A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida

405 Pages·2014·2.56 MB·English

by  N. D. B. Connolly

A World More Concrete
HISTORICAL STUDIES OF URBAN AMERICA
Edited by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, James R. Grossman, and Becky M. Nicolaides
Also in the series:
URBAN APPETITES: FOOD AND CULTURE SEGREGATION: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF DIVIDED
IN NINETEENTH-C ENTURY NEW YORK CITIES by Carl H. Nightingale
by Cindy R. Lobel
SUNDAYS AT SINAI: A JEWISH CONGREGATION
CRUCIBLES OF BLACK EMPOWERMENT: IN CHICAGO by Tobias Brinkmann
CHICAGO’S NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS FROM
THE NEW DEAL TO HAROLD WASHINGTON IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT: LIFE IN
by Jeffrey Helgeson THE NOCTURNAL CITY, 1820–1930
by Peter C. Baldwin
THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO: POLICING
AND THE CREATION OF A COSMOPOLITAN MISS CUTLER AND THE CASE OF THE
LIBERAL POLITICS, 1950–1971 by Christopher RESURRECTED HORSE: SOCIAL WORK AND THE
Lowen Agee STORY OF POVERTY IN AMERICA, AUSTRALIA,
AND BRITAIN by Mark Peel
HARLEM: THE UNMAKING OF A GHETTO
by Camilo José Vergara THE TRANSATLANTIC COLLAPSE OF URBAN
RENEWAL: POSTWAR URBANISM FROM NEW
PLANNING THE HOME FRONT: BUILDING YORK TO BERLIN by Christopher Klemek
BOMBERS AND COMMUNITIES AT WILLOW RUN
by Sarah Jo Peterson I’VE GOT TO MAKE MY LIVIN’: BLACK WOMEN’S
SEX WORK IN TURN-O F-T HE-C ENTURY CHICAGO
PURGING THE POOREST: PUBLIC HOUSING by Cynthia M. Blair
AND THE DESIGN POLITICS OF TWICE-C LEARED
COMMUNITIES by Lawrence J. Vale PUERTO RICAN CITIZEN: HISTORY AND
POLITICAL IDENTITY IN TWENTIETH-C ENTURY
BROWN IN THE WINDY CITY: MEXICANS AND NEW YORK CITY by Lorrin Thomas
PUERTO RICANS IN POSTWAR CHICAGO
by Lilia Fernandez STAYING ITALIAN: URBAN CHANGE AND ETHNIC
LIFE IN POSTWAR TORONTO AND PHILADELPHIA
BUILDING A MARKET: THE RISE OF THE HOME by Jordan S tanger- Ross
IMPROVEMENT INDUSTRY, 1914–1960
by Richard Harris
Additional series titles follow index
A World More Concrete
Real Estate and the Remaking
of Jim Crow South Florida
N. D. B. Connolly
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
N. D. B. Connolly is assistant professor of history at Johns Hopkins University.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2014 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2014.
Printed in the United States of America
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 11514- 6 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 13525-0 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/ 9780226135250.001.0001
OUP Material: p. 149 extract (531w) from “Games of Chance: Jim Crow’s
Entrepreneurs Bet on ‘Negro’ Law and Order,” from What’s Good for Business,
edited by Kim Phillips- Fein and Julian E. Zelizer (2012).
Free permission. Author’s own material. By permission of Oxford University
Press, USA.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Connolly, N. D. B., author.
A world more concrete : real estate and the remaking of Jim Crow South
Florida / N.D.B. Connolly.
pages ; cm. — (Historical studies of urban America)
ISBN 978- 0- 226- 11514- 6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 0- 226- 13525- 0
(e- book) 1. Real property—History—Political aspects—Florida—Miami.
2. Rental housing—History—Political aspects—Florida. 3. African
Americans—Housing—Florida—Miami—History. 4. African American
neighborhoods—Florida—Miami—History. 5. Urban renewal—Florida—
Miami—History—20th century. 6. Racism—Florida—Miami—History.
I. Title. II. Series: Historical studies of urban America.
HD268.M45C66 2014
363.5'99960730759381—dc23
2013040478
o This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
For Shani, naturally
And for my mother, Diane Connolly- Graham

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments / ix
Introduction / America’s Playground / 1
PART I: FOUNDATION
ONE / The Magic City / 19
TWO / Bargaining and Hoping / 45
PART II: CONSTRUCTION
THREE / Jim Crow Liberalism / 73
FOUR / Pan- America / 101
FIVE / Knocking on the Door / 133
SIX / A Little Insurance / 163
PART III: RENOVATION
SEVEN / Bulldozing Jim Crow / 201
EIGHT / Suburban Renewal / 239
CONCLUSION / The Tragic City / 277
List of Abbreviations / 291
Notes / 293
Index / 363
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Jesus!
I’ve accumulated a dizzying number of personal and professional debts
over the life of this project. Only through the generosity of many wonderful
people does this book exist at all.
My most heartfelt gratitude, fi rst, to Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, who read far
more (far more closely) than he had to, and who continues to inspire me
with his discipline, insight, friendship, and genuine sense of perspective.
Thank you for your mind. And thank you for helping me appreciate the
relative value of ideas and relationships.
I’d also like to thank Thomas C. Holt, Nell Irvin Painter, Barbara Jean
Fields, and the late Michel- Rolph Trouillot. I’ve never actually met any of
you. Nevertheless, your intellectual courage and the naked brilliance of your
work kept me both heartened and humbled as I wrestled with institutional
power and our country’s troublesome racial past.
My sincere thanks to Robert Devens and Tim Mennel, from the Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, as well as to Becky Nicolaides, who fi rst solicited this
project. Thanks, too, to Jim Grossman, whose professionalism and insight
made this a better book, and whose passing words of encouragement, some
fi fteen years ago, kept me on the path to being a historian. I owe a tremen-
dous debt of gratitude to my friend, collaborator, and manuscript reader,
David Freund. Most fi rst-t ime authors never enjoy as much thorough,
thoughtful, and encouraging feedback as that which David provided—un-
less, of course, they, too, had David read their work.
As a member of the Department of History and the Center for Africana
Studies (CAS) at Johns Hopkins University, I’ve had the benefi t of growing
among an exceptional collection of warm and unfailingly sharp scholars. In
Africana Studies, I wish to thank Michael Hanchard, Hollis Robbins, Pier