Kalamazoo's Promise: Exploring the Violence of Economic Development

Boone Shear
Vin Lyon-Callo

This essay explores the discursive production of numerous, well-meaning efforts to respond to social and economic restructuring in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Drawing upon the work of Slavoj Zizek, we suggest that the focus on what is perceived to be reasonable, or realistic, is maintained by and helps to maintain, the normal workings of capitalist exploitation which appear as inevitable, natural, or altogether invisible.

Suggested citation

Shear, Boone W. and V. Lyon-Callo. 2013. "Kalamazoo's Promise: Exploring the Violence of Economic Development." City and Society 25 (1): 70-91.