Many urbanist scholars have investigated neighborhoods to better understand the transformation of cities in terms of various interactions between the humans that inhabit spaces to an interconnected web of networks at a global level viewing cities as the unit of analysis (Lipman, 2011; Sassen, 2001; Small, 2004; Zukin, 1989). Drawing from their work, this blog entry explores how adopting a “sociological imagination” can bring greater understanding to the longstanding tensions between community members of the neighborhood of Humboldt Park, Chicago (Mills, 1959). In doing so, I argue that a sociological perspective can be a useful tool to challenge sweeping justifications for community change in predominantly low income and minority neighborhoods.
Often when we hear notions of “urban restructuring” and “urban renewal” as comprehensive community change strategies, what else comes to mind? New shops, buildings and public spaces. Regulated public parking, newly painted bike lanes, and newly installed and brighter light fixtures. For me, these images of gentrification and the reproduction of structural and social inequality come to mind. This kind of “imagination” reminds me that rhetoric is important. Policymakers and educational philanthropists can call local initiatives what they will, but I can also see how interests are served in a larger context of favorable structural conditions. Neoliberal policies nested in city-wide urban renewal plans serve not just an economic argument for the sake of profitability. It’s about establishing cultural dominance over a space and downplaying this power dynamic into a façade of normalcy. These policies play into the narrative that displacement is simply reflective of the status quo or not happening at all.
Moreover, the simultaneous pervasiveness and invisibility of cultural and power structures make the influence of these categories that much more important to study and think about. In combination with critical race theory, sociological constructs can also be useful to highlight how race interacts with culture and power in neighborhood contexts. As a perfect example, scholars have expanded the notion of viewing minority individuals and families as having multiple forms of capital, namely community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005). This asset-based approach represents historical traditions and simultaneously challenges deficit perspectives of low-income and minority students.
Based on PolicyMap images and Census data, we see the housing and residential distribution of residents changing on the lines of race and household income across Humboldt Park. Places that were predominantly black and Latino residents are more and more being occupied by wealthy white residents. These shifts serve as an indicator of community change and a market for livable spaces. But what exactly about Humboldt Park makes it a desirable neighborhood to live in or move to? Scholars have investigated the complexity of how city-wide shifts in population and ethnic make-up have marginalized opportunity for local, small business owners (Zukin, 1989). Thus, residents without the economic capital to resist neighborhood change such as skyrocketing price of artist loft spaces have been forced to acquiesce and move out. One persistent issue that reverberates through my thinking of neighborhood change and the transformation of cities is: who decides what changes will take place – and at what cost?
Ignoring the impact of culture and power in policymaking leads to the justification and the subversion of the interests of community stakeholders. For example, highly contested policies such as school closures bring about lively debate among community members and education stakeholders throughout Humboldt Park. Neighborhoods organize and voice their opposition to school closures, but the school district decides to close schools anyway, time after time. However, without consensus over the problem at hand, other important issues get left behind, such as the historical significance of the symbolic destruction of key social institutions, or the local efforts and longtime collaborations among community residents to improve their neighborhood schools (Scott, 1997).
Additionally, there is individuality in social contexts that are overlooked. Many neoliberal policies are put together based on assumptions of residents as homogenous-minded entities. More ethnographic work investigated use of public space of sidewalks and showed how groups of unhoused individuals created their own economic systems to make a living without engaging in crime (Duneier, Hasan, & Carter, 2000). This notion also reflects the transformative perspective of social reproduction theory. Although marginalized by society, unhoused individuals can adopt the narrative and internalize the notion that they are themselves active agents in their own experience.
This insider-outsider approach to city living and street life serves as a reminder to be thoughtful about the uneven impact a policy might have across a neighborhood. In 2014, Humboldt park began the implementation of “Community as a Campus” which would provide support to schools and community based organizations. But which schools would be supported? And what actions are being taken that diverse sets of needs are being met in those schools? What types of culturally-relevant programming will community-based organizations serve as useful spaces to help build social capital among its members? To what extent can community-based organizations organize, educate, and respond to other recent shifts in public resources such as school closures?
The role of community-based organizations in helping to facilitate change in its ability to create sacred spaces for dialogue among residents (Hyra & Prince, 2015). But why aren’t schools being used as safe spaces to facilitate these conversations? Historically, the role of community based organizations has helped to fill the limited capacities of social institutions that are public neighborhood schools. These relationships among community members have been studied in terms of social organization theory. Community-based organizations, and the people that comprise various roles throughout these organizations, not only provide access to basic social services to neighborhoods, they also serve as spaces to tap into human potential of hope through dialogue (Small, 2004).
In this blog, I have provided multiple vantage points for investigating social, political, and economic dynamics of my chosen neighborhood of Humboldt Park in Chicago. However, these tools can be used to better understand many other neighborhoods undergoing similar change. Using a sociological imagination can be a useful way to investigate how cultural and power dynamics interact with individual agency, liberty, and rights. As a student-scholar it is critical to have a working understanding of what sociological tools exist and in what ways they can challenge one’s thinking and own research. Studying the urbanist, ethnographic, and scholarly work in the field of sociology has been a productive way for me to start.
References
Duneier, M., Hasan, H., & Carter, O. (2000). Sidewalk (1st edition). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hyra, D., & Prince, S. (Eds.). (2015). Capital dilemma: Growth and inequality in Washington, D.C. New York: Routledge.
Lipman, P. (2011). Contesting the city: neoliberal urbanism and the cultural politics of education reform in Chicago. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(2), 217–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.562667
Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?SOTH;S10020796
Sassen, S. (2001). The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. (2nd ed. edition). Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
Scott, D. M. (1997). Contempt and pity: Social policy and the image of the damaged black psyche, 1880-1996. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Small, M. L. (2004). Villa Victoria: The transformation of social capital in a Boston barrio (1 edition). Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006
Zukin, S. (1989). Loft living: Culture and capital in urban change (Reprint edition). New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.
Hoods, Schools, and People 