Gentrification, Displacement and New Urbanism: The Next Racial

Project*
by Olivia Hetzler, Veronica E. Medina, and David Overfelt University of
Missouri-Columbia

Volume 4, Number 2
Fall 2006
http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/gent.htm
The "new social movements" of the 1950s and 1960s made calls for racial
equality in the public sphere and these movements gained a number of
concessions from the federal government that expanded the rights of
minorities in the United States (Omi and Winant 1994). However, just as soon
as these movements gained legal rights for minorities there was an immediate
backlash from conservative America. This conservative backlash, beginning in
the early 1970s, rearticulated the meanings of racism and turned whites into
the victims of racism. In this new era of racism, colorblindness, an ideology
defined by its opposition to "preferential treatment" and its lack of racial
consideration (Omi and Winant 1994), became the method for removing race
from future policy discussions. By recoding formerly racist terminology into
less offensive and seemingly race-neutral language, those on the right revived
old racist ideologies in new forms. Racial formation during this period is
implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, racist because it is organized around
creat[ing] and reproduc[ing] structures of domination based on essentialist
categories of race (Omi and Winant 1994, p. 71)." This racial project started
out as a project to develop broader rights for minorities in the 1950s and 1960s
and ended up as a conservative colorblind backlash that started in the 1970s
and continues today.
The general failure of liberal programs that had been developed to promote
greater racial equality created this conservative rearticulation that led directly
to an attack on the state. This is significant because, as Omi and Winant
(1994) argue, "The state from its very inception has been concerned with the
politics of race. For most of U.S. history, the state's main objective in its racial
policy was repression and exclusion (p. 81)." Through this attack, those on the
right promoted lower levels of state intervention in all aspects of life. The

continuous rearticulation of racial equality, coupled with a continuous push for

lower levels of state intervention, aligns nearly perfectly with Neil Smith's
waves of gentrification. None of these processes has a clear cut beginning and
end, but instead the waves serve to orient the reader in time and demonstrate
the evolution of the modern racist project applied to urban development.
According to Smith (1996), wave one was sporadic and developed in the
1950s through the 1970s. This wave consisted of central city revitalization
driven by state investment and grounded in a utilitarian argument that an
improved center city was best for everyone in the city, majority group and
racial minorities alike. In this wave the state, with so much capital invested in
central city improvement, had a large stake in a positive outcomes in both
economic and racial equality.
Interestingly, this first wave of gentrification happens nearly simultaneously
with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. As people were starting to
make new demands for greater equality the state intervened and attempted to
forge urban equality through gentrification. Overall, this method of
gentrification failed to give the desired payoffs of economic or racial equality
and simply led to increased inequalities within, and a whitening of, central
cities. It was during this stage that "gentrification," as a word, gained its
negative connotations as a highly classist and racist process that hurts poor
minorities and helps rich white people; furthermore, the failure of this first
wave of gentrification coupled with the failure of left wing racial equality
programs gave the conservative backlash more ammunition with which to
argue for less state intervention and colorblind (read: racist) policies. For
example, Omi and Winant (1994) note that the beginning of the 1970s ushered
in systematic "setbacks in the domestic economy and U.S. reversals on the
international level [which] were 'explained' by attacking the liberal
interventionist state. Many of these criticisms had racial subtexts (p.114)."
Progressing from wave one, wave two began in the 1970s and continued
through the 1990s when gentrification became increasingly entwined with
wider processes of colorblind "free market" urban, economic, and policy
restructuring. Omi and Winant (1994) concur that a market ideology with
regard to the state's functions was emerging during this decade. They write,
"The state was the obvious target of criticism for the economy's poor
performance... Indeed, the state was blamed for obstructing the economy's
natural tendencies toward recovery (p. 115)." The second wave of
gentrification essentially functioned as a transition stage to, and an ideological
background for, wave three and it is best understood as the period in which
conservative free market colorblind arguments gained their foothold in both the
public discourse and the policy development and implementation processes.

