Assembling Place in a Chicago Neighbourhood

This paper approaches the area around Maxwell Street, Chicago as a rich urban place. The chapters utilizes ‘place theory’ and the approach of assemblage theory developed by Manuel De Landa to explore how Maxwell Street has been brought together and torn apart through a focus on ‘tax increment financing’. It focuses on three key dimensions of place as assemblage – materiality (a place is made of objects), meanings (place as represented and as representational) and practice (place as lived).