"If we are to make a serious effort at changing the racial geography of our cities, well‐argued and researched books such as this must be more widely known."
—Peter Eisenstadt, American Historical Review

"The Culture of Property prompts us to consider the social actors, groups, and interests that drove the re-engineering of Atlanta's landscape at the turn of the twentieth century, from a city where washerwomen lived near their employers to a city that sought to move an entire black university for the sake of ensuring white control of space. The author brings the discussion to a critical edge by relating the events of the early twentieth century to the current housing crisis in Atlanta and the insensitivity of contemporary white elites to issues of social justice. The book will cut across and contribute to a variety of disciplines and readerships. The great strength of the work comes from its explicit analysis of geography and landscape, demonstrating that the history of Atlanta (or any other city) must be re-told and analyzed in the context of the spaces and places that people inhabited, constructed, and struggled over."
—Derek H. Alderman, coauthor of Civil Rights Memorials and the Geography of Memory

"An important contribution to the literatures of urban and suburban history. Lands investigates the transformation of neighborhoods and property markets in Atlanta to explain the making of a new cultural and political infrastructure for segregation, an infrastructure that continues to shape the United States today. Illuminating the many links between local and nationwide trends, she makes a persuasive case for Atlanta’s role as a national exemplar as well as a city with its own local and regional peculiarities."
—Andrew Wiese, author of Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century

"The Culture of Property is a must read for those who are looking for the historical causes of metropolitan Atlanta’s geographical segregation. Lands demonstrates that early twentieth-century suburbs like Druid Hills and Ansley Park, planned and landscaped intown neighborhoods for the city’s white elite, became the models for homogenous subdivisions in an expanding city, enabled by residential racial zoning and racially restrictive covenants and by home-loan financing provided by banks and supported by federal housing and lending policies."
—Timothy J. Crimmins, Director of the Center for Neighborhood and Metropolitan Studies, Georgia State University

“Leaving no archival stone unturned, Lands utilizes a vast array of official records and newspaper articles, as well as city directories, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, and manuscript census data. The author weaves these sources together to craft a richly detailed tapestry that brings to life the city’s evolving urban landscape and the people that inhabited and reshaped it.”
—Social and Cultural Geography

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