CONSTRUCTING AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN SPACE IN ATLANTA,GEORGIA*

Recognizing the connections between the construction of urban space and racial identity, this article explores an urban redevelopment scheme launched in 2004 by Big Bethel ame Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Known as the “Renaissance Walk,” Big Bethel's project is a $45 million dollar redevelopment plan to turn an adjacent city block into a mixed‐use development. By looking at the racialization of place from the perspective of those who live, work, and organize along Auburn Avenue, one of the most historically significant African American business corridors in the United States, I contend that Big Bethel's redevelopment project is emblematic of contemporary black counterpublic spaces and links the redevelopment project undertaken by Big Bethel with African American identity positions.     

Escapism. Yi-Fu Tuan; Transnationalism from Below. Michael Peter Smith and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo,editors; Race,Place, and the Law 1836-1948. David Delaney; Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity,Gender, and the Sociology of Disasters. Walter Gillis Peacock,Betty Hearn Morrow,and Hugh Gladwin,editors

In the second half of the 20th century, considerable resources and efforts have been devoted to revitalizing American central cities. In these redevelopment processes, however, the common byproduct of physical upgrading is social upgrading, the displacement of many of the original residents, who are often low-income and minority, from their traditional neighborhoods. This article explores the various processes of physical and social upgrading—including locally driven urban renewal, private sector "blockbusting," and gentrification—occurring in late 20th century Houston, Texas. This research also examines the neighborhood characteristics and demographic patterns that influence the occurrence of specific upgrading processes. One location of particular interest in the study is Houston's historic African American community of Freedmen's Town, which has experienced decades of conflict over land and space. Most recently, Freedmen's Town has been at the focus of Houston's urban revival, where physical upgrading has been accompanied by the displacement of the community's traditional population and the destruction of this historic neighborhood.     

CONCEPTUALIZING SMALL TOWNS AS URBAN PLACES: THE PROCESS OF DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT IN GALENA,ILLINOIS

This research investigates the process through which small-town central business districts (CBDs) are transformed into visitor-oriented attractions. A case study of Galena, Illinois, reveals that the dominant characteristics of the downtown redevelopment process are applicable to metropolis and small town alike. Similar economic “tools,” enabling legislation, and other mechanisms are available to essentially all municipalities regardless of size. Further, growth coalitions and interest groups are formed to promote the particular use and exchange values of CBDs throughout the urban hierarchy. What differs between small town and large metropolis, however, is the way in which contemporary CBDs are perceived by the community. While the metropolitan downtown is now largely viewed as a “command center” within a global economy, the small-town CBD is still varyingly perceived as the community's economic and social center. Such contrasting conceptions of downtown hold implications for the ability to successfully transform Main Street into a tourist attraction without generating substantial inter-community conflict. [Key words: small town, historic district, main street, downtown redevelopment, tourism.]     

Teaching and Researching the American South

Abstract

The American South is a region of endless paradoxes. While today the South's economic expansion is attracting in-migrants by the tens of thousands, many of its residents continue to live in grinding poverty. Though its history includes periods of substantial racial injustice and violence, today more African Americans are moving to the South than any other region of the United States. The region where “cotton was king” now includes many dynamic, prosperous, and rapidly expanding metropolitan areas (e.g., Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas). But in the shadows of these cities reside rural populations who have experienced only limited improvement in the size of their paychecks, the quality of the education provided to their children, and the substance of their interaction with the rest of the nation and world.     

The Politics of Eminent Domain: From False Choices to Community Benefits

Large-scale urban redevelopment projects catalyze moments of peril and opportunity. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision affirming economic development as a public use under the takings clause of the Constitution, these perils and opportunities have again become a site of major contestation. An unusual alliance of libertarian property-rights ideologues and civil-rights organizations has joined forces to challenge the use of eminent domain in urban economic development. In this article, I analyze the history of these alliances and their implicit reinforcement of deeply reactionary constructions of property. I conclude with an evaluation of two emergent models—community benefit agreements and community equity shares—that provide promising community tools for alternatives to homeowner rule and neoliberal urban renewal.     

