Rural Urbanism: Landscape, Land Use Activism and the Cultural Politics of Suburban Spatial Exclusion

Rural Urbanism analyzes contemporary land use activism among suburban whites as part of the contemporary political project called the "white backlash." I conceptualize land use activism as the struggle over how land is defined, used, and valued. I argue that the control of landscape stabilizes and recreates white privilege in the context of changes to the political-economic structures that have historically privileged white people, while working within the dictates of a "color-blind" society.