Hartford: A Hell of a Town: Planned Capitalist Abandonment

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on State Policies

Abstract

This study uses historical documents and field research to present a case study in urban decline, institutional failure and working class and youth resistance. Hartford, CT was created by and for capitalist accumulation and the social construction of the city was designed for profit not working class livability. Efforts at neighborhood and working class resistance generally failed and the city was left to decline as white residents and businesses moved out due to suburbanization and globalization. Field research from the 1990s until 2010 show how residents in the city tried a variety of late capitalist remedies to save the city, notably downtown improvements at the expense of the neighborhoods. Today residents are left with a poor, unworkable city characterized by crime, unemployment and neighborhood decay.

Author

• Albert DiChiara, University of Hartford