Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie

Traces the history of Poughkeepsie's development from the nineteenth through the twentieth and into the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Main Street to Mainframes is an in-depth study of a small American city and its evolution in the twentieth and early twenty-first century. It describes the economic and social changes, as well as the challenges that face the community. This includes Poughkeepsie's unique history and characteristics, as well as trends that are common in many other communities. The text integrates both social history and spatial analysis, describing the city's physical form through time along with its economic growth, decline, and efforts at renewal post-COVID-19 pandemic. The historical narrative is followed by an appendix containing examples of cultural features unique to Poughkeepsie's past and present, with questions that can serve as discussion points for readers and groups.

As an exploration of a small city that has undergone many of the social and economic problems of much larger urban systems, this book adds important insight into the organic nature of urban systems, including issues of immigration, ethnicity and race, housing and the unhoused, health care, and economic changes in the nation, especially in the growth of the creative and arts-centered economy.

Author: Harvey K. Flad,Clyde Griffen
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Excelsior Editions/State University of New Yo
Published: 05/01/2026
Series: Suny Series, an American Region: Studies in the Hudson Valle
Pages: 506
Weight: 1.91lbs
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 1.02d
ISBN: 9798855806144
2nd Edition