The (Post)colonial Landscape of Cathedral Square: Urban Redevelopment and Representation in the “Cathedral City”1

Recent urban redevelopments in central Christchurch draw on the city's colonial origins to develop a market for tourist consumption. This article introduces literature from both the ‘landscape school’ of cultural geography and (post)colonialism, combined with the grounded theory research method, to examine representation in the changing landscape of Cathedral Square. It finds that redevelopment plans, which articulate the traditional colonial representation of the city, are dominated by market and consumption activities such that participation in the central city has become contingent on the ability to consume.     

亚运会城市更新对社区居民影响的跟踪研究——基于广州市三个社区的实证调查

亚运会的成功举办对广州的经济、社会、文化产生了深远影响,同时也触发了广州新一轮的城市更新,涉及颇多社区与居民。现有研究仅关注亚运会前期的影响,缺乏对其后续影响的跟踪研究。本文对亚运会期间更新改造的三个案例进行跟踪研究,对比更新前后社区居民在物质、社会和心理层面上所受影响。研究表明:由于城市更新缺乏对社区居民的全面考虑,更新改造导致部分居民的社会经济地位降低,社会网络破坏,邻里关系拆散,社区满意度下降。这场快速、效果显著的城市更新,在物质层面上一定程度地改善了居民的居住环境和质量,但在社会层面和心理层面却对社区居民造成了较大负面影响。作为与政府和开发商不均衡博弈中的弱势方,社区居民成为亚运轰轰烈烈的城市更新改造中的社会成本承担者。城市更新应更多关注社会利益与公众参与,提倡多元化的城市更新目标。     

Ethnic concentration and entrepreneurship: the case of African Americans in three US metropolitan areas

Using 2006–2010 American Community Survey data and a multilevel research design, this study examines how the spatial concentration of African Americans within local labor markets is associated with the probability of self-employment and job earnings from business ownership. We find a negative relationship between the spatial concentration of African Americans and their business ownership in Miami, but not in Atlanta. In Detroit, a higher percentage of US-born African Americans in the local labor market is actually associated with a higher probability of business ownership. The relationship between the percentage of African Americans and job earnings also differs across the three study areas. These results suggest that the relationship between racial/ethnic concentration and African American entrepreneurship is highly contingent on the economic conditions and demographic composition of local labor markets.     

ATLANTA'S ROLE AS AN INFORMATION CENTER: INTERMETROPOLITAN SPATIAL LINKS

Atlanta has emerged in the 1980s as a major second-order command and control center within the US economy and demonstrates considerable dominance within the Southeast. Federal Express Corporation data permit examination of Atlanta's national and regional command and control functions. The concepts of information genesis, hierarchy of control, and spatial independence of information receipt clarify Atlanta's place within the specialized information network. Atlanta occupies an advantageous position within the intermetropolitan information network from which much of the Southeast's economic activity is organized.     

旅游地居民职业转换中社会资本的影响与重塑——平遥案例

社会资本具有识别社会结构的功能,这种识别既有助于解释微观现象的差别,又有助于实现微观到宏观的过渡。转型期中国社会资本的研究主要关注经济快速发展中,传统社会资本的冲击解体和现代社会资本的建构过程,研究视点很少放在以旅游为导向的社区空间,对其旅游从业者的群体研究也缺乏关注。本文对平遥单位制解体后下岗职工进入旅游业及塑造相关社会资本网络的过程中,社会资本所发生的变化进行实证研究。重点分析了每个阶段社会资本的状况、运作策略及作用。研究发现社会资本对旅游从业者的形成与发展具有重要作用,社会资本的差异会导致社会差距的进一步拉大。世界文化遗产地平遥古城作为一个典型的案例,为了解社会资本在旅游目的地下岗职工再就业中的作用提供了重要参考。     

