Slow and Sudden Violence

Why and When Uprisings Occur

By: Derek Hyra

Narrated by: Kirk Winkler

In Slow and Sudden Violence, Derek Hyra links police violence to an ongoing cycle of racial and spatial urban redevelopment repression. By delving into the real estate histories of St. Louis and Baltimore, he shows how housing and community development policies advance neighborhood inequality by segregating, gentrifying, and displacing Black communities.

Repeated decisions to “upgrade” the urban fabric and uproot low-income Black populations have resulted in pockets of poverty inhabited by people experiencing displacement trauma and police surveillance. These interconnected sets of divestments and accumulated frustrations have contributed to eruptions of violence in response to tragic, unjust police killings. To confront American unrest, Hyra urges that we end racialized policing, stop Black community destruction and displacement, and reduce neighborhood inequality.

The book is published by University of California Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2024 Derek Hyra (P)2025 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A must-read for anyone seeking to understand cities periodic about of unrest." (Lance Freeman, University of Pennsylvania)

"Goes beyond the immediate, surface-level explanations for the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore...provides a rich historical account..." (Patrick Sharkey, Princeton University)

"Lays bare the failures of urban policy to overcome social inequalities as they have metastasized over time." (Howard Gillette, Jr., author of The Paradox of Urban Revitalization)