‘Positive’ Gentrification, Social Control and the ‘Right to the City’ in Mixed‐Income Communities: Uses and Expectations of Space and Place

Abstract

Public policies supporting market‐oriented strategies to develop mixed‐income communities have become ascendant in the United States and a number of other countries around the world. Although framed as addressing both market goals of revitalization and social goals of poverty deconcentration and inclusion, these efforts at ‘positive gentrification’ also generate a set of fundamental tensions — between integration and exclusion, use value and exchange value, appropriation and control, poverty and development — that play out in particular concrete ways on the ground. Drawing on social control theory and the ‘right to the city’ framework of Henri Lefebvre, this article interrogates these tensions as they become manifest in three mixed‐income communities being developed to replace public housing complexes in Chicago, focusing particularly on responses to competing expectations regarding the use of space and appropriate normative behavior, and to the negotiation of these expectations in thecontext of arguments about safety, order, what constitutes ‘public’ space, and the nature and extent of rights to use that space in daily life. Résumé Les politiques publiques favorables aux stratégies de marché pour constituer des communautés à revenus mixtes se propagent aux États‐Unis et dans plusieurs autres pays du monde. Conçues pour répondre à la fois à des objectifs de revitalisation associés au marché et à des objectifs sociaux de déconcentration de la pauvreté et d’inclusion, ces projets de ‘gentrification positive’ génèrent toutefois en ensemble de tensions élémentaires qui s’exercent concrètement sur le terrain (entre intégration et exclusion, valeur d’usage et valeur d’échange, appropriation et contrôle, pauvreté et développement). S’appuyant sur la théorie de la régulation sociale et sur le cadre du ‘droit à la ville’ d’Henri Lefebvre, l’article revient sur les tensions manifestées dans trois communautés à revenus mixtes de Chicago issues du réaménagement de complexes de logements sociaux. Il s’intéresse notamment aux réactions face aux attentes concurrentes quant à l’utilisation de l’espace et à un comportement normatif approprié, et face à la négociation de ces attentes dans un contexte antagoniste sur la sécurité, sur l’ordre, sur ce qui constitue l’espace ‘public’ ainsi que sur la nature et la portée des droits d’utilisation de cet espace au quotidien.

Big Data in the Big Easy: How Social Networks Can Improve the Place for Young People in Cities

“…In such communities, social and physical inequalities leveraged against young people are furthered when economic and racial dimensions are involved. For example, Chaskin found that a single, black teenager hanging-out on the stoop in a new mixed-income neighborhood was perceived as a threat to a separate home-owner's property values (Chaskin and Joseph 2013). The perpetuation of such inequality, despite the stochastic change of physical and economic neighborhood context from concentrated poverty to mixed-income, suggests the need to better contextualize correlated neighborhood effects on racial and economic inequality (Carter and Reardon 2014).…”

“…Numerous studies further discuss how in disadvantaged neighborhoods with exceptionally high poverty and segregation, young people are afraid to access places outside of home and school and are often perceived as a threat by unknown adults, other youth, and law enforcement (Anguelovski and Martínez Alier 2014, Anthony 2008, Browning 2008, Castro and Lindbladh 2004. More recent studies have built upon the concept of "undesirable" adolescents by identifying that even in new, mixed income redevelopments, young people, specifically black and/or poorer adolescents, are quickly identified as trouble-makers and laws are enforced to prevent loitering (hanging-out) by young people (Chaskin and Joseph 2013, McCray and Mora 2011, Todd 2010). In such communities, social and physical inequalities leveraged against young people are furthered when economic and racial dimensions are involved.…”

“…outcomes (Chaskin and Joseph 2013, Travlou et al 2008, Owens 2002, Shirtcliff 2015. Many of these studies have found that neighborhoods near their home and/or school are in a state of urban decay, with high levels of poverty, racial segregation, and general lack of opportunity.…”

“…Current theory on rights to the city aims to advance equitable access for adolescents, especially those with socio-economic disadvantages, to participate in urban life (Darcy and Rogers 2014, Boydell and Searle 2014, Chaskin and Joseph 2013, Ruppert 2006. Numerous studies on adolescents' right to the city have identified barriers (social, political, and physical) that limit their ability to successfully access places or opportunities to achieve healthy, positive…”

Trapped in the Tiebout model : the impact of federal affordable housing programs on migration of wealthier residents.

“…Advocates believed that housing mobility programs can improve the poor's economic mobility by breaking the isolation and depending on the presence of middle-class role models to influence the social choices of low-income individuals (Chaskin & Joseph, 2013;DeFilippis & Fraser, 2010: 137).…”