Wave three emerged in the 1990s and continues to the present day. In this
wave, gentrification becomes a part of "New Urbanism" (Smith 2002), a
development strategy that uses colorblind neoliberal free market ideologies to
justify its policies. This shift separates cities and individuals from the state by
eliminating state subsidies for housing and urban development. New Urbanism
has two immediate consequences; first, it forces U.S. cities into an era of global
city-to-city competition for capital--the creation of the "World-City"
(Villanueva et al. 2000) -- and, second, it forces individuals to fend for
themselves in a "free market." In this New Urban context, the city must sell
itself to the highest bidder and development is no longer focused around
industry. The city no longer directly engages in physical gentrification, but
instead proposes colorblind neoliberal development policies and zoning
ordinances that encourage free market gentrification, making cities an open
global market for developers and development. This creates what is known as
"property-led" economic development (Wolf-Powers 2005). In this current
general policy trend, all responsibilities for inequalities are shifted to the
market and individuals, allowing policy makers to deemphasize issues of race
while they continue with the implicitly racist (and still explicitly classist) New
Urbanism/new gentrification project.
This third wave of gentrification claims to reduce sprawl by bringing people
back into the center city. However, the reality of the situation is that thirdwave gentrification produces cities that are colonized by white people through
"mixed-use zoning," a development trend in which the colonizers target
neighborhoods that have been previously occupied by economically
disadvantaged people of color. Mixed-use zoning is a slight improvement from
the past waves of gentrification policy that simply removed all lower class
people from a neighborhood. Mixed-use zoning supposedly enforces building
restrictions that require the construction of multi-family dwellings alongside the
more traditional, and more expensive, single-family units that gentrification has
tended to produce in the past. With mixed-use zoning, affordable housing is
subsidized by the state for approximately ten to twenty years (Columbia Daily
Tribune, October 12, 2005) after which the properties become available "on the
market." Since the period for which subsidies are guaranteed varies, this
creates an environment in which the negative and racist consequences of
gentrification are spread out over time.
While the policy strategy has improved, the targets of gentrification, lowerclass neighborhoods populated with minorities, remain the same today as they
have in the past. The targeting of these races and places is due to the fact that
these areas have urban qualities (e.g. historical architecture) that are desirable
to middle- and upper-class consumers and developers; however, these areas
lack high aesthetic quality and therefore are in need of "revitalization and
healing (Smith 1996)." It is, in a sense, a type of social engineering, a racist
project that carries out global urban apartheid under the name of colorblind

neoliberal development. This implicit character allows for the persistence of

property-led economic development in the name of the free-market and equal
opportunity. Considered critically, this wave represents the attempted
geographical extermination of particular target groups, including immigrants
and marginalized minority urban dwellers that are considered disposable and
not tied to the community.
A United Nations report (2005) has recently stated that neoliberal
development policy creates a situation of modern urban apartheid, especially
in the face of increasing Gross Domestic Product. This New Urbanism focuses
its energies on "the best and highest use (Smith 2002)" and is coupled with the
trend of mixed-use zoning and property-led economic development (WolfPowers 2005). Although there is supposed to be enforcement of rules that
require low income multi-family dwellings to be in the gentrifying areas, "the
best and highest use" nonetheless becomes loft apartments, small businesses,
and service jobs in place of even the lightest industry that formerly employed
the low income and minority populations. Some argue that the departure of
industry and the subsequent entry of service sector employment from urban
centers is a natural trend (Freeman and Braconi 2004).
On the other hand Wolf-Powers (2005) argues, at least in New York City, that
this trend is encouraged through neoliberal (and we suggest, colorblind)
development policies that create a situation called "property-led" economic
development in which property owners are made the most powerful actors.
There is no reason to expect this trend to be any different elsewhere as long as
neoliberal colorblindness rules the policy arena. In this process developers are
encouraged, through colorblind neoliberal zoning and tax ordinances, to create
a neighborhood full of "the best and highest uses." When this trend begins,
landlords will break zoning laws with the (correct) assumption that they will get
special exception permits from the planning and zoning committee.
New Urbanist policies have generated more positive economic outcomes for
cities than past gentrification policies have ever been able to accomplish by
focusing on this "best and highest use." However, the consequences of this
policy on the resident (and frequently minority) populations have barely
received attention, despite the cities' receipt of reports from residents of
gentrifying communities who wish to outline their own visions for the
development of the neighborhoods in which they reside. Employing this
method implies that the consequences for locals are factored into the
development process.
Unfortunately, as detailed by Davila (2003) and Wolf-Powers (2005), this is
better characterized as a trend of paying lip service to the local community.
While taking development advising reports from the community is a step
forward in the urban development process, it is far from a final and all-

