"I Love that City, but which City?: Urban Change and Urban Identity in Basel, Boston, and Cologne"
ABSTRACT: A healthy city requires that its citizens identify with the city, but both demographic change and changes in the built environment pose serious challenges. What does it mean to be a Baseler, Kölner, or Bostonian when the city itself changes? The paper addresses this question by first noting some of the problems of comparative, transnational history and then by examining approaches taken in each city to urban renewal, traffic planning, and historic preservation during the middle half of the Twentieth Century.
Session III: Thinking Comparatively about the American Built Environment