Surplussed Atlanta: The Built Environment of Homelessness”

presented by Chuck Steffen

Downtown Atlanta is known for its glass office towers and professional sports venues. It is also known for having the densest population of unhoused persons in the metropolitan area. For nearly half a century, a succession of city governments, hotel and convention interests, real estate developers and property owners, neighborhood associations, and university administrations have pursued a campaign to relocate this population from the central business district to lower-income Black neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city—either that or put unhoused people in jail. In his talk, Chuck Steffen will place this campaign in the context of efforts to transform the downtown built environment after the Second World War. The actors who tore down and rebuilt the heart of the “City Too Busy to Hate” created a built environment in which homelessness could and would flourish.

Chuck Steffen is a retired historian who spent forty years teaching at Murray State University and Georgia State University. He has written on a range of topics, from US labor politics in the early national era to the politics of homelessness in the neoliberal era. His books include The Mechanics of Baltimore: Workers and Politics in the Age of Revolution, 1763–1812; From Gentlemen to Townsmen: The Gentry of Baltimore County, Maryland, 1660–1776; and Mutilating Khalid: The Symbolic Politics of Female Genital Cutting. Toward the end of his classroom days, Steffen became interested in viewing the politics of homelessness and housing through the lens of a camera.

SouthTalks is a series of events, including lectures, performances, film screenings and panel discussions, that explores the interdisciplinary nature of Southern Studies. This series is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.