encompassing democratic development solution. The biggest issue thus far is

that the city has simply used these reports in order to justify applying
colorblind neoliberal development policies to a community and offering
development contracts to particularly wealthy powerful land owners and
businesspeople. In these cases, the city planners seem to be flipping the
development process around. They work backwards from the opinion that
colorblind neoliberal growth policies are the epitome of development strategies
to the information coming from the community report: it is a tautological
argument. It does not matter what the report itself says or what the
community believes is best. The end result is for the city to take control, TELL
everyone what is best, and make prescriptions based on the opinions of the
planners and developers without ever fully justifying the policy or considering
the destructive consequences for people that already live in the soon-to-be
gentrifying neighborhood.
Residents who make these community development reports, reports which
represent their goals and desires for their neighborhood futures, want their
communities to be better but they do not necessarily want their communities
to become "diverse" and they most certainly do not want to lose their jobs or
their homes to the service economy and loft apartments that gentrification
inevitably brings. In the end, the UN report is very accurate in characterizing
colorblind neoliberal gentrification as modern urban apartheid; New Urbanist
policies and mixed-use zoning have merely added a pretty, color-blind facade
to mask the segregationist tendencies of gentrification. While the rhetoric of
creating a multi-class, multi-race, and industry/service mix sounds wonderful,
the end result once again becomes, not surprisingly, property owners doing as
they please and breaking the developmental path that all others must follow.
"Abuse It and Lose It"
or
Gentrification
Mixed-use, public-private residential communities have been proposed as a
solution to the problems of urban decay and have been commonly employed in
the third wave of gentrification in cities such as St. Louis, New York, Atlanta,
Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Boston. The outcome of these developments has yet
to be determined, but established projects appear to be problematic. Two such
developments have taken shape in St. Louis, MO. Mixed-use communities have
been justified as benefiting to the poor, and proponents state that the poor
have been segregated with no role models, and therefore, without motivation
for change. Gentrification in these terms is a type of moral crusade to save the
poor. Residents, however, claim that plans have been falsified and they fear
that the land that has been set aside for public housing will be sold to the
highest bidder. Former tenants of public housing have sued housing authorities
over claims of displacement, and although residents are told replacement

housing will be provided, it is has not been offered on a one-to-one basis

(Columbia Daily Tribune, October 12, 2005). Most areas are subsidized for 15 to
20 years (10 years in New York) and then sold off to developers, possibly
resulting in further displacement of the poor, but at a slower rate.
In Atlanta, Georgia, whites are the driving force behind gentrification. Within
ten years, between 1990 and 2000, the white population of three
predominately black neighborhoods doubled in a reverse trend from what was
seen between the 1960s and 1970s. The population rose from 1% white to
14% white in the Kirkwood area. In 1960 the white population was 97%; by
1970 the area was 97% black (Williams and Adelman 2003). The median sales
price of homes has risen 275% in the past 10 years, resulting in unaffordable
taxes for the residents.
What is happening in Harlem, New York, differs in several ways from
integration of the more familiar black-to-white form as demonstrated by the
Atlanta case. For example, when blacks moved into white neighborhoods, there
were, in most cases, few income or class differences between the two groups.
But when middle- or upper-middle-class people move into lower-income,
minority communities, what takes place is as much class -- as racial -integration. Whereas whites may have feared that the arrival of black
neighbors would provoke white flight into suburbs and depress property values,
Black residents of gentrifying neighborhoods in Harlem fear rising property
values will force them out. If they do not believe they are under the risk of
actual displacement, they may worry about a loss of political control and the
erosion of customs, rituals and institutions -- what Monique Taylor calls "a way
of living in black communities (Scott 2001)."
The neighborhood of West Town, located in Chicago, has also experienced a
shift in composition over the past decade. The area was primarily white before
a period of white flight beginning in the 1960s, when it was transformed from a
primarily white area to a predominately Latino area, incorporating other racial
groups as well. As jobs have recently shifted to white collar and service sector
jobs, whites are now returning to West Town and the area's white population
has increased from 27.4% in 1990 to 39.39% in 2000. Coinciding with this shift
is a decrease in the Latino population from 59.0% in 1990 to 46.85% in 2000.
During this period the average West Town property price has escalated 83%
and the median price has doubled. The escalating property prices affect
property owners who are seeking to remain in the area and results in a forced
dislocation if the property taxes become unaffordable. For example, between
1995 and 1996 property taxes rose 117% in the West Town neighborhood
(Natalie Voorhees Center 2001).
A similar trend has taken place in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ann Arbor has
experienced significant changes in its landscape over the past few decades,

