parking.
Everyplace becomes more like every other place, allBoth
add academic and popular critiques of sprawl are
ing up to Noplace. legion; I will not rehearse these complaints here.4 What I
am interested in is exploring how continuing to build this
—Jane Jacobs, sort of space impacts place memory, which in turn has
The Death and Life of America's Great Cities consequences for our abilities to think and act politically.
If one is examining sprawl from the perspective of
We speak so much of memory because there is so little of place memory, two things become immediately apparent.
it left. First, sprawl seems to produce what geographer John
Brinkerhoff Jackson called a vast "landscape of the tem
—Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: porary" (1980). This new landscape's impermanence can
Les Lieux de Memoire be documented in any number of ways: the homes whose

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 Political Research Quarterly 64(4)

voluminous rooms and square footage make them the very first requires orientation. To think about it in the reverse:
definition of unsustainability; the enormous mortgages mobility without orientation will result in chaotic, ineffi
required to support these homes (often financed, as we cient, and potentially hazardous movement. "Structuring
have recently learned, through variable-rate loans that and identifying the environment is a vital ability among
have led to a record number of foreclosures—and thus all mobile animals," Lynch argues, while disorientation
displacements); the various "super" stores that outgrow produces anxiety and terror (1960, 2-3). In other words,
their square footage almost as soon as they have their unlimited movement is not freeing but is instead deeply
grand openings; and the record number of storage facilifrightening; a person needs a stable sense of her or his
ties sprouting kudzu-like on undeveloped acres, ready toplace in the world to be able to function effectively within
be demolished when the next and more profitable venture it. When cities cease to be memorable, in some sense they
comes along. It is difficult to imagine how such a land also cease to be livable.

scape could age gracefully, and it is only a little cantan The consequences of profound disorientation are well
kerous to complain about its intrinsic absence of dignity.documented by those who study stress and trauma (see,
Even Jackson—a great lover of temporary landscapes and for example, Fullilove 2005). Rather than being limited
vernacular architecture—spoke of the "necessity for ruins"to a specific population (such as inner-city African Amer
icans displaced by urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s),
to spur renewal (1980, 89-102); for many critics, it is hard
to visualize how one might become inspired to resuscitate in our contemporary milieu—with its distinctly unmemo
an empty strip mall or to restore a beige, vinyl-sided rable topography—it is reasonable to assume that disori
entation becomes diffuse and pervasive, contributing to a
McMansion to its former glory. Far more likely is that this
is understood to be an architecture of obsolescence, builtwidespread sense of ennui, at best—and at worst, wide
to be razed rather than reused or refurbished. spread psychological distress.
Second, this landscape of the temporary has been pro Indeed, beginning in the years of the postwar building
duced in conjunction with and to service a population thatboom, any number of authors responded to the rapid pace
is also temporary: the armies of executives made increasof construction of "placeless places" with descriptions of
ingly mobile through various communication technolothe tolls taken on us by these new environments. In 1976,
gies, the countless numbers of part-time and temporary Edward Relph was the first to use the term "placeless
workers who staff big box retail, and the multitudes of ness" to describe our relationship to this new American
immigrant workers who both help to build our dreamlandscape, chronicling the lack of connection we feel to
homes and to put food on our tables.5 The landscape ofour physical surroundings. In recent years, this collective
the temporary, then, includes not only the usual culprits alienation has become manifest in our cultural anxiety
indicted by cultural critics (the ubiquitous McDonald's about food and the movement from "organic" to "locally
and Starbucks) but also the warrens of hotel rooms and grown" produce and meats; any number of best-sellers (for
example, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mira
conference centers around airports; the parks filled with
mobile homes housing mainly the country's working cle or Michael Pollan's The Omnivore s Dilemma) make
poor; and even elite housing, whose amenities are often the connection between displacement and loss of self
designed for resale value more than actual use (Leach
through the medium of the American meal.7
2000, 76-81). What I want to emphasize here is that placelessness
What happens when an entire ethos of planning andis not only a psychological condition but also a political
architecture (to paraphrase Marx, an entire mode of
phenomenon; its effects are not only individual or collec
construction) is geared towards movement rather thantive alienation but also may be the diminishment of polit
emplacement?6 This landscape of the temporary meansical engagementandefficacy.Afiterall, landscapes—shared
spaces, recognizable boundaries, identifiable landmarks,
that many parts of our cities—indeed, perhaps even entire
cities themselves—defy urban planner Kevin Lynch's common sites of remembrance—help to establish relation
prescriptions for truly vibrant urban places: places that
ships between people. They serve not simply as the stages
can be easily read and remembered by their citizens. Lynchon which social and political interaction occurs but as
facilitators or inhibitors of those interactions. However
calls this imageability, "the ease with which its parts can
be recognized and can be organized into a coherent patexclusionary those relationships might be, they are also
inclusionary, providing a basis for collective political
tern." What gives a city imageability is its having distinct
"districts or landmarks or pathways are easily identifiaction. Places provide a grounding (quite literally) for the
able," thus allowing its citizens to produce a mental mapenactment of "we, the people."
of their environs. Imageability is crucial for Lynch because As discussed above, some political theorists remain
it is only through our ability to make sense of places that
wary of the role of place in progressive political activ
we can move freely through them; that is to say, mobilityism. This is not without reason; in its most troubling

