“Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It” is a book about the consequences of urban renewal and displacement. It’s also a book about Pittsburgh. Published in 2004, “Root Shock” quickly became required reading by historians, urban planners and sociologists. Psychiatrist and public health researcher Mindy Thompson Fullilove, the book’s author, gave a name to a condition that scholars had documented since the early days of urban renewal in the 1950s.Research for “Root Shock” took place in Newark, N.J., Roanoke, Va., and Pittsburgh. Though all three cities are featured prominently in the book, much of it is focused on Pittsburgh. The book is dedicated to Hill District activist Della Wimbs and Roanoke’s Charles Meadows. A second edition published in 2016 includes a foreword by Hill District artist Carlos Peterson. His images also appeared in the first edition.Fullilove visited Pittsburgh in the 1990s. She met Hill District activist Terri Baltimore, and the pair collaborated on the Find the Rivers! project. It was a grassroots placemaking effort designed to reconnect the Hill District to the city’s three rivers and empower Hill residents in future city planning efforts.Mindy Thompson Fullilove, right, hugs Hill District activist Terri Baltimore during the 1990s Find the Rivers! project. Photo courtesy of Mindy Thompson Fullilove.“Root Shock” takes its title from gardening, one of Fullilove’s favorite pastimes. It refers to the stress imposed on trees being transplanted by tearing them up by the roots. “Trees yanked from the ground lose important parts of their root system,” she wrote in the 2004 book. “Trees need their roots … people, too, need roots.”Fullilove, who recently retired from a faculty position at the University of Orange in New Jersey, marked the anniversary with a series of public programs and a webinar. NEXTpittsburgh caught up with Fullilove by phone afterward.NEXTpittsburgh: Can you explain the role Pittsburgh has had in informing your thoughts about root shock? Fullilove: I knew about urban renewal where I grew up around Newark, N.J. And I knew about urban renewal in Roanoke through the work of Mary Bishop, which is very inspirational. And then I was spending time in Pittsburgh, with the project that I discussed [1990s Find the Rivers! project], and learned about urban renewal then.So what was really important to me was, what crystalized was the sense that this was a national process. Then it was really brought home when I saw an article in a magazine called Double Take, a short-lived magazine called Double Take, which had photographs of Memphis and what it looked like before urban renewal. And the photographs were very reminiscent of those of Charles “Teenie” Harris. So the sense of wait, there was a before and an after and this went on all over the country, was very important for the concept of the book. NEXTpittsburgh: You said that root shock is happening now to all 8 billion people in the world? What did you mean by that?Fullilove: Well, I defined root shock as the loss, the destruction, of all or part of one’s emotional ecosystem. So you’d have to say the weather is part of our emotional ecosystem and we’ve all lost the weather that we knew. The climate has shifted and that means that 8 billion people have root shock. That’s quite literal. The newly constructed FNB Financial Center tower was built in the Lower Hill District on a site once cleared for construction of the Civic Arena during urban renewal in the 1950s. Photo by David Rotenstein.NEXTpittsburgh: Can suburban residents experience root shock?Fullilove: Let’s go back to the definition. It’s the destruction of all or part of one’s emotional ecosystem. So literally, did anyone lose all or part of their emotional ecosystem? And then root shock is the traumatic stress reaction to that. So anybody could have it.And, you know, obviously, it’s a term I took from gardening. So plants and animals can have it as well. NEXTpittsburgh: Pittsburgh in 2024 versus Pittsburgh in the 1990s, can you see in current day Pittsburgh your fingerprints and how public policy has changed?Fullilove: I wouldn’t say my fingerprints at all, but I did have the opportunity of working with many organizers like Terri Baltimore in the Hill. I think you see their fingerprints because they were brilliant organizers and loved the neighborhood and understood how to have influence in the political system. Worked really hard to do so. NEXTpittsburgh: Lots of people know the work that Terri Baltimore’s done in Pittsburgh and in her colleagues at the Hill CDC. But where can we see the recognition for what the book has done out in the real world? Mindy Thompson Fullilove, right, and her daughter Molly Rose Kaufman in front of the Centre Avenue YMCA. The pose re-creates a classic Teenie Harris photo of a mother and daughter. Photo courtesy of Mindy Thompson Fullilove.Fullilove: You know, [Fullilove’s daughter and collaborator] Molly and I have argued that people don’t really fully understand the story of urban renewal. They understand it much better than they did [before the book came out]. Many people have lifted up the story of urban renewal in their own communities around the U.S. And so you can see various kinds of things going on, including, you know, ranging from lawsuits to films to reparations, all kinds of things going on around urban renewal across the U.S. So that’s a good thing, incomplete but good. And I think my book is part of that, part of bringing that to consciousness. Certainly, my book built on people who already understood their story and told it to me. But it helped get the story out.The post A landmark book on urban renewal has its roots in Pittsburgh appeared first on NEXTpittsburgh.