Event Host: Columbus Metropolitan Library
Short Description: Join us virtually for the launch of Boomtown Columbus! Author and Distinguished University Professor Emertitus Kevin Cox takes us through the post–WWII history of urban development in Columbus to discuss how developers got their way.
Join us virtually for the launch of Boomtown Columbus: Ohio’s Sunbelt City and How Developers Got Their Way! Author and Distinguished University Professor Emertitus Kevin Cox takes us through the post–WWII history of urban development in Columbus to discuss how developers got their way.
Columbus Metropolitan Library and our Local History & Genealogy division are hosting this free virtual event. Ask questions and live chat with LH&G staff and the author from your computer or mobile device.
Register for the event.
Book Summary
Columbus, Ohio, and its ample cloud cover may be on the eastern edge of the Midwest, but the city’s unfettered suburbanization and rapid postwar expansion recall its Sunbelt peers. To understand why—and the social and economic stakes of this all-too-common model of urban growth—pioneering geographer Kevin R. Cox takes us through the postwar history of development in Columbus, a city that has often welcomed corporate influence at the expense of livability and equal opportunity for its residents.
How have development interests become entwined with government? How has a policy of annexation reformed the city’s map? Why have airline service and major league prestige lagged behind its status as a regional center? And what, if anything, makes this city with a reputation for being average stand apart? In Boomtown Columbus, Cox applies both scholarly expertise and his personal experience as a long-time resident of the city to look at the real-life costs of policy. The resulting narrative will fascinate not only locals but anyone with a stake in understanding American cities and a path toward urban livability for all.