A regional approach to cultural preservation: A central american example

The transition to democratic governments in Central America over the past decade, and the subsequent emergence of institutional mechanisms for regional cooperation have greatly increased the frequency and productivity of efforts for preservation of cultural patrimony. Both the archaeological and colonial data bases overlap modern political boundaries and regional collaboration in training, pubic education, curation and research is essential. Natural forces continually impact, and human economic forces (especially international tourism) increasingly impact cultural resources. Regional cooperation in the utilization of human resources is necessary to confront the management and salvage demands of major economic development projects, and rescue efforts following natural disasters. The development of policies and programs will be effective only if matched by the growth of cultural preservation professionals in each of the Central American republics. Finally, other art consuming nations in addition to the United States must begin to respect the cultural heritage of the Central American countries and develop policies to deter abuses by diplomatic staff and employees of NGO’s (nongovernment organizations)     

(RE-)Creating the Community: South Asian Transnationalism on Chicago's Devon Avenue

As one of the largest South Asian business districts in North America, Chicago's Devon Avenue is reproduced through the transnational connections of South Asian migrants. These ties encompass the diaspora as well as the more commonly theorized links between "home" and "host" societies. Based on fieldwork consisting of interviews and participant observation on Devon Avenue, this study considers how Devon Avenue functions as a transnational site, and therefore suggests the ways in which it reconceptualizes national and urban spaces. An examination of the transnational linkages that produced Devon Avenue, alongside its promotion as an "international marketplace" and the daily interactions among merchants, laborers, and residents, also considers the ways in which expressions of difference are marked by multiplicity and contingency.     

Chinese Trade in Latin America Compared to the European Union and the United States: The Case of Technology-Intensive Exports

Using trade data submitted by United Nations member states from 1995 to 2013, this article contributes to understanding China's trade with Latin America. By employing and building on the TECH score methodology, this project highlights China's growing economic connectivity with nine large and important Latin American economies. The analysis conducted here shows that compared with exports originating from other, more traditional foreign investors (i.e., the United States and the European Union member states), Chinese exports to these Latin American countries—although growing in sophistication over time—are relatively less technologically sophisticated during the study period. This work clarifies that in spite of these Latin American economies being highly complementary (for their natural resources and consumer markets) to China's manufacturing-intensive economy and despite the rapid growth in bilateral and biregional trade, China's displacement of traditional foreign actors, in terms of its technology-intensive exports to the region, is not supported by the data to date.     

Kenya's regional ambitions or China's Belt‐and‐Road? News media representations of the Mombasa‐Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway

Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), and its construction and financing by China, exemplifies the prominence accorded to mega‐infrastructural projects in contemporary economic development, as well as the dependence this has engendered on external loans. Alongside, multiple geographies intertwine in the SGR which is both a component of China's global ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI), as well as an East African regional link between coastal Kenya and neighbouring landlocked countries. In most popular and academic analyses, the role of China is emphasized over the SGR's positioning within East Africa. Does this then lead to an undermining of the meanings that are attached to the SGR within Kenya? This article seeks to add Kenyan perspectives to the debate over China's infrastructural loans by examining the range of news media discourses that have emerged around the SGR. Utilizing the theoretical lens of South‐South cooperation and African agency, this study analyzes how material infrastructure becomes meaningful within the context of a political superstructure. For Kenya, this political superstructure is shaped not only by Kenya‐China relations, but also by infrastructural competitions within East Africa, as well as within Kenya itself.     

Spatial Mismatch and Employment in a Decade of Restructuring∗

Spatial barriers to employment limit women's job opportunities, but their effects differ among racial/ethnic minority groups. This study evaluates the degree of spatial mismatch for minority women and men by comparing the commuting times of African American, Latino, and white workers in the New York metropolitan region. Using Public Use Microdata for 1980 and 1990, we perform a partial decomposition analysis to assess the role of spatial mismatch in lengthening commuting times for minority workers. The results show that African American men and women living in the center of the region have poorer spatial access to employment than their white counterparts. In the suburbs, African American women and Latinas suffer no spatial mismatch; rather, their longer commuting times reflect greater reliance on mass transit. Comparison with 1980 findings reveals little change in spatial mismatch over time despite significant economic and social restructuring in the 1980s. Spatial barriers still limit employment prospects for the majority of minority women living at the core of the region.     

