Beer Cities: How Craft Brewing Remade Urban America

FAIN: FT-269921-20

Timothy J. Lombardo
University of South Alabama (Mobile, AL 36688-3053)

Research for a book on the craft brewing industry’s impact on urban renewal.

This project examines the craft brewing industry's structural, cultural, and political effect on American cities. Since the 1980s, small scale, independently-owned brewing operations have acted as a catalyst for urban revitalization and cultural change. Architects and city planners have begun calling the process of craft breweries acting as beachheads for urban revival “beer urbanism.” This project seeks to historicize this process through an in-depth and comparative examination of the craft brewing industry in various U.S. cities. More than an exploration of craft brewing, this project is about cities, how they change, and for whom. In addition to situating beer urbanism in the context of recent American urban, cultural, and political history, this project also addresses broader questions about capitalism, gentrification, and unequal urban renewal.