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作者

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS,Vol.41,Issue1,P.140-142

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

Arizona State University

摘要

Chicago has long served as an urban laboratory for social scientists to examine and identify patterns in urban growth. Scholarly literature, alongside national news headlines, has alternately described Chicago as the classic American city, an exemplar for urban growth and revitalization, or an example of decline and urban violence. Betancur and Smith’s book contributes to a long tradition of Chicago-based urban literature, placing the city’s neighborhoods under the magnifying glass once again to understand how and why Chicago has undergone the changes it has in the last several decades. Claiming Neighborhood: New Ways of Understanding Urban Change challenges accepted theories of neighborhood change, which serve to shape the ways in which social scientists and casual observers perceive the city’s neighborhoods as well as their policy responses to those places.Betancur and Smith’s central thesis is about place and the forces that transform it. The authors start from a theoretical position, considering the essence of neighborhood and how it has been defined over time. They argue that, in practice, our understanding of neighborhood is less aligned with the nostalgic, Jacobsian lens of the past—street ballets and neighborly social networks—and more associated with a pragmatic interest in land and exchange value. They ask whether this does (or should) alter the way we approach neighborhood change. The answer is woven through the remainder of the book, which aims to(1) examine major changes in the structure and dynamics of urban space and specifically neighborhoods over the past few decades, (2) assess the role and adequacy of prevailing paradigms in explaining change and shaping neighborhoods under today’s regime of flexible accumulation, and (3) offer an alternative framework in which to investigate and interpret contemporary neighborhood change. (p. xvi).Claiming Neighborhood is informally organized into three sections. The first examines the theoretical precedents for neighborhood change and subsequently parses the assumptions embedded in those perspectives (chapters 1 and 2). These chapters serve as the introduction to Betancur and Smith’s point of view. The second section presents several case studies, often comparatively within a chapter, to illustrate a range of theoretical positions and complexities that arise from neighborhood changes (chapters 3 through 7). The cases illustrate the micro and macro tensions that shape neighborhoods, as well as the various perspectives represented within them. The final section begins with an assessment of community development efforts in Chicago over the last several decades (Chapter 8). It concludes with an alternate framework for understanding neighborhoods and change in the contemporary era that emphasizes the kinds of questions scholars and practitioners should be asking about place (Conclusion).The book makes connections between neighborhood change theories and the sociopolitical forces. In the first two chapters of the book, the authors identify a number of assumptions that shape our understanding of neighborhood change; subsequently, they propose that readers reconsider the concepts of neighborhood and change with a different theoretical frame. They argue that neighborhood change theories are constraining and outdated. From mainstream positions, such as Park, Burgess, and McKenzie’s 1925 invasion–succession model or Molotch’s and Schelling’s propositions about racial tipping, to critical approaches, like Harvey’s spatialized flow of capital or Smith’s revanchist gentrification theories, these concepts are rooted in norms about what constitutes neighborhood health and stability or, conversely, decline. These norms signal stability via characteristics of homogeneity, with predominantly White, higher income populations. Perhaps more critically, Betancur and Smith argue that these theories have not caught up to our current reality, wherein society and sociopolitical institutions prioritize commodity value and land above all else. Following this analysis, the authors engage with a different set of theorists, Lefebvre and Foucault among them, to construct an alternate approach to the problemtization (and intervention) of neighborhoods and change.Through its case studies, the book demonstrates the complexity and nuance of neighborhood change. Whereas a substantial proportion of gentrification and neighborhood change research relies on fixed boundaries and quantitative data points to demonstrate change, Betancur and Smith’s case studies underscore the need to assess qualitative data and examine the full range of information, as opposed to just the averages. Their analysis examines the tensions between investment and disinvestment in place, detailing how these forces are not always in opposition but often serve to propel the neighborhood toward a gentrified state in the longer view. Like other recent books on gentrification and neighborhood, Betancur and Smith also look beyond the neighborhood’s local actors to understand the influence of Chicago’s extralocal forces in place. These forces include a political network of mayors (especially the influential Richard M. Daley) and council representatives, as well as the developers and speculators ready to leverage any potential opportunity.Claiming Neighborhoods makes a compelling contribution to the neighborhood change conversation. The research does an excellent job of demonstrating the complexity and diversity of interests in neighborhoods. It argues that neighborhood change is not easily generalizable, nor does stability always equate to homogenous, White, and wealthy neighborhoods. Its case studies illustrate how the theory and action of change exist in the nuances and interactions between divergent (or convergent) forces. Further, it shows that the signals for success in one neighborhood (e.g., Chicago’s gay-friendly Boystown neighborhood) do not necessarily translate to success in another (e.g., Chicago’s Puerto Rican neighborhood, Paseo Boricua; see Chapter 6).That said, the concluding chapter leaves many questions to future research. To its credit and limitation, Claiming Neighborhood ends on an idealistic note for community development, which rings a bit hollow after the authors take such great pains to underscore the nuance and complexity of neighborhood change. The book does a better job engaging with the critical theory surrounding neighborhood change than identifying an operational alternate approach. The shortfalls in existing approaches are made clear in the early chapters of the book, but there is less insight into how neighborhood change research might measure and design interventions differently.