A Street Fit for a King: Naming Places and Commemoration in the American South

The naming of streets after Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) is an importantarena for African Americans as they rewrite the landscape of southern identity and commemoration. While less ornate and ostentatious than museums and monuments, MLK streets are powerful and highly contested cultural geographies because of their potential to connect disparate communities and incorporate a vision of the past into the spatial practices of everyday life. They reveal the importance of location, particularly intra‐urban location, to public memorialization. Naming streets for King is a significant part of the nonmetropolitan South as well as larger cities and dependent upon the relative size of a city's African‐American population. When estimating the intra‐urban character of MLK streets within several southern states, findings suggest that they are located in census areas that are generally poorer and with more African Americans than citywide averages. Analysis reveals a geographic unevenness in the frequency of businesses having an address identified with King. When compared with the stereotypical American thoroughfare of “Main” Street, the address composition of MLK streets appears to be more residential in nature, although there is significant state by state variation.     

MAIN STREET TRANSFORMED: COMMUNITY SENSE OF PLACE FOR NONMETROPOLITAN TOURISM BUSINESS DISTRICTS

This case study applies the segment approach to investigate community sense of place for a small-town tourism business district (TBD). A stratified random sample of residents from Galena, Illinois (population 3,647), is analyzed to identify personal values and behaviors most closely associated with sense of place for downtown. Despite Galena's extreme orientation to tourism, natives and middle-class newcomers generally were found to be equally, and highly, involved with their TBD. Consequently, respondents claimed sentiments of "at-homeness" (or sense of place) for downtown regardless of their duration of residence. However, natives and newcomers collectively valued downtown for different reasons. One implication is that sense of place for downtown can translate into local agency-based projects and interest groups that promote or oppose the transformation of place. In turn, community cohesiveness can be threatened through the process of transforming a historic downtown into a TBD. [Key words: tourism business district (TBD), sense of place, downtown redevelopment, main street, small town.]     

基于场域理论的城中村村民市民化研究——以广州猎德复建房社区为例

以广州市猎德复建房社区为案例,运用布迪厄的场域理论,剖析改造后村民市民化进程问题;并基于问卷调查数据和深度访谈资料,采用描述性统计和质性分析方法,从经济融合、社会文化适应、结构融合和身份认同4个维度探讨村民的市民化水平。结果表明,由于村社共同体这一特定场域的延续,村民经济资本转化不畅,村民的社会、文化和象征性资本相对匮乏以及村民既有惯习的固化和自我改变动力的缺失,尽管村民在改造后经济状况、行为方式、思想观念等均有一定程度的提升,但村民仍处于“半市民化”状态,在经济融合层面就业难题尚未解决,在社会文化适应层面老一辈村民的思维和行为方式固化,在结构融合层面社会网络拓展受阻,在身份认同层面对市民角色的认识不足。在城中村改造过程中,政府应当兼顾社会效益与经济效益,大力推进村社共同体转型,并将城中村村民市民化视作长期的社会系统工程,切实提升村民的人力与社会资本,促进村民融入城市社会。     

Refashioning place and new-build gentrification: The material and symbolic redevelopment of Three Kings,Auckland

Auckland's post-suburban landscape is associated with new mixed-use apartment developments. When located in former industrial sites, these emergent residential and retail spaces constitute new-build gentrification and carry the potential to rupture existing people/place dynamics. This article examines material and socio-cultural processes associated with the redevelopment of an industrial quarry in Three Kings, Auckland. It is argued that the redevelopment constitutes a physical refashioning of a former industrial space located within a traditional working-class community. The development involves a remaking of the material and socio-cultural fabric of the neighbourhood and aligns with new-build gentrification practices.