Agenda: 10/9

• Announcements• Quiz• Research Topics?• Wrapping Up Zukin

Discussion• “What’s Race Got to Do

With It?”• Reminders for Tuesday

Potential Research Topics:City/Neighborhood-Focused

• San Francisco• New Orleans• Portland• Washington, D.C. • Los Angeles• Brooklyn• Harlem• Eugene• St. Louis• [Many More . . .]

Potential Research Topics:

• Gentrification Debates– Does displacement

happen?– Is gentrification good

for neighborhoods?– How do media images

affect gentrification?

• Gentrification and Race/Ethnicity– Gentrification in

Chinatown– Gentrification and

Black History– Gentrification and Latin

American Immigration– Gentrification and

Indigenous People

Potential Research Topics:Issue Focused

• Gentrification and Food

• Gentrification and Bikes

• Gentrification and Sexuality

• Rural Gentrification• Gentrification and

Policing

Potential Research Topics:Focus on Cultural Artifact

• Novels– Hunting in Harlem – Mat

Johnson– Fortress of Solitude or Chronic

City – Jonathan Lethem– The Beautiful Things that

Heaven Bears – Dinaw Mengestu

– Bodega Dreams – Ernesto Quinonez

• Films– Do the Right Thing or Red Hook

Summer – Spike Lee

Key Terms• Exchange Value:

– The monetary value of a place– How much a building/plot of land would – How much rent the owner could charge

• Use Value: – “The many facets of worth of the neighborhood to the original residents”

(Kirkland 19)– How the neighborhood fits into a person’s “daily round”– Emotional/Historical connections to neighborhood

• Social Capital:– How we benefit from relationships we build over time – “benefits derived from the preferential treatment and cooperation between

individuals and groups” (Wikipedia)

Wrapping Up Zukin Discussion• Which of the three theories we’ve discussed

so far (about what causes gentrification) seems most persuasive to you?

• How has race been discussed in the two essays we’ve read so far? What role do you think race plays in gentrification?

The Problem as Kirkland sees it . . .

• In popular conceptualization, gentrification is often a fundamentally racial transformation: the pre-gentrified neighborhood is inhabited mostly by African Americans or other people of color, and the in-movers are typically white. Many academic depictions of gentrification, on the other hand, either omit reference to the racial dimensions of the phenomenon, or acknowledge race and ethnicity but forego examination. (18)

Elizabeth Kirkland: Minute Around

• Say anything you like about Kirkland’s essay. Take between 30 seconds and a minute.

Race and Gentrification• First, what is race?

– Races refer to “social groups, not genetically distinct branches of humankind“ (Haney Lopez, Social Construction of Race)

– Kwame Appiah: “Races are like witches: however unreal witches are, belief in witches, like belief in races, has had—and in many places continues to have—profound consequences for human social life”

• What is racism?– Belief that different races have essential differences (and that some are

better than others) – Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s theory of “colorblind racism”: the belief that

discrimination is no longer a determining factor in the life chances of people of color (1)

• Why Is race is excluded from gentrification scholarship?

1. Lack of Historical Context• “The contemporary

system of racial residential segregation, building upon the historic residential color line established over the first several decades of the twentieth century, consists of a multitude of components of discrimination and exclusion” (28)

2. Exclusive Focus on Issues of “Class” • “In the course of scholarly investigation of this

phenomenon, the definition has been refined in numerous ways, all of which incorporate an essential nod to gentrification's inherent class transformation.”

3. Colorblindness/Avoidance• “As for the absence of race

as a variable in gentrification analyses, this is consistent with the general tendency for the avoidance of racial discourse, the denial of the magnitude of racism, and the evasion of the topic of racial impacts, disparities, and divisions” (29)

4. Problems with Methodology• “Qualitative investigation,

on top of whatever quantitative assessment can be done, is crucial for an understanding of the consequences of gentrification to original residents, which in turn means it is crucial to our analysis of the racial impacts and implications of gentrification.” (22)

Final Questions

• Why is race so closely tied to gentrification in the popular imagination?

• What are some other connections between race and gentrification?

• On Tuesday, we’ll talk about strategies for responding to gentrification. How do race and ethnicity factor into potential solutions to gentrification?

For Tuesday• Read “The Right to Stay Put”– Don’t read “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited” (unless you

really want to)• Before class, post a response to this question: – In class, we’ve talked about some of the negative

consequences of gentrification (like displacement), as well as some of its potential benefits to neighborhoods. What do you think we can or should do about gentrification? Give reasons to justify your strategy for responding to gentrification.

– Your response should be about a page long (between 250 and 500 words). The post will be counted as a quiz.

– See Grading Rubric on the Blog