shifting from a predominately manufacturing economy to a knowledge

economy. Dolgon (1999) describes this shift as "a celebration of the new
bourgeoisie" within the city. Development is taking place within the city,
however it is seen as highly selective as to who will receive the benefits of this
new type of place. As new jobs targeted towards the new bourgeoisie have
been established within the city, the city has had an influx of new residents.
The influx appears to coincide with a change in the demographics of the city
through the displacement of the Black working class. For over a century the
North-Central area of Ann Arbor had been comprised of mainly African
Americans. These areas have been targeted by newcomers and developers for
residence particularly for this reason. Residents have been drawn to the area
for its "ethnic past" and "racial mix" commodifying the historical aesthetics of
the area. These factors have drawn new residents in but, at the same time,
these new residents are displacing the ethnic and racial mix which was the
area's initial appeal. The area of North-Central Ann Arbor has experienced an
increase in white population and levels of education among residents, altering
the character of the neighborhood and simultaneously contributing to a growth
in the homeless population (Dolgon 1999).
Neighborhoods that possess an ethnic character have suffered in
redevelopment projects. Ann Arbor, Michigan, as mentioned above, is an
example of gentrifiers' desire for culturally rich areas. Those who are returning
to the central city are also drawn by the cultural character of these areas,
citing the rich heritage of the area and the history that encompasses it.
However, the incoming residents do not desire for the populations from whom
the cultural character of these neighborhoods originates to remain, as the
persons that have constructed this "character" are typically low income,
minority groups. The new residents desire true cultural character, but not an
area with an ethnic past that is plagued by the "problems" associated with
minority groups. Areas with high concentrations of ethnic groups are
experiencing what amounts to ethnic cleansing, in which minorities are being
forced out of their areas and replaced with a new whiter, and less ethnic,
population. The result is an area with a rich cultural past that is now comprised
of a majority of high income whites (Dolgon 1999).
Areas near the central city business districts have become much more
appealing to middle class and upper middle class persons over the past
decade, after a lengthy period of white flight from these areas. As these areas
become more appealing the city begins efforts to attract and maintain the
desirability of both residents and business. These efforts are often
accompanied by urban cleansing in which the city attempts to revamp its
image through the creation of "quality of life" ordinances aimed at controlling
less desirable populations. Wyly and Hammel (2003) determined that
"gentrified enclaves claim a prominent place in elite housing markets where
municipal policy incorporates provisions to cleanse the city of certain people