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 Farrar 727

(Auge 1995). They also retard our capacity for imagining

manifestati
future, better places by instituting a paralyzing unifor
patriotism o
critical examination of our values and our histories. But mity. One might reformulate Foucault's famous insight—
place-based political engagement is not necessarily narcis "Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools,
barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?" (1979,
sistic or nationalistic; rather, there are a number of examples
228)—to read, "Is it any coincidence that the mall looks
describing the importance of place for progressive politi
cal action. We only need to remember Simone de Beauvoir's like the airport looks like the office park looks like the
astute observation that one of the difficulties women face mall?" in order to appreciate more fully the scope and
in becoming organized politically is that they live andsignificance of this new architecture. These are sites of
work geographically dispersed among men (1989). either willful or accidental amnesia, where the powers of
In fact, historically marginalized and oppressed groups
place are neutralized by ignoring them or removing them
often use place as a way to forge oppositional identities, and
from history.
populations who choose to build communities located in Of course, the monotonous landscapes produced in
or around particular places do so with the understandsprawl areas also contribute to the flip side of architec
ing that they are doing more than "putting down roots"; tural amnesia: nostalgia, or the longing for a past place,
either real or imagined. Nostalgia results in the impulse
instead, they are creating the infrastructure for an expan
sive social and political life. As Melissa Harris-Lacewellto preserve, maintain, or create a sense of place in one's
(2004) has demonstrated, for example, many African surroundings. Hence our next question: does nostalgia,
Americans utilize community spaces such as barbershopsparticularly as it is manifest in historic preservation
and churches to develop sophisticated political ideas efforts, provide a solution to the amnesic architecture of
urban
through everyday conversations. Even more intriguing for sprawl?
those interested in a politics of deep pluralism is Elizabeth
Armstrong's work on the expansion of the gay movement
in the 1970s. Armstrong focuses on the social, cultural,
Nostalgia
and commercial ties that were cultivated in the Castro
district in San Francisco; in her words, it is these "syner The only paradise is paradise lost.
gistic" and "mutually reinforcing" relationships, continu
ally buttressed by spatial proximity, that provided the basis —Marcel Proust

for community organizing. Contrary to those who would

The proliferation of placeless places has produced enor
see place as necessarily exclusionary, Armstrong argues
that the creation of a gay neighborhood (as opposed tomous anxiety since social critics began to notice it during
individual gay venues) provided the genesis of the diverthe post-World War II building boom (see, for example,
Mumford 1961). As U.S. downtowns and inner suburbs
sification of the gay movement. In this case, and perhaps
began to experience serious population declines in the
counterintuitively, place-based activism provided the
resources for pursuing a goal that is more inclusionary1960s and 1970s, and as the imperatives of midcentury
than exclusionary: that is, the "expansion of the range ofmodernism dictated a "clean slate" for development,
ways to express gay identity" (2002, 114). This ongoingworried citizens and city leaders watched as high-rises,
highways, and parking lots began to replace older urban
struggle to ensure the proliferation of difference—grounded
in a community that contains the history of this struggle—landmarks. Almost as soon as the traditional form of the
represents the progressive possibilities inherent in someAmerican city began to slip away—and it is an open ques
versions of place memory, where places serve as the basis tion what this traditional form might have entailed—people
for civic organizations and for citizenship. began to mourn its passing.
Placelessness, then, has a clear political dimension and The response to placelessness often takes the form
political consequences. The built environment serves as aof nostalgia, a particularly acute form of place memory.
storehouse for social and collective memory: memories of Nostalgia is literally a painful (i.e., physical) longing
(algos) for home (nostos). Tellingly, Johannes Hofer first
our family lives, our work lives, and our lives as citizens.
Creating placeless places eviscerates the vitality of ourdescribed it in 1688 as a disease in his Medical Disserta
tion on Nostalgia: "a form of melancholia caused by
shared spaces. As Richard Sennett argues, "A bland envi
ronment assures people that nothing disturbing or demandprolonged absence from one's home or country; severe
ing is happening 'out there.' You build neutrality in orderhomesickness" (Casey 2000, 201). In his study of dis
to legitimate withdrawal" (1990, 65). Placeless places dullplaced persons, Hofer found that nostalgia produced in its
victims
our ability to think about our connections to each other and "erroneous representations that caused the afflicted
to lose touch with the present" but that it also manifested
transform our understanding of shared social obligations

