Doctoral Dissertation Research: Contested Renewal: The Rebuilding of the South Bronx

在过去的三十年里，南布朗克斯已经从城市危机和反乌托邦的国家象征转变为城市重建新形式的典范。但是，这种复兴的性质，以及它的受益者是谁，都备受争议。资本正在回到南布朗克斯，一些人声称，社区驱动的“无迁移的更新”正在创造一个新的、经济多样化的南布朗克斯。但批评人士指出，该地区持续的贫困和种族化，一些居民担心，重建将导致士绅化和流离失所。这种复杂性对现有的关于中产阶级化和城市更新的文献提出了具有挑战性的问题。依赖于中产阶级化和抵制中产阶级化的二分法的解释无法解释再投资是如何从同时合作和冲突的努力中产生的，以对抗撤资和流离失所。同样，在很大程度上没有解决的问题是，如何改变污名化地区的空间化种族和阶级差异，以便进行再投资。本研究考察了南布朗克斯的三个实地地点，以解决以下问题：1)再投资和更新是如何从20世纪70年代和80年代的崩溃中出现的？2)开发商、社区组织和地方政府之间的紧张关系和合作如何影响再投资？3)在南布朗克斯，再投资的过程如何改变种族和阶级的生活、思想和管理方式？4)在南布朗克斯的再投资过程中出现了哪些新的贫民区化和/或中产阶级化的空间秩序？深入访谈、参与者观察、档案研究和建筑的“传记”将提供复杂的、有争议的再投资过程的数据，这些过程塑造了南布朗克斯和种族、阶级和间隔身份的产生。研究人员希望证明：1)再投资的过程不断受到争议，这产生了一种城市更新的形式，这种形式弥补了某些形式的不平等，同时加强了其他形式的不平等；2)强调阶级和经济多样性被用来重新处理空间化的种族、民族和阶级差异。本研究分析了20世纪70年代城市危机后采用的城市更新政策和实践的影响，以及这种更新与士绅化和流离失所之间的关系。通过展示社区团体、房地产投资者和地方政府之间的合作和冲突如何在南布朗克斯创造了一种特殊形式的城市更新，本研究将有助于对再开发和中产阶级化进行细致入微的批判。在南布朗克斯探索这些问题尤其重要，因为南布朗克斯正日益成为城市复兴和废墟中生活的全国典范，尽管纽约市与许多其他城市不同，它的财富和增长推动了一个看似不可阻挡的中产阶级化进程。通过观察南布朗克斯的更新如何在某些方面挑战不平等，同时在其他方面延续不平等，这个项目有可能为减少城市不平等和贫困的努力提供信息，并产生更公正的更新努力。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将为有前途的学生提供支持，使他们能够建立强大的独立研究生涯。

In the last thirty years, the South Bronx has transformed from a national symbol of urban crisis and dystopia to a model for new forms of urban redevelopment. But the nature of this renewal, and who it benefits, is deeply contested. Capital is returning to the South Bronx, and some claim that community-driven "renewal without displacement" is producing a new, economically diverse South Bronx. But critics point to the area's continuing poverty and racialization, and some residents fear that renewal will lead to gentrification and displacement. This complexity poses challenging questions to the existing literature on gentrification and urban renewal. Accounts that rely on a dichotomy of gentrification and resistance to it cannot explain how reinvestment has emerged from simultaneously collaborative and conflictive efforts to fight disinvestment and displacement. Also largely unaddressed are the practices involved in transforming the spatialized racial and class difference of stigmatized areas to enable reinvestment. This research examines three field sites in the South Bronx to address the following questions: 1) How did reinvestment and renewal emerge out of the collapse of the 1970s and 1980s? 2) How has reinvestment been shaped by tensions and collaborations among developers, community organizations, and the local state? 3) How are processes of reinvestment shifting how race and class are lived, thought, and managed in the South Bronx? 4) What new spatial orders of ghettoization and/or gentrification have emerged out of processes of reinvestment in the South Bronx? In-depth interviews, participant observation, archival research, and "biographies" of buildings will provide data on the complex, contested processes of reinvestment shaping both the South Bronx and the production of raced, classed, and spaced identities. The investigators expect to demonstrate 1) that processes of reinvestment are continuously contested and this has produced a form of urban renewal that remedies some forms of inequality while reinforcing others, and 2) that an emphasis on class and economic diversity is used to rework spatialized racial, ethnic, and class difference. The research analyzes the implications of urban renewal policies and practices, adopted in the aftermath of the urban crisis of the 1970s, and how this renewal is related to gentrification and displacement. This study will contribute to a simultaneously nuanced and critical view of redevelopment and gentrification by showing how collaboration and conflict among community groups, real estate investors, and local government have created a particular form of urban renewal in the South Bronx. Exploring these issues in the South Bronx is especially important because the South Bronx is increasingly emerging as a national model for urban recovery and life-among-the-ruins, despite the fact that New York City differs from many other cities in that its wealth and growth fuels a seemingly inexorable process of gentrification. By looking at how renewal in the South Bronx challenges inequality in some ways at the same time that it perpetuates it in others, this project has the potential to inform efforts to reduce urban inequality and poverty and produce more just renewal efforts. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will also provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.