Using a multi‐methods approach, we examine socioeconomic and demographic change in Buffalo, New York's, West Side neighborhood. We do this by performing a systematic case study of the neighborhood analyzing census tract data, crime data, key informant interview data from community leaders and organizational representatives, and content analysis data from local newspaper articles. Results suggest that although the neighborhood has shifted dramatically over the last forty‐five years, the changes have been uneven across the West Side. Two divergent areas have emerged: one neighborhood fueled by white gentrifiers and another driven by international migrants.

In this article, I explore manifest and latent discourses about masculinity in a predominantly white, middle class boxing gym. In this gym, the owner and coaches promote a discourse that emphasizes love, bridgework, and sparring with care. This discourse is part of the gym’s white-collar boxing culture. A key part of this discourse is distancing themselves from other gyms, claiming they promote a violent masculinity. While on the surface the gym criticizes certain ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity, it still reproduces discourses, norms, and practices associated with it. Employees use a latent discourse that constructs a hybrid masculinity. I argue that employees and members construct a hybrid masculinity by perpetuating ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity.

Drawing on the literature on white habitus, colorblindness, diversity ideology, and happy talk, I argue that rhetorical maneuvers are key aspects of white habitus that allow whites to construct a non-racist self by drawing on colorblind discourses. To explore how white habitus influences interview dynamics when the respondent and interviewer are of a different race, I conducted 48 interviews with whites from rural and urban areas of the Greater Buffalo Area. Specifically, I examine the relationship between white habitus, a non-racist presentation of self, and rhetorical maneuvers that whites deploy when talking about race and immigration. I also introduce two new frames of colorblindness: differentiation and civility. The civility frame conflates friendliness and civility with anti-racism and is used as evidence that everything is fine. The differentiation frame attempts to draw distinctions between themselves (“non-racist white people”) and other whites (“bad apples”).

Using content analysis of Buffalo media and 20 semi-structured interviews, I document the use of immigrant entrepreneurialism as a neoliberal urban governance strategy. Racism evasiveness is central to this strategy. I observe that immigrants and refugees are treated as symbolic capital as part of a neighborhood branding strategy that involves parlaying diversity into material benefits. I call this strategy global appeal. Buffalo’s resurgence is a feel-good story that draws on neoliberal market logics, colorblindness, and diversity ideology. These stories allow Whites to evade racism when discussing neighborhood renewal and racist comments. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic capital, Bell’s concept of neighborhood frames, and Beeman’s theory of racism evasiveness, I argue that immigrants and refugees are used as symbolic capital to construct a neighborhood brand. This is part of a strategy of roll out neoliberalism that relies on two neighborhood frames: revitalization and diversity. The revitalization frame credits immigrants and refugees with contributing to the neighborhood through homeownership, entrepreneurialism, and school enrollment. The diversity frame celebrates people of different races, cultures, and ethnicities coming together while both evading and obscuring racism.

No abstract