Place making as a form of place taking: Residential displacement and grassroots resistance to institutional encroachment in Buffalo, New York
Journal of Place Management and Development
ISSN: 1753-8335
Article publication date: 6 August 2019
Issue publication date: 27 September 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine perceptions of institutional encroachment and community responses to it. Specifically, it focuses on residents’ perceived effects of hospital and university expansion and the role of place making on gentrification in core city neighborhoods. This study offers insights into the processes driving neighborhood displacement and the prospects for grassroots efforts to curb it.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through focus groups with residents and other stakeholders in working class, minority neighborhoods which were identified as being in the early stages of gentrification. Nine focus groups were held across three neighborhoods experiencing institutional encroachment. The analysis was guided by standpoint theory, which focuses on amplifying the voices of groups traditionally disenfranchized from urban planning and policy processes.
Findings
The findings suggest that residents perceived institutional encroachment as relatively unabated and unresponsive to grassroots concerns. This led to heightened concerns about residential displacement and concomitant changes in the neighborhoods’ built and social environments. Experiences with encroachment also increased residents’ calls for greater grassroots control of development.
Originality/value
This analysis illuminates how gentrification and displacement results from both physical redevelopment activities of anchor institutions and their decisions related to place making. The conclusions highlight the importance of empowering disenfranchized groups in the place-making process to minimize negative externalities at the neighborhood level.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the two external reviewers and the editors of the Journal of Place Management and Development for their feedback on an earlier version of this article. Work that provided the basis for this article was supported by a research grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation. The data for this analysis were drawn from a larger national effort titled Turning the Corner: Monitoring Neighborhood Change for Action, a project guided by the Urban Institute’s National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the Funders’ Network Federal Reserve-Philanthropy Initiative. Launched in January 2016, the project piloted a research model that monitors neighborhood change, drives informed government action and supports displacement prevention and inclusive revitalization. Local teams in Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Phoenix and the Twin Cities conducted independent research to understand neighborhood change and displacement risk in their communities. The Urban Institute, funded by the Kresge Foundation, is synthesizing lessons across the five cities. For more information, see www.neighborhoodindicators.org/turningthecorner.
Citation
Silverman, R.M., Taylor Jr, H.L., Yin, L., Miller, C. and Buggs, P. (2019), "Place making as a form of place taking: Residential displacement and grassroots resistance to institutional encroachment in Buffalo, New York", Journal of Place Management and Development, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 566-580. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMD-11-2018-0082
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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