and behaviors (p. 9)." A trend was established in cities with the largest share
of affluent central city buyers choosing gentrified neighborhoods in which the
cities with the highest percentage of these persons were also cities deemed the
"meanest cities" in terms of "quality of life" ordinance development and
enforcement (Wyly and Hammel 2003).
"Keepin' It Clean"
Homelessness and Aesthetics in
the New Urbanism
The actions related to gentrification have been directly related to
displacement and, at times, results in homelessness. Areas that are frequently
targeted in redevelopment are also areas comprised mainly of minorities and
lower income residents who are often without the financial means to afford
increasing rents and secure new housing if forced out of their homes. The
treatment of low income residents in gentrified areas is analogous to the
treatment of already homeless populations. Redevelopment plans do not
consider the outcomes for low income residents who are residing in these
gentrifying areas: how will they afford new rents, how will they subsist, and if
they cannot, where will they go, and how will they get there? The main
concern of the gentrifiers is with the transformation of space rather than the
lives of people. Although there are regulations requiring replacement of low
income housing on a one-to-one basis, as well as assistance in replacement
housing for displaced residents, the truth about the enforcement on these
polices is unknown. The lack of planning and enforcement of policies results in
displacement for some and homelessness for others. In their interviews,
Newman and Wyly (2005) noted a frequency of displaced low income residents
being forced to enter the shelter system, citing a shortage in housing as the
reason. There is also a problem in numeration of the displaced when
considering the hidden homeless, in which persons move in with others to
avoid pure homelessness or when several families double up to resist
neighborhood displacement.
Lee et al. (2003) determined that high rents boost homelessness,
determining that homelessness is not related to the size of the community but
place-specific characteristics of the housing market. Homelessness is related
to a decline in affordable units which limits the housing options of low income
renters; price inflation (as well as other raced issues such as lending and
discriminatory rental policies) has resulted low income minorities facing
difficulties in home ownership and increased competition for rental units.
Urban renewal and gentrification accelerate this competition by converting
rental units from low income to mid and upper level income rental units.
The solution to rising homeless populations has not been a proactive one in
which the city has attempted to assist these persons toward subsistence, but

rather one of spatial extermination. The main concern of indifferent policies

toward homelessness is to render the displaced invisible, without regard for
their well-being and survival. Policies targeting the survival behaviors of the
homeless have been enacted nationwide. Behaviors frequently cited are
sleeping, urinating or defecating, and bathing in public spaces (Mitchell 2003).
It is important to note that the homeless have no alternative place to perform
these activities. These policies are related to cities' attempts to create a
sanitized space with the goal of attracting new development and tourists who
are shielded from the realities of homelessness and poverty.
Gentrification projects reflect an equivalent desire towards aesthetics,
creating the look of an economically stable and aesthetically pleasing
community requires ridding the space of poverty stricken areas and persons.
As with homeless policies, redevelopment projects have reflected a similar lack
of planning. The interest is neither in maintaining nor assisting these
populations, but in the extermination of these populations through unjust
redevelopment, displacement, and lack of replacement housing. Residents are
left to their own devices as to how to maintain their current, though increasing
unaffordable, housing or to attempt to locate affordable housing in an era of
increasing rents. The goals of redevelopment have in mind the removal of
poverty stricken areas and the residents that inhabit them from both the city
and from sight.
Aesthetic concerns are related to globalization. The streets are being
cleansed of those left behind by globalization and other economic changes
(Mitchell 1997). The homeless and urban poor are seen as threats to
capitalism if they remain visible because they are constant reminders of
capitalism's failures, thereby producing a need to remove evidence of poverty
from sight (Amster 2003). The Disneyfication of public space creates a clean
and sterile community in which the poor and homeless are unwanted.
The rise of tourism promotion of the "World City" is important in the decision
for cities to begin redevelopment projects. Downtown areas are being
revitalized in order to attract new business, high income residents, and tourism
to boost the economy. In relation, attempts are being made to expel the
unattractive elements and relieve the features of urban decay (Aguirre and
Brooks 2001). Elements of the city that are not considered positive to
economic growth are excluded from the benefits of development or are simply
evicted, creating a disadvantage for low income minority groups and opening
opportunities for the incoming middle and upper classes. ''Our thinking is that
a healthy middle class is important to the city,'' said Geoffrey Lewis, assistant
director of policy at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which has overseen
the building of hundreds of units reserved for middle income earners. ''We want
to keep these people in Boston; they are the glue in the neighborhoods and the
glue in the economy as well (Murphy 2005)." While this sentiment is specific to

