Based on historical case studies in Chicago, this book focuses on both the theoretical and practical explanations for why neighborhoods change today. It shows that a diverse collection of people including urban policy experts, elected officials, investors, resident leaders, institutions, community-based organizations, and many others compete to control how neighborhood change is characterized. The book argues that neighborhoods have become sites of consumption and spaces to be consumed. Discourse is used to add and subtract value from them. The romanticized image of “the neighborhood” exaggera ... More

Based on historical case studies in Chicago, this book focuses on both the theoretical and practical explanations for why neighborhoods change today. It shows that a diverse collection of people including urban policy experts, elected officials, investors, resident leaders, institutions, community-based organizations, and many others compete to control how neighