What is Unseen Matters Also

Dolores Hayden’s article “Urban Landscapes as Public History” and her larger book project The Power of Place accomplish a great deal in bringing together previously disparate academic and professional conversations on the meanings of place. She recognizes the grounding of traditional historic preservation in architectural history, while also acknowledging the importance of social history and its attention to people other than “recognized leaders” from the past. Her work is grounded in theoretical framings, but also in detailed, immersive work with communities in Los Angeles. Above all, she, like scholars such as Setha Low, Anne Whiston Spirn, and J. B. Jackson, gives readers a way to examine the multiplicities contained in a human place, while also having a critical faculty to make assessments about what has happened “here.”

We can no longer be satisfied telling just the same stories about our cities, states, and natural features we have told for decades. The received, dominant narratives may still have some truth, and value (or may obscure more than they illuminate) so we may always need the “City 101” version of our past. That is not sufficient going forward. Issues of a changing climate, and recurring questions of environmental equity and justice mean that the meanings of place are more contested, and physical spaces themselves even more malleable than we may have suspected. We must extend the scope and depth of our knowledge of place, and bring that knowledge to the public in innovative ways.

Hayden’s work allows scholars and others to “write people back into places,” correcting the erasures that have happened over time. 

Download 'Urban Landscapes as Public History' by Dolores Hayden.