Slow and Sudden Violence - by Derek Hyra

About the Book

"In Slow and Sudden Violence, Derek Hyra weaves together a persuasive unrest narrative, linking police aggression to an ongoing cycle of racial and spatial urban redevelopment repression. By delving into the real estate history of the St. Louis region and Baltimore, Hyra shows how rounds of urban renewal decisions to segregate, divest, displace, and gentrify Black communities advance neighborhood inequality. Despite moments of racial political representation, repeated decisions to 'upgrade' the urban fabric and uproot low-income Black populations, result in Black poverty pockets inhabited by people experiencing chronic displacement trauma and unrelenting police surveillance. These interconnected sets of accumulated frustrations powerfully culminate and surface when tragic and unjust police killings occur. To confront the core components of U.S. unrest, Hyra suggests we must end racialized policing, stop Black community destruction and displacement, and reduce neighborhood inequality"--

Book Synopsis

Exposing the roots of racial unrest that consistently harm Black communities

In Slow and Sudden Violence, Derek Hyra links police violence to an ongoing cycle of racial and spatial urban redevelopment repression. By delving into the real estate histories of St. Louis and Baltimore, he shows how housing and community development policies advance neighborhood inequality by segregating, gentrifying, and displacing Black communities.

Repeated decisions to "upgrade" the urban fabric and uproot low-income Black populations have resulted in pockets of poverty inhabited by people experiencing displacement trauma and police surveillance. These interconnected sets of divestments and accumulated frustrations have contributed to eruptions of violence in response to tragic, unjust police killings. To confront American unrest, Hyra urges that we end racialized policing, stop Black community destruction and displacement, and reduce neighborhood inequality.

From the Back Cover

"By exposing the deep roots of contemporary racial unrest, Derek Hyra lays bare the failures of urban policy to overcome social inequalities as they have metastasized over time. His prescriptions for addressing the multiple effects of what he calls slow violence in such places as Ferguson and Baltimore cry out for action in the private as well as the public sector."--Howard Gillette, Jr., author of The Paradox of Urban Revitalization: Progress and Poverty in America's Post-Industrial Era

"Slow and Sudden Violence goes beyond the immediate, surface-level explanations for the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore. Hyra provides a rich historical account combined with vivid interviews to make a powerful argument: What happened in Ferguson, Baltimore, Minneapolis, and many other cities is not simply about the police. It is about social policies that have destabilized, oppressed, and in some cases destroyed Black communities."--Patrick Sharkey, William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University

"Hyra's trenchant account forcefully demonstrates how seemingly precipitous uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore are actually rooted in the systemic racialized violence of accumulated metropolitan housing and urban renewal policies that facilitated displacement and gentrification."--Lawrence J. Vale, Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"From the draft riots of the civil war to the urban unrest in the wake of George Floyd's murder, America's cities have been the sites of episodic spasms of violence. Hyra revisits these spasms, offering up fresh insights into their occurrence and possible solutions to dampen the likelihood of such outbursts. Slow and Sudden Violence is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand cities periodic about of unrest."--Lance Freeman, James W. Effron University Professor of City and Regional Planning & Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Review Quotes

"Drawing on archival materials and forty-two interviews conducted in St. Louis and Baltimore, Hyra offers an accessible, empathetic, and insightful exploration of when and why urban uprisings occur."-- "Ethnic and Racial Studies"

"Exemplifies the kind of critical, innovative and passionate scholarship--which recognizes the need for intersectional analysis--currently under threat in Trump's America."-- "Housing Studies"

"A must-read for anyone trying to understand the complexities of gentrification in a hypergentrified city."-- "Urban Affairs Review"

"Hyra's honest, honorable, and immensely generative research. . . performs a great service by looking below the surface, behind the scenes, and before the present to uncover what has too often been hidden in scholarship and civic life."-- "Social Forces"

About the Author

Derek Hyra is Professor of Public Administration and Policy and founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Center at American University. His research focuses on neighborhood change, with an emphasis on housing, urban politics, and race.