Review: Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Call for a Deep Democracy by Thompson III, J. Phillip.

The criminal justice system in the United States both reflects racial inequality in the broader society and contributes to it. The overrepresentation of African Americans among those in prison is a result of both the conditions in poor black neighborhoods and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The American system of criminal justice today is excessively punitive, when compared to previous periods and to other countries, and its harsh treatment disproportionately harms African Americans. In addition, those released from prison face a number of obstacles to housing, employment, and other prerequisites of decent life, and the concentration of prisoners and ex-prisoners in black communities does much to perpetuate racial inequality.

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From Urban Renewal to the BeltLine: Atlanta’s Use of Public Health Narratives to Reshape the City

Journal of Planning History ◽

10.1177/1538513220984150 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 153851322098415

Author(s):

L. Katie OConnell ◽

Nisha Botchwey

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Lived Experience ◽

Urban Renewal ◽

Black Communities ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Planning Profession ◽

White Middle Class ◽

Mass Displacement ◽

City Agencies ◽

The City

Since the early days of the planning profession, city agencies relied on a public health crisis narrative as a rationale for mass displacement efforts that targeted black communities. Over time, as cities gentrified with white, middle-class residents, the narrative shifted toward the city as a place of health. This article compares Atlanta’s redevelopment narratives from urban renewal to its current citywide greenway project, the BeltLine, to understand how city officials utilized public health language to rationalize displacement and how the narratives ran counter to residents’ lived experience.

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Greenness and the Potential Resilience to Sexual Violence: “Your Neighborhood Is Being Neglected Because People Don’t Care. People With Power Don’t Care”

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/08862605211028009 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088626052110280

Author(s):

Gibran C. Mancus ◽

Andrea N. Cimino ◽

Md Zabir Hasan ◽

Jacquelyn C. Campbell ◽

Phyllis Sharps ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quantitative Analysis ◽

Violent Crime ◽

Green Space ◽

A Priori ◽

Community Resilience ◽

The United States ◽

Green Spaces ◽

Traffic Density ◽

Black Communities ◽

Black Neighborhoods

There is increasing evidence that green space in communities reduces the risk of aggression and violence, and increases wellbeing. Positive associations between green space and resilience have been found among children, older adults and university students in the United States, China and Bulgaria. Little is known about these associations among predominately Black communities with structural disadvantage. This study explored the potential community resilience in predominately Black neighborhoods with elevated violent crime and different amounts of green space. This embedded mixed-methods study started with quantitative analysis of women who self-identified as “Black and/or African American.” We found inequality in environments, including the amount of green space, traffic density, vacant property, and violent crime. This led to 10 indepth interviews representing communities with elevated crime and different amounts of green space. Emergent coding of the first 3 interviews, a subset of the 98 in the quantitative analysis, led to a priori coding of barriers and facilitators to potential green space supported community resilience applied to the final 7 interview data. Barriers were a combination of the physical and social environment, including traffic patterns, vacant property, and crime. Facilitators included subjective qualities of green space. Green spaces drew people in through community building and promoting feelings of calmness. The transformation of vacant lots into green spaces by community members affords space for people to come together and build community. Green spaces, a modifiable factor, may serve to increase community resilience and decrease the risk of violence.

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“We’re a Part of This City, Too”: An Examination of the Politics of Representation of D.C. Native via #DCNativesDay

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/2056305120984446 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 205630512098444

Author(s):

Loren Saxton Coleman

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Cultural Analysis ◽

Black Communities ◽

Politics Of Representation ◽

Marginalized Communities ◽

Movie Theaters ◽

Online Spaces ◽

Twitter Users ◽

The City

This cultural analysis explores how D.C. natives represented themselves on Twitter via #DCNativesDay. The analysis found that Twitter users engaged in hashtag activism to share stories about their connection to place(s) (e.g., movie theaters, neighborhoods, public schools) in the city that were integral in the construction of their individual and collective Black D.C. native identities. Constructed identities were not monolithic, and users engaged in some self-reflexivity. The users’ emphasis on place seemed to signify reclamation of changing city landscapes and legitimacy in the city. Ultimately, this research raises questions about how alternative representations that map marginalized communities onto city spaces in online spaces can create possibilities of transformation for Black communities during gentrification in offline spaces.

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Manufacturing Distress: Race, Redevelopment, and the EB-5 Program in Central Brooklyn

Critical Sociology ◽

10.1177/0896920520986614 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 089692052098661

Author(s):

Amanda T. Boston

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Urban Space ◽

Foreign Investment ◽

The United States ◽

Urban Neighborhoods ◽

Uneven Development ◽

Black Communities ◽

Racial Inequalities ◽

Development Policies ◽

Job Growth

Gentrification’s racial consequences are garnering increased attention as the process advances into majority–minority urban neighborhoods. This study examines the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program’s implementation in Brooklyn, New York to ground these trends in policies through which gentrification is promoted, histories of racism and uneven development against which they are unfolding, and their disparate impacts on Black communities. While the program purports to use foreign investment to promote job growth in high unemployment areas, its financing of multimillion and billion-dollar development projects facilitates the displacement of longtime residents of the very places the initiative was designed to improve. Central Brooklyn and its outlying areas, home to one of the largest contiguous Black communities in the United States, are host to numerous EB-5 projects that have failed to produce sustainable job growth for existing residents and heightened the growing crisis of unaffordability. My analysis shows how EB-5 projects have enabled investors to use distressed areas disproportionately inhabited by poor and working-class Black communities to qualify for funding, while redistributing benefits upward to wealthy developers and affluent residents and consumers. Ultimately, the EB-5 program and other neoliberal, colorblind urban development policies exacerbate existing racial inequalities in the organization and operation of urban space.

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