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From the best of times to the worst of times: professional sport and urban decline in a tale of two Clevelands, 1945-1978

Suchma, Philip C

Abstract Details

2005, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Educational Policy and Leadership.

Historical research has provided scholars with a strong foundation for understanding the sport-city nexus in American culture. These studies have focused primarily on two distinct eras. The first links the rise of modern sporting and leisure practices with the birth of the American metropolis from the early nineteenth century to the early-to-mid twentieth century. The works of Melvin Adelman, Stephen Hardy, Steven Riess, and Gerald Gems have enriched this area with studies on sports growth in some of the key American metropolises at the turn of the past century: New York, Boston, and Chicago. The second area of study reflects the evolution of American professional sport as a business following World War II. These studies documented cases of league expansion, franchise relocation, and stadium construction in a specific city. Socio-cultural research addressing sport and the city has tended to look more at community-based issues for the aforementioned themes.

Missing from these scholarly treatments is an examination of the plight of the postwar American city undergoing urban decline and the place of professional sport within that context. Looking at Cleveland, this study revisits the questions used in the existing body of sport-city scholarship to see if and how they can be translated to the modern city in decline. The intersection of sport and city addresses issues of civic policy, local economics, and racial relations as found in scholarly works, city records, newspapers, and archived manuscript collections. This study also examines the creation of civic image through the presence of professional sports and the meanings extracted from that image, as seen in Cleveland’s shift from “The City of Champions” to the “Mistake on the Lake.” Furthermore, the Wirth-Hardy categories of the city—physical structure, social organization, and shared beliefs—and Isenberg’s argument that human actors were at the core of downtown’s decline frame visions of the city. These underlying notions balance the examination of tangible and intangible evidence to create a more complete understanding of professional sport’s relationship to Cleveland.

Melvin Adelman (Advisor)
461 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Suchma, P. C. (2005). From the best of times to the worst of times: professional sport and urban decline in a tale of two Clevelands, 1945-1978 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1133300791

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Suchma, Philip. From the best of times to the worst of times: professional sport and urban decline in a tale of two Clevelands, 1945-1978. 2005. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1133300791.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Suchma, Philip. "From the best of times to the worst of times: professional sport and urban decline in a tale of two Clevelands, 1945-1978." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1133300791

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)