Dolores Hayden's
The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History is a reflection on 8 years of work at her Boston nonprofit The Power of Place, which she started in 1984 to "
to situate women’s history and ethnic history in
downtown, in public places, through experimental, collaborative projects by
historians, designers, and artists." Written for academics, fellow practitioners, and the general public, The Power of Place shows how collaboratively-produced public art can bring together urban space and urban history in new, generative ways, while also identifying and preserving significant public places from changes in the configurations of capital. With the increasing interconnectedness of cities and the rise of placelessness, Hayden argues, an urban landscape history that accesses and generates "place memory" is the surest route to recovering both a sense of place and the historical agency/ capacity for social change that comes with it.
