IntroductionGentrification in US cities continues to be unpredictable and often contentious (Munoz, 1998;Wilson, 1996).`Protect community' undertakings are alive and well despite the engines of accumulation being acutely refined and deepened antipoor rhetoric and sentiment (the revanchist era) [see Munoz (1998) on New York and Mueller (1999) on St. Louis]. Successful antigentrification movements typically entail residents willing (or threatening) to obstruct development (for example, impeding construction, discouraging gentrifier in-movement, persuading retailers to resist upscaling') (Diskin and Dutton, 2002;Mele, 2000;Smith, 1996). Such actions, we now know, can make developers turn to other neighborhoods or other forms of investment. But how residents in such threatened neighborhoods ö often politically disorganized, self-doubting, and inexperienced in activismö become so transformed and active is unclear.This lack of knowledge stems from a superficial understanding of the discourses that transform and activate them. The most basic aspects of such discourses are still unexplored; for example, how such rhetorical projects are constructed, how central themes are made luminous and persuasive, how offered understandings are fitted into current bases of knowledge, and how such themes challenge and thwart gentrification. Such analysis in any setting is, we realize, potentially daunting. To Annette Hastings (1999) and Loretta Lees (2000), these discourses of opposition are complex human accomplishments that need to`sell' new ways of seeing while placing this in the terrain of normative and acceptable. Their making, to Hastings, requires diverse resources that meld in complicated and contingent ways ö use of space and history, use of language, and seizing and building on common understandings.
This article examines the prominent growth discourse that today characterizes Midwest rust belt cities. We extend present work on this topic by investigating how these Midwest coalitions construct their two central themes: an accelerated city competition in new global times and the need for leadership by entrepreneurial-minded developers. Our study of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Cleveland looks at the key ingredients found in these discourses, and show how they are used to legitimate the urban redevelopment plans promoted by growth coalitions.
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