Sandhill Cities

“In this rigorously researched and nicely narrated book, J. Mark Souther has given us portraits of three mid-sized cities in the middle of Georgia. It is a story of ‘effervescent boosterism’ and its disappointments, of the gap between image and reality, and of civic ambition and its limits. There are important lessons here for cities all over the country that find themselves in the shadow of a larger metropolitan cousin.” ~Steven Conn, author of Americans against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century

“A model of comparative history, Sandhill Cities reminds us that the twentieth-century urban South was more than the experience of Sunbelt notables such as Atlanta, Charlotte, and Houston. By juxtaposing the development of Augusta, Columbus, and Macon, Sandhill Cities reveals that boosters in mid-sized cities regularly articulated a metropolitan vision for their cities but struggled to realize those goals.” ~LeeAnn B. Lands, author of Poor Atlanta: Poverty, Race, and the Limits of Sunbelt Development

“Mark Souther is among the nation’s most eminent urban historians. In Sandhill Cities, he tells a complex, important story of urban boosters in Augusta, Columbus, and Macon, Georgia, as they sought to emulate Atlanta’s fantastic growth, starting in the 1900s and extending to the 2020s. The book is conceptually sophisticated, lovingly written, and richly documented.” ~Mark H. Rose, coauthor of A Good Place to Do Business: The Politics of Downtown Renewal since 1945

“The American South is littered with small cities that make you wonder—how did that lonely skyscraper get here? Sandhill Cities tells the story of economic dreams and anxieties in Georgia’s Augusta, Columbus, and Macon, all caught in Atlanta’s shadow. Souther’s account points to a broader regional history that explains cities too often bypassed until now.” ~Anthony J. Stanonis, author of New Orleans Pralines: Plantation Sugar, Louisiana Pecans, and the Marketing of Southern Nostalgia