Pests in the City

Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats

Dawn Day Biehler (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

360 Seiten

2015
University of Washington Press (Verlag)
978-0-295-99482-6 (ISBN)

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From tenements to alleyways to latrines, twentieth-century American cities created spaces where pests flourished and people struggled for healthy living conditions. In Pests in the City, Dawn Day Biehler argues that the urban ecologies that supported pests were shaped not only by the physical features of cities but also by social inequalities, housing policies, and ideas about domestic space.

Community activists and social reformers strived to control pests in cities such as Washington, DC, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Milwaukee, but such efforts fell short when authorities blamed families and neighborhood culture for infestations rather than attacking racial segregation or urban disinvestment. Pest-control campaigns tended to target public or private spaces, but pests and pesticides moved readily across the porous boundaries between homes and neighborhoods.

This story of flies, bedbugs, cockroaches, and rats reveals that such creatures thrived on lax code enforcement and the marginalization of the poor, immigrants, and people of color. As Biehler shows, urban pests have remained a persistent problem at the intersection of public health, politics, and environmental justice, even amid promises of modernity and sustainability in American cities.

Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9PFxLY7K4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw

Dawn Day Biehler is assistant professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She lives with her family in Washington, D.C.

Foreword by William Cronon

Acknowledgments

Introduction: History, Ecology, and the Politics of Pests

Part One

The Promises of Modern Pest Control

1. Flies: Agents of Interconnection in Progressive Era Cities

2. Bedbugs: Creatures of Community in Modernizing Cities

3. German Cockroaches: Permeable Homes in the Postwar Era

4. Norway Rats: Back-Alley Ecology in the Chemical Age

Part Two

Persistence and Resistance in the Age of Ecology

5. The Ecology of Injustice: Rats in the Civil Rights Era

6. Integrating Urban Homes: Cockroaches and Survival

Epilogue: The Persistence and Resurgence of Bedbugs

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	16.2.2015
Reihe/Serie	Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
Mitarbeit	Herausgeber (Serie): Paul S. Sutter
Vorwort	William Cronon
Verlagsort	Seattle
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	431 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Naturführer
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
	Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
	Technik ► Umwelttechnik / Biotechnologie
	Weitere Fachgebiete ► Land- / Forstwirtschaft / Fischerei
ISBN-10	0-295-99482-7 / 0295994827
ISBN-13	978-0-295-99482-6 / 9780295994826
Zustand	Neuware