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

在过去的30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新形式的城市重建的典范。但这种更新的性质，以及它让谁受益，都存在着深刻的争议。首都正在回流到南布朗克斯，一些人声称，社区驱动的“无流离失所的重建”正在产生一个新的、经济上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主义，一些居民担心，更新将导致士绅化和流离失所。这种复杂性对现有的关于士绅化和城市更新的文献提出了挑战性的问题。依赖于士绅化和抵制士绅化的二分法的说法，无法解释再投资是如何从同时进行的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得到解决的还有将污名化地区的种族和阶级差异空间化以进行再投资所涉及的做法。这项研究考察了南布朗克斯的三个场地，以解决以下问题：1)再投资和重建是如何从20世纪70年代和80年代的崩溃中出现的？2)再投资是如何受到开发商、社区组织和当地政府之间的紧张和合作的影响的？3)再投资的过程如何改变了种族和阶级在南布朗克斯的生活、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隔离和/或中产阶级化的空间秩序？深入的访谈、参与者观察、档案研究和建筑的“传记”将提供关于塑造南布朗克斯的复杂、有争议的再投资过程的数据，以及种族、分类和间隔身份的产生。调查人员希望证明：1)再投资过程不断受到竞争，这产生了一种形式的城市更新，在弥补某些形式的不平等的同时，加强了另一些形式的不平等；2)对阶级和经济多样性的强调被用来重新处理空间上的种族、民族和阶级差异。这项研究分析了20世纪70年代城市危机后采取的城市重建政策和做法的影响，以及这种重建与士绅化和流离失所的关系。这项研究将通过展示社区团体、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的城市更新形式，从而有助于对重建和中产阶级化同时进行微妙和批判性的看法。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生活在废墟中的全国典范，尽管纽约市与其他许多城市不同，它的财富和增长推动了似乎不可阻挡的士绅化进程。通过研究南布朗克斯的重建如何在某些方面挑战不平等，同时又使不平等在其他方面长期存在，该项目有可能为减少城市不平等和贫困的努力提供参考，并产生更公正的重建努力。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个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.