One of Planetizen"s Top Ten Books of 2006 "But for Birmingham," Fred Shuttleworth recalled President John F. Kennedy saying in June 1963 when he invited black leaders to meet with him, "we would not be here today." Birmingham is well known for its civil rights history, particularly for the violent white-on-black bombings that occurred there in the 1960s, resulting in the city"s nickname "Bombingham." What is less well known about Birmingham"s racial history, however, is the extent to which early city planning decisions influenced and prompted the city"s civil rights protests. The first book-length work to analyze this connection, "The Most Segregated City in America": City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920-1980 uncovers the impact of Birmingham"s urban planning decisions on its black communities and reveals how these decisions led directly to the civil rights movement. Spanning over sixty years, Charles E. Connerly"s study begins in the 1920s, when Birmingham used urban...