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in physical symptoms ranging from loss of appetite to
cardiac arrest (Boym 2001, 3). It was only later, in the
twentieth century, that the term nostalgia became associ
ated with a sentimental longing for the past.
This brief etymology suggests how closely linked our
senses of time and place must be as we seek to orient our
selves both in the physical world and in history, and there is
much evidence to suggest that Hofer's original definition—
which emphasized nostalgia's status as a physical as well
as a psychological malady—is closer to the reality of the
experience than the less precise, later definition. When
we experience nostalgia (a longing for a particular place
and time), it is a bodily experience, often prompted by
sensory data (a particular smell or taste), and producing
physical effects (depression, illness). Nostalgia allows us
to "be thrust back, transported, into the place we recall"
(Casey 2000, 201). And accounts of people's experiences
of displacement—whether as migrant, exile, or refugee—
repeatedly emphasize the interconnections between body,
mind, and place (Farrar 2009).
In this understanding of nostalgia, time, place, and loss
there are phenomenological realities, and it is easy to see
how echoes of past places might reverberate for and in
particular populations: the plantations of the antebellum
South; the steel mills on the Great Lakes or the coal mines
in Appalachia; the "old country" for recent immigrants;
the reservations out west. And it is just as easy to see how
the loss of a particular landscape might produce a keen
sense of nostalgia for what has been left behind.
In the United States, treating our collective nostalgia
for old places has become a matter of public policy.8
After two decades of observing intensive postwar clear
ing and suburban build-out, the United States Conference
of Mayors argued in their 1966 report that as a result, the
country was suffering from "a feeling of rootlessness."
The historic preservation movement, the report contin
ued, could provide American society with a much-needed
"sense of orientation" by using "structures and objects of
the past to establish values of time and place" (Datel 1985,
125). The National Historic Preservation Act was passed
shortly thereafter, and it explicitly linked this "feeling of
rootlessness," and hence the necessity of historic preser
vation, to concomitant suburbanization:
In the face of ever-increasing extension of urban
centers, highways, and residential, commercial, and
industrial developments, the present governmental
and nongovernmental historic preservation pro
grams and activities are inadequate to ensure future
generations a genuine opportunity to appreciate and
enjoy the rich heritage of our Nation. (Public Law
89-665; 80 Stat. 915; 16 U.S.C. 470 [1966])
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Political Research Quarterly 64(4)
If one is concerned about sprawl and the diminish
ment of place memory, then it might seem that historic
preservation provides the necessary antidote. Historic
preservation is, after all, the logical opposite of sprawl,
and since the 1966 law was passed, local historic preser
vation initiatives have mushroomed in every town and
city across the country. As J. B. Jackson wryly notes,
"There is hardly an enterprising town located on the more
popular tourist routes that does not have some kind of
reconstructed historical environment" (1980, 90). If any
thing, Jackson underestimated the trend: in 2006, there
were an estimated twenty-three hundred preservation
commissions in the United States attending to more than
one million historic properties, and heritage-based tour
ism is one of the fastest-growing segments of the world
tourism market (Kreyling 2006).9 Similarly, in their
important study of Americans' attitudes about the past,
Rosenzweig and Thelan found that more than half of
their respondents had visited a historic site or building
over the past year (cited in Page and Mason 2004, 2).
Clearly, Americans are nursing their geographic ennui by
investing both their tax dollars and their discretionary
income on the production and consumption of nostalgic
landscapes, so much so that the phenomenon can easily
be called a "nostalgia industry" (Edensor 2005, 127).
Yet it is evident that historic preservation is not an
ideal solution to our diminishing sense of place memory.
Instead, it often does more to insulate us from place mem
ory than to cultivate it, for several reasons. Some of these
reasons are a result of the power relations inherent in any
attempt to codify memory: for example, because preser
vation efforts often aim to safeguard places of architec
tural significance, it is far more likely that the residences
and cultural institutions of the elite will be preserved than
the ordinary dwellings, workplaces, or community cen
ters, recent populist trends in preservation notwithstand
ing. Indeed, historic preservation originated in preserving
the homes and properties of great men (and occasionally
women) rather than the vernacular architectures of every
day life. In some of its less appealing forms, historic pres
ervation is less concerned with memory than accuracy,
where it demands of its adherents a kind of reverence most
akin to religion.
Second, far too often, preservation is only pursued as
a path to economic development, as cities and towns have
increasingly realized the potential for marketing their his
tories. The result of linking preservation so tightly to
travel, tourism, and economic growth, of course, is that
what is most often "preserved" are also the properties
or areas most likely to attract consumer dollars. Places
and place memory—from buildings to battlefields to
designated "wilderness" areas—become commodities to
 Farrar 729