development in Boston, we argue that it is generalizable to all gentrifying

cities.
This New Urbanist policy has created a "revanchist city" in which the rhetoric
surrounding development focuses on healing the geographical area that has
fallen into disrepute and disrepair due to the lack of attention from and the
criminal tendencies of its racialized and lower class inhabitants (Smith 1996).
Throughout the history of gentrification, the local media, in conjunction with
planning and development advocates and officials, create a "geography of
exclusion (Sibley 1995)" and a cancerous space through the use of a rhetoric
that demonizes the residents and how they have used their spatial area (often
a neighborhood or public spaces within a neighborhood). Through this dual
process, the people within a neighborhood become characterized as
undeserving lazy minorities who have already been given too much public
assistance (Omi and Winant 1994) and the space they inhabit becomes
characterized as misused and abused (Smith 1996).
In order for this "abused" space to be able to offer a positive contribution to
the city, the space must be "saved" by middle class altruists (read: gentrifiers)
who will "heal" the space by improving its appearance and increasing rents. In
New York City, for instance, contemporary mixed-use development planning
committees have opened up the policy development process a little by giving
these "undeserving" people a small voice in the resident reports about their
desires for community development (Wolf-Powers 2005). As we have seen,
even when the planning boards do take these development reports from local
communities, they do not take them seriously and it becomes a simple act of
paying lip service to the community (Wolf-Powers 2005). The city officials will
unfailingly do what they feel is best. Since neoliberal development policies are,
in effect, colorblind, the opinions and concerns of minority residents are
disregarded resulting in policy advantages for wealthy developers and citizens
who, by their "healing" hands and self righteous altruism, whiten gentrifying
neighborhoods.
"Lose It, Then Move It"
or Displacement
In the past gentrification consisted of higher income white residents replacing
lower income African Americans in the city center. This trend is no longer
clearly black and white and now includes a variety of ethnicities as gentrifiers.
The adverse effects of gentrification, such as displacement, still fall heavily on
the shoulders of minorities as in the past.
Consequences of gentrification are the involuntary or voluntary displacement
of renters, homeowners and local businesses, increased real estate values,
increased tax revenue, deconcentration of poverty, changing cultural fabric of

the community, changing leadership and power structure of community, and

an increased value put on the neighborhood by outsiders (The Brookings
Institution 2001). Displacement occurs in varying forms. Residents may be
displaced within the neighborhood by moving from their original residence to
an apartment within the same neighborhood with a lower rent, doubling up
with other families and combining households to maintain their place and
afford rent, or simply paying more than the standard 30 percent of income
reserved for rent (Wyly and Hammel 1999). This type of displacement is
inward as the resident does not leave the neighborhood. Displacement also
occurs outwardly when the residents are pushed out of the neighborhood, they
are no longer able to afford the rents, and cannot find replacement housing
within the neighborhood, thus becoming urban refugees.
Past research on displacement has been inconclusive or presents
displacement as an insignificant concern in relation to gentrification. Freeman
and Braconi (2004) conclude that gentrification has not been the driving force
of displacement, but that displacement is occurring due to normal succession
of low income persons who have higher mobility rates than persons of other
classes. Freeman and Braconi (2004) argue that poor persons residing in
gentrifying areas are 19% less likely to move than poor residents residing in
non-gentrifying areas; additionally, they found that increases in rent are related
to a lower probability of moving. Demographic changes in neighborhoods have
also been attributed to normal succession rather than gentrification. Further,
there is a slower rate of exit from gentrifying areas. Although it is
acknowledged that rising rents may be related to a decision to move, it is
suggested that these moves are within neighborhoods and therefore do not
constitute "true" displacement.
In this line of reasoning neighborhoods can gentrify without direct
displacement as long as in-movers are of a higher economic status than outmovers. Freeman and Braconis research has been widely cited in support of
redevelopment by providing findings that suggest displacement does not, in
fact, occur as a side effect of redevelopment. However, it is important to keep
in mind that Freeman is an assistant professor in the Urban Planning
Department of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
at Columbia University and Braconi is the executive director of New York City's
Citizen Housing and Planning Council. Their association with these particular
departments and organizations and their wide citation in pro-gentrification
literature suggest a biased view of displacement and a vested interest in their
version of urban development; furthermore, their methodology is less than
transparent. Viewing redevelopment and displacement through their lens takes
it out of its social context and does not account for imposing factors such as
economic and policy changes that disproportionately affect low income
minorities. Succession cannot be seen as an individual neighborhood

