{"product_id":"boardwalk-of-dreams-atlantic-city-and-the-fate-of-urban-america-9780195167535","title":"Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America","description":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the first half of the twentieth century  Atlantic City was the nations most popular middle-class resort--the home of the famed Boardwalk  the Miss America Pageant  and the board game Monopoly. By the late 1960s  it had become a symbol of urban decay and blight  compared by journalists to bombed-out Dresden and war-torn Beirut. Several decades and a dozen casinos later  Atlantic City is again one of Americas most popular tourist spots  with thirty-five million visitors a year. Yet most stay for a mere six hours  and the highway has replaced the Boardwalk as the citys most important thoroughfare. Today the city doesnt have a single movie theater and its one supermarket is a virtual fortress protected by metal detectors and security guards. In this wide-ranging book  Bryant Simon does far more than tell a nostalgic tale of Atlantic Citys rise  near death  and reincarnation. He turns the depiction of middle-class vacationers into a revealing discussion of the boundaries of public space in urban America. In the past  he argues  the public was never really about democracy  but about exclusion. During Atlantic Citys heyday  African Americans were kept off the Boardwalk and away from the beaches. The overly boisterous or improperly dressed were kept out of theaters and hotel lobbies by uniformed ushers and police. The creation of Atlantic City as the \"Nations Playground\" was dependent on keeping undesirables out of view unless they were pushing tourists down the Boardwalk on rickshaw-like rolling chairs or shimmying in smoky nightclubs. Desegregation overturned this racial balance in the mid-1960s  making the citys public spaces more open and democratic  too open and democratic for many middle-class Americans  who fled to suburbs and suburban-style resorts like Disneyworld. With the opening of the first casino in 1978  the urban balance once again shifted  creating twelve separate  heavily guarded  glittering casinos worlds walled off from the dilapidated houses  boarded-up businesses  and lots razed for redevelopment that never came. Tourists are deliberately kept away from the citys grim reality and its predominantly poor African American residents. Despite ten of thousands of buses and cars rolling into every day  gambling has not saved Atlantic City or returned it to its glory days. Simons moving narrative of Atlantic Citys past points to the troubling fate of urban America and the nations cultural trajectory in the twentieth century  with broad implications for those interested in urban studies  sociology  planning  architecture  and history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647621161013,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195167538","price":51.73,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195167535.jpg?v=1781696322","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/boardwalk-of-dreams-atlantic-city-and-the-fate-of-urban-america-9780195167535","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}