be consum
Pierre Nora argues that the reason for the proliferation of
these lieux de memoire is that because there"th
tourist, are no lon
of country
ger real environments of memory: the places where col
lective memory is inculcated
2002). And and thrives because of
thick familial and cultural ties. Instead of the traditional,
downtown
across the
collective memory inherent in peasant culture, he argues,
municipalit
mass society produces history: "the reconstruction, always
lamps, and
problematic and incomplete, of what is no longer" (1989,8).
would-be
Rather than memory occurring spontaneously and natu t
cannot find
rally, in contemporary society we rely on the frenetic and
In these
deliberate approximation of memory; we anxiously in assem
memory is
ble archives, invent or revive rituals, and organize cel
sinceebrations,locals
searching for traces of what we have lost. The
own neigh
less memory is experienced internally, Nora points out,
the more it relies on "its exterior scaffolding and out
downtown
makeward signs" use
(1989, 12, 13).10 o
of The market, of course, feeds
this is the nostalgia industry
r in
tory its own
as way. Real estate developers,
com city planners, and
ies, architects have reacted to the proliferation of placeless
consum
places by offering a prepackaged sense of place—hence
interpreter
a the burgeoning popularity of master-planned develop
wholly c
ments that claim to resurrect lost places, or provide sites k
particular
storyof manufactured community. As Eugene McCann notes
about
and the inn
wryly, this "is why every new restaurant is dripping with
2005,
personality and every
133).new housing development is stiff
with character" (quoted in Adams, Hoelscher, and Till
televisual, r
and 2001, xx). Celebration, Florida, is perhaps the most strik
contest
Finally,
ing (and oft-cited) example of a topographicalef
realization
of this response to placelessness. Disney's manufactured
perverse e
small-town America, located near the company's
African Am theme
park in Orlando, markets anto
effort idealized version of small r
is "preser
town life, asserting the presence of a old-fashioned home
town without challenging the economic, geographic, and
example, is
sion social infrastructures
was that render those communities press
poor ently soordifficult to achieve. In fact, wo
Celebration itself
lumber is located in the center of bustling,
(oil exurban develop
Indeed, ment; with the creation of Celebration,
the Disney ironically
class families are often treated as aberrations or unfortu "provides a haven from its own sprawl" (McBride 2005,
nate interruptions in the structure's or the neighborhood's 89). Moreover, Celebration accomplishes this without
noble history, despite the fact that this period might have acknowledging that the identity of this community is cre
lasted many decades. Although some preservationists are ated in large part through exclusionary practices (although
quick to point out that the designation of a historic prop with single-family homes starting at more than $300,000,
erty itself does not lead to a neighborhood's gentrifica these particular exclusions are fairly self-evident).
tion and/or widespread displacement of current residents, If, as McBride argues, the creation of communities
one certainly must acknowledge that preservation is such as Celebration, Florida, represent a longing for an
always a choice about whose memories are considered idealized individual childhood (2005,107), then it is pos
worthwhile and whose places are given preference. sible that historic districts more generally feed many of
While these concerns are themselves significant, they these same desires? In the case of a historic district, perhaps
are also symptomatic of the larger tensions illuminated by it is an idealized national childhood we are seeking to bring
our thriving nostalgia industry: the fraught relationship into being, where the past is nothing more or less than "a
between memory and history and the difficulties inherent remote, ill-defined period or environment when a kind
in trying to institutionalize collective memory. Historian of golden age prevailed, when society has an innocence