phenomenon, but a part of a larger process that cannot be separated from

shifts in policy and economics (Aldrich 1975).
There are two distinct forms of displacement. Direct forms of displacement
are property clearance and converting housing to new use; indirect forms occur
when land prices rise and rents are bid-up to a level unaffordable to the
neighborhood's prior residents. Although in the third wave of gentrification
redevelopment is typically left to private developers and reflects low
government involvement, the states have assisted in these policies by
supporting redevelopment through eminent domain laws. Eminent domain, the
governmental power to appropriate private property for public use, has been
used recently to take private homes and businesses and replace them with
more profitable developments, exemplifying "the best and highest use"
principle noted by Smith (1996). A central question in these practices is: what
is considered public use that would entail the condemnation of these areas and
who is defining this? Courts have cited a growing tax base for the community
as the public use needed in order to seize these properties (Mansnerus 2001).
Areas are condemned through the claim of blight and then transferred to
private redevelopers.
There have been growing contestations to these practices of using eminent
domain to seize private property. Law professor Marci A. Hamilton filed a
petition on behalf of tenant owners of an office complex who lost their building
after it was condemned as blighted. After it was condemned, the building and
lot were scheduled for demolition so that a new site for the New York Times
could be built. Hamilton claimed that "the purpose of transferring private
property to another, more powerful and 'connected' private owner" was not the
original intent of eminent domain law (Dunlap 2003). In response, Empire
State Development dismissed the federal claim as preposterous. "No case has
ever held that a pretextual blight finding is sufficient to satisfy the
constitutional public use requirement," New York State legal officials said in
their brief, prepared by Carter, Ledyard & Milburn (Dunlap 2003).
This case exemplifies the lack of power that residents and small business
owners have in resisting the power of redevelopment by mega-developers in
their areas. Although cases have been on the rise, there has been little success
by residents in retaining their private property. Residents are typically given
compensation for their displacement, although typically not an equivalent sum
for the value of the property. Connecticut had only 11 new redevelopment
condemnation cases between 1989 and 1990. Over the next ten years, 146
cases were filed, and between 2003 and 2004, 84 were filed (Salzman 2005).
Although there have been contestations to these actions, residents are limited
in their ability to legally battle the state over the right to their property
primarily because of a lack of political and legal power and the financial

capacity to pursue their frustrations. As stated before, the losers in

gentrification are often minorities and the economically disadvantaged.
Investments needed to attract new residents and businesses to boost the
neighborhood often result in the displacement of residents through forced
relocation. One-to-one replacement is a federal guideline left to state and local
housing authorities who often fail to apply restrictions on private development.
Affordable housing and home ownership programs and relocation assistance
are often used as mitigating tools for potential displacement by private
developers. Urban renewal of the past led to direct displacement but the
private development of the present third wave gentrification results in indirect
displacement of residents by conversion and increase in rents. The displaced
depend on the housing market to find new housing, although some
homeowners voluntarily sell or move from the area. In order to determine
whether "true" displacement is occurring, it must be determined whether
continued occupancy is financially possible. Gentrification, in this light, creates
a vicious cycle: homelessness and poverty are important social issues that
affect the value and function of communities but the destruction and
gentrification of low income and minority communities contributes to
homelessness and poverty while simultaneously improving the aesthetic and
financial qualities of these areas (Koebel 1996).
As neoliberal ideologies come to dominate our political arenas,
colorblindness, too, comes to dominate the way we perceive economic and
social outcomes. It is important to note that colorblindness sets the backdrop
for redevelopment discussions-- no one talks about the r-word, at least not
explicitly. New Urbanism does not escape this critique. It is evident from our
discussion that race must take a central place in the discussion on
displacement that results from neoliberal redevelopment processes. The
displaced are disproportionately low income racial and ethnic urban minorities.
Class is not the sole variable; race matters.
*Footnote
Authors' Note: We have chosen to list our names alphabetically rather than
utilizing the positions of first, second, and third authorship to reflect the
collaborative nature of this paper and the unique contributions each of us make
to its development. We would like to thank Dr. David L. Brunsma and the
students of Sociology 8087, Graduate Seminar on Critical Race Theory, Fall
2005, for their comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank Dr.
George Conklin and our anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions in
improving this paper.
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