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Tracks/Traces: The New Deal Transformation Of Lexington, Kentucky’S Landscapes Of Horseracing And Housing, Piotr Wojcik

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Lexington, Kentucky is a key node in the global thoroughbred horse industry. This archival research examines the transformation of its horseracing and housing geographies during the 1930s by comparing the redevelopment of an old urban racetrack into federal public housing with the simultaneous development of a new racing plant in the nearby countryside. It analyzes the social and economic relations underlying this shift in addition to how these relations were naturalized by the new landscapes they created. Results suggest that a local growth coalition was seeking to emerge from a financial crisis through a spatial fix that capitalized on cultural …