Successful Protect-Community Discourse: Spatiality and Politics in Chicago's Pilsen Neighborhood

Abstract

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.

Living through gentrification: subjective experiences of local, non-gentrifying residents in Leith, Edinburgh

“…In some ways, the responses seen in this paper run counter to much of the existing empirical literature on local residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods, which highlights more active resistance to the process, as well as more open resentment (see in particular : Robinson 1995;Smith 1996;Spain 1993;Wilson et al 2004). There are several possible explanations as to why these results have differed from other studies.…”

“…The local residents felt that they had created the neighbourhood character that was Living through gentrification 303 attracting affluent residents, yet they now felt their community was becoming a playground for the rich. In addition to these individual responses, many studies highlight local community organisations that respond to gentrification, with their aim to stem or divert the process away from their neighbourhood (Robinson 1995;Smith 2002;Wilson et al 2004). …”

“…Some of the previous empirical work that does exist focuses on the conflicts between local residents and new gentrifiers (Spain 1993;Smith 2002;Butler 2003), or on local resistance and organised opposition to gentrification (Robinson 1995;Wilson et al 2004). Other studies have suggested that local residents could benefit from gentrification by an improving neighbourhood quality, better access to services or resources, or more local amenities (Freeman and Braconi 2004;Freeman 2006;Vigdor 2002).…”

Beyond Cooptation or Resistance: Urban Spatial Politics, Community Organizations, and GIS-Based Spatial Narratives

“…4. Wilson, Wouters, and Grammenos (2004) provide supporting evidence that such threatened and enacted disruption by community actors is a significant disincentive to developers. 5.…”

Analysis of social costs of gentrification in Over-the-Rhine : a qualitative approach.

“…Hackworth (2002) on to a prominent retail strip that catered to the needs of the long-term residents, thereby maintaining some of the cultural fabric of the neighborhood (Wilson, Wouters, and Grammenos, 2004). The 1980s witnessed a more militant form of opposition followed by a marginalization within the political realm during the 1990s.…”