Taking Our Water for the City
The Archaeology of New York City’s Watershed Communities
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Berghahn Books
Published:9th Dec '22
Should be back in stock very soon
Tap water enables the development of cities in locations with insufficient natural resources to support such populations. For the last 200 years, New York City has obtained water through a network of nineteen reservoirs and controlled lakes, some as far as 125-miles away. Engineering this water system required the demolition of rural communities, removal of cemeteries, and rerouting of roadways and waterways. The ruination is ongoing. This archaeological examination of the New York City watershed reveals the cultural costs of urban water systems. Urban water systems do more than reroute water from one place to another. At best, they redefine communities. At worst, they erase them.
“Beisaw takes the reader along with herself and her students as they walked over, through, and around the watershed communities of New York whose lands and livelihoods continue to be impacted by New York City’s ever-increasing need for water. The careful and example-filled work provides the best sorts of nuance about the ways that text, artifact, and oral history can be harnessed by archaeological practice to show the real stakes of our collective use of water, and how that world-sanctioned human right will be even further at risk as the oceans rise and our climate continues to change.”• Rebecca S. Graff, Lake Forest College
ISBN: 9781800738140
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
154 pages