Making the Mission
Planning and Ethnicity in San Francisco
In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, residents of the city's iconic Mission District bucked the city-wide development plan, defiantly announcing that in their neighborhood, they would be calling the shots. Ever since, the Mission has become known as a city within a city, and a place where residents have, over the last century, organized and reorganized themselves to make the neighborhood in their own image. In "Making the Mission", Ocean Howell tells the story of how residents of the Mission District organized to claim the right to plan their own neighborhood and how they mobilized a politics of place and ethnicity to create a strong, often racialized identity – a pattern that would repeat itself again and again throughout the twentieth century. Surveying the perspectives of formal and informal groups, city officials and district residents, local and federal agencies, Howell articulates how these actors worked with and against one another to establish the very ideas of the public and the public interest, as well as to negotiate and renegotiate what the neighborhood wanted. In the process, he shows that national narratives about how cities grow and change are fundamentally insufficient; everything is always shaped by local actors and concerns.
About the Author
Ocean Howell is assistant professor of history in the Clark Honors College and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Oregon.
Reviews
"'Making the Mission' offers a provocative history of neighborhood power and urban planning. This elegantly written and beautifully illustrated book reveals that modern-day fights against gentrification are rooted in neighborhood ideas and institutions stretching back to the early twentieth century. Howell's sweeping narrative shows that neighborhoods often shaped and even directed the planning policies of city hall and the federal government. The neighborhood was a central 'actor' in the development of space and formation of race. Howell's history leaves us with important lessons about the opportunities and obstacles facing today's campaigns for neighborhood self-governance" – Christopher Agee, author of "The Streets of San Francisco: Policing and the Creation of a Cosmopolitan Liberal Politics"
"Do cities make neighborhoods or do neighborhoods make cities? In this masterful synthesis of politics, culture and the built environment, Howell makes a powerful case for the role of small-scale social formations in the making of the civic whole. As San Francisco's Mission District emerges as the latest symbol of gentrification and its disContents:, this study should not be missed" – Eric Avila, University of California, Los Angeles
"Using the neighborhood-oriented approach that he champions, Howell has been able to approach the issues of local power, planning, class, and race with a contextual sensitivity that is often missing in more macro studies. This allows him to make important nuanced observations that will force readers to rethink how they approach their subsequent teaching and research. 'Making the Mission' will challenge readers' assumptions about the complex relationships that shape neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan areas; ethnic and racial relations; urban planning and governmental and citizen involvement in it; and the historical narratives that have come to dominate each of these" – Janice L. Reiff, University of California, Los Angeles
