In this chapter of Building the Body Politic, the author details the formation of Washington into the city it is today. She catalogues the events that caused the city to switch planners and illustrates the struggle between its hopeful image as a utopian urban environment and the concealed realities of poverty, racism, and disease. She demonstrates this through her contrast of spaces meant for monuments and alleyways that housed the working class inhabitants of the city. This disparity is attributed to the expectation that the city would display the ideals and history of the country but failed to incorporate the need for working class people to live in the city. She provides both professional opinions and historical facts to support her points. The author suggests that progress is being made to transform the city into a more inclusive environment, but that it will never achieve the forced order and grandiosity that was originally intended.
Tags: Washington DC, monuments, poverty, disease, alleys, planned city