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and a simplicity that we have since lost" (Jackson 1980
p. 98). Surely a casual survey of the nation's "historic"
downtowns can tell us that much: which historical period,
exactly, is being represented in these downtowns, with
their faux gas-lit lamps and boutique shops catering to
older, upper-middle-class women? The answer is both
"none" and "all"; this version of "history" is nothing more
than an empty signifier that simultaneously helps to cre
ate and satisfy our desires for authenticity and feeling "at
home" in the past.
Historic preservation then can become nostalgic in the
most reactionary sense. Like nostalgia more generally, it
may too easily slip from an intense—potentially disruptive
and transformative—place memory into a wholesale ide
alization of a (perhaps nonexistent) place. It is significant
to note that many historic areas and structures communi
cate nostalgia for our industrialized past; John Urry sug
gests that deindustrialization has produced a "profound
sense of loss" for both past technologies and the social
relations of the period (2002, 97). In its worst forms, his
toric preservation evokes a very peculiar, selective, and
imaginary time, where we are all encouraged to identify
with wealthy (most often white and male) elites: touring
the manor, strolling down the promenade, chatting with
the shopkeepers. In so doing, historic districts depoliti
cize place (and, ironically, remove it from time) by brack
eting relations of power and domination in favor of
promoting a fantastic metanarrative of universal privi
lege. Similarly, this kind of preservation encourages us to
ignore the enormous human and ecological costs wrought
by industry and to imagine that the lumber (oil/cattle/steel/
railroad) barons' manses could be built through practices
that did not extract tremendous tolls from people and
earth. In historic shopping districts especially, such fan
tasies often coincide with the myth of authentic local
ism, where we cheerfully buy our hand-crafted Christmas
ornaments—ornaments that are, as it turns out, locally
handcrafted in China. Historic preservation, when pursued
in this manner, gives us the past "as radically other," making
it "a world apart" (Nora 1989, 17); it imposes a kind of
memory from above that is at once both rigid and expan
sive enough to eradicate any spark of political possibility.
All of this is not to imply that historic preservation is
not a worthwhile endeavor. It is to argue, however, that the
politics and ethics of preservation are more complicated
than many "sprawl busters" typically admit.11 To wit, when
describing the difference between the prerogatives of
sprawl versus the prerogatives of preservation, critics fre
quently cast these differences in terms of "artificial" ver
sus "natural" development. In their oft-cited antisprawl
manifesto Suburban Nation, for example, New Urbanist
architects Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck argue that
"unlike the traditional neighborhood model, which evolved
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Political Research Quarterly 64(4)
organically as a response to human needs, suburban sprawl
is an idealized artificial system" (2000, 4).
When confronted with this kind of argument, one must
ask the question, At what point was the creation of towns
and cities ever "natural"? At which point did city planning
veer into the "unnatural"? To what moment in a commu
nity's history do we plan to return, and at which moment
can clearly separate a town's "natural" growth from its
"artificial" development? In fact, many portions of the cit
ies lauded for their "naturally" evolving neighborhoods
were in fact quite consciously planned by giants such as
Frederick Law Olmstead and Daniel Burnham. In the case
of green field development, we can take this criticism even
a step further: if we object to city planning that turns fertile
soil into pavement, do we also object to the agricultural
technologies that turned prairie into field? Which is most
"authentic" landscape in this case, and should it matter?
While preservation is certainly an important part of pro
ducing and sustaining memory—if only in this diluted,
modern form—the widening gulf between urban sprawl
and historic enclave may further isolate us from, rather
than reacquaint us with, the past. More often than not,
preservationists want to freeze time and limit the possible
interpretations of a given space. Rather than the intermin
gling of past and present, our current situation often finds
historic districts segregated from the rest of town, creat
ing temporal as well as spatial boundaries so that place
memory ceases to be integral to the fabric of our every
day lives.
Porosity: Towards a Critical
Place Memory
No more tourist traps until the streets are exhausted from
invention. We'll muster an army to sidewalk-chalk the
way.
—Ryan Collins,
"Whatever Happened to the World's Fair?"
The placeless places created by exurban sprawl and the
quaint blocks of yesteryear tended by historic preserva
tionists illustrate two approaches to place memory that,
on the surface anyway, appear radically opposed: the first
treats place memory as utterly unimportant by embracing
a landscape that is radically impermanent, while the sec
ond fetishizes place memory to the point of quarantining
what it deems "authentic" places from lived use. These
trends illustrate not only two distinct modes of spatial
practice but also a kind of schizoid temporality: the first
looks forward, albeit in a way that may indicate a distinctly
dystopian future, while the second harkens back to a highly
Farrar 731

