Analyzes how locationshot crime films of the 1970s reflected and influenced understandings of urban crisis.2019 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title The early 1970s were a moment of transformation for both the American city and its cinema. As intensified suburbanization racial division deindustrialization and decaying infrastructure cast the future of the city in doubt detective films blaxploitation police procedurals and heist films confronted spectators with contemporary scenes from urban streets. Welcome to Fear City argues that the locationshot crime films of the 1970s were part of a larger cultural ambivalence felt toward urban life evident in popular magazines architectural discourse urban sociology and visual culture.