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Urban Hydraulic Rhizome: Water, Space, and the City in 20th Century North Texas

During the modern era, the urbanization of water has been facilitated by various privileged discourses, which valorize major engineering interventions for the sake of continued urban growth. This research examines discourse surrounding the 2-th Century proposal and construction of a reservoir near the then-tiny farming community of Grapevine, Texas, for the benefit of urban interests. I argue that urban interests produced Grapevine space as nothing more than a container for city water, by rendering meaningless any conception of space that was not directly articulated with urban economic networks. Modern discourse collapsed Denton Creek space from a watershed and landscape into a dimensionless node in the urban space of flows. In return, rural inhabitants were encouraged to progress and to modernize their own spaces: to become urban. Whereas urban discourse entails an implicit spatial imaginary of networks, I deploy the conceptual framework of settler colonialism to show that a core-periphery relationship remains relevant, and is not reducible to a network spatial ontology.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc984269
Date05 1900
CreatorsSimon, James-Eric H.
ContributorsAhmed, Waquar, Chatterjee, Ipsita, Fry, Matthew (Matthew Joseph), Hudak, Paul F.
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formativ, 94 pages, Text
CoverageUnited States - Texas - Tarrant County - Grapevine
RightsPublic, Simon, James-Eric H., Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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