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 732 Political Research Quarterly 64(4)

all over the United States Crossroads Mall is still, at its heart, a commercial
(Southworth 2005); entity,
in e
it is clear what once inhabited although one that caters
each to a diverse
space; neighborhood
the and ou
traces of the structures' former existence are immedi puts emphasis on the well-being of its host community.
ately recognizable, iconic in their banality. And yet theySylvan Island, on the other hand, is a community space
are invigorated by new users whose lived experiences of
devoted to passive recreation: biking, hiking, bird-watching,
the space often contradict its earlier function.and kayaking. This contrast suggests that there is no
A second and perhaps more powerful example ofsingle blueprint required for the creation of porous places
porosity can be found in settings where place memory and no single formula for their success. Furthermore, nei
is consciously nurtured, even as these environmentsther of these is a "political place," strictly speaking,
simultaneously encourage new ways of thinking about although both foster civic life. Yet both examples speak
the space. Such a place can be found a few miles east to the persistence of place, and the stubbornness inherent
of where I write this article: Sylvan Island Park, located in place-making: we create new places, even in the face
in the heart of downtown Moline, Illinois. Sylvan Islandof obsolescence, even in the grip of industrial decay.
is an "artificial" island, created in the Mississippi River in But what does such an understanding of porous
1871 to provide a channel for generating hydraulic places—of embodied and emplaced memory—get us?
power for industry. For more than a half century, RepubWhat does it do for our understanding of political life?
lic Iron and Steel was located there, as well as a stone What is important about embodied, emplaced memory
quarry and an ice-cutting business. The city of Moline is how it informs our capacity for political judgment;
bought the island in 1966, when it was already well on memory—especially when it is unbidden, not quite con
its way to industrial blight. For nearly thirty years, thescious, at the margins of our self-understanding—has the
city debated what to do with the island, and during thispotential to bring into being new ways of thinking about
time it fell into further disarray: vegetation grew riotthe world around us. Memory interrupts our linear and
ously, prying apart the old brick walls of the buildingsnormative accounts of self, politics, and culture in ways
that had been erected, splintering the long cement loadthat are appealingly disruptive and potentially transfor
ing docks. Trash accumulated and trees proliferated. mative. In opposing it to history, Nora writes that mem
In the early 1990s, a group of enterprising citizens ambiory "remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic
tiously calling themselves the Sylvan Island Dreamers setof remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its suc
to work to implement their vision of the island and to sell cessive deformations, vulnerable to manipulation and
that vision to local community leaders. Today the island isappropriation, susceptible to being long dormant and
a special kind of park, resembling nothing so much as anperiodically revived" (1989, 8). One of Nora's interpret
urban forest, where hiking and biking trails are intersperseders suggests that this means that Nora sees memory as
with industrial remains. A visitors' center and a monument passive, or feminine (Legg 2005, 494); but I see memory
to the island's former Republic Steel workers serve to wel here as analogous to democracy: in its most radical form,
come people to the island, which also features a nationally it is unruly, uncertain, unfinished, collaborative, alive.
recognized single-track bike trail. But the island's paths If place plays a role in how our memories are formed,
often incorporate Republic's crumbling bricks, and in an held, and activated, then we need to be mindful of the kinds
instant, you can find yourself standing on a slab of old fac of places we are creating and preserving. To the extent that
tory floor ... in the middle of the woods. Railroad tracks, our landscapes and cityscapes thwart our potential for
exposed rebar, and half-demolished concrete walls riddled spontaneous, unscripted remembrance—by creating res
olutely unmemorable spaces or spaces which authorize
with graffiti coexist with the park's picnic tables, benches,
and drinking fountains. It is a porous place, a place where only specific kinds of memory—we limit the potential of
one can feel the weight and depth of time without even this powerful political resource.
trying. Its ghosts are noisy and discomfiting; they remind A nuanced account of place memory should assume
visitors both of our impermanence and of the relentless that a sense of place is not simply aesthetic and certainly
rhythms of nature in its reclamations of the manmade. And not only visual; geographers have described this under
yet the island itself is irresistible, drawing visitors and standing as attending to the "texture" of a place (Adams,
community volunteers to it every day. Hoelscher, and Till 2001, xiii). Far from being simply
It should be noted that these examples, on the surface points on a map, places are shot through with relation
anyway, do not have much in common. The first (Cross ships, tensions, contradictions, and time; geopolitics is
roads Mall) was accomplished by a single, large devel thus always also chronopolitics. A nuanced understanding
oper in a relatively short period of time; while the second of place memory, then, presupposes that place is not static
(Sylvan Island Park) emerged out of a grassroots, com or fixed (i.e., is not simply the inert object of a nostalgic
munity nonprofit effort, over a period of many years. gaze looking backwards, not simply "standing still") but

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 Farrar 733

ismore alon
long-term political problems; however, he quickly puts
modified
hesitation aside to contend that attempts by to slow d
120-23). Plac
political time are more dangerous than speed, asserting
rather, they
these are almost inevitably fundamentalist in nature, tak
Such the an un
forms of either nationalist ideology or religious do
close to
(pp. 178-79). This is not to Lyn
say, however, that Conno
orable citie
conception of a robust, pluralist democracy is inhospita
evidence of
to place-based politics; any reading of Connolly's w
and our pre
reveals how important places have been to his own polit
is that we
development. The introduction to Pluralism, for exam
things—part
vividly captures a moment in time in a particular plac
borhoods Flint, Michigan, during the McCarthy era—andclillumina
also as proce
how deeply that memory affected Connolly's sensibili
How we dec
towards politics and political theory (2005).
is a political
2. For a detailed account of how the concepts of place a
to be spaceattent
have been typically opposed in philosophy, often
only thehow
detriment of place, see Edward Casey's Thet
Fat
Place
exercise (1998). of
or inhibit
3. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, th "exur
The ideais the oldest of these words, first of
used by Auguste Com
serve, Spectorsky and
in 1955 in his book The Exurbanites, e a st
the criteria
of New York City's commuter settlements. http://dictiona
ity and with
.oed.com/cgi/entry/50081215 ?query_type=word&que
possible read
word=exurb&first= 1 &max_to_show= 10&single= 1 &s
in other
_type=alpha. "Edge city" is the phrasewo
used by Joel Garrea
occlude,
his book of the same title, to rom
describe what he saw as a
trend: settlements that no longer rely on a "central city
Acknowled
provide employment or commerce. The term "boombu
I am was coined by Robert E. Lang and Patrick A. Simmons
grateful
Jeff Aberna
their article "Boomburbs: The Emergence of Large, F
Growing Suburban Cities in the
members of United States." "Sprat
port. The
is defined by the president ofarti
the National Trust for Histo
questions pose
Preservation as "poorly planned, low-density, auto-orien
ers at Politic
development that spreads out from the center of comm
ties" and consists of single-family dwellings spread over
Author's Note
large land area; single-use zoning that separates resident
A version of this article won the best paper award at thefrom
annualcommercial properties; the absence of a recog
meeting of the Western Political Science Association in 2008.
able "town center" or "main street"; and planning pract
that privilege automobile use over other forms of trans
Declaration of Conflicting Interest Sprawl is not limited to booming cities but can also hap
as urban
The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to areas expand geographically while maintaining
the authorship and/or publication of this article. even losing) population.
4. For excellent accounts of how suburbanization and sp
Funding diminish public life, see Hayden (2002, esp. chaps. 2-3) a
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck (2000, esp. chap. 7). For
port for the research and/or authorship of this article: My work thorough catalog of the various problems created or exa
was funded in part by a sabbatical leave grant from Augustana bated by sprawl, see Dreier, Mollenkopf, Swanstrom (20
College. esp. chaps. 2-3).
5. These various populations intersect in the parking lo
Notes
Home Depots, where scores of migrant laborers in vario
communities across the United States wait for local con
1. In his 2002 book Neuropolitics, Connolly first acknowledges
struction crews to pick them up for a day's work building
that "speed is dangerous" when it is organized around
a military culture, or when it inhibits our ability to homes
solve in sprawling subdivisions.

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 734 Political Research Quarterly 64(4)

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