ICON12

The American 20th century is threaded with anti-urbanism, urban declension narratives, and political, cultural and symbolic pathologizing of the city. A particularly acute historical instance of anti-urbanism occurs amid the so-called “Urban Crisis” which begins post WWII and persists in various permutations through the late 20th century. This presentation examines contemporaneous counternarratives to urban crisis and collapse persistent in children’s picture books published between the mid-1960s and 1980s, depicting children’s urban landscapes defined by wonder — filled with street play, stoop life, wild urban natures, majestic infrastructure, and joy forged among dense, heterogeneous, multifamily housing. It argues for the inclusion of picture books as a legitimate site of representation and serious inquiry in disciplinary and interdisciplinary coursework across urban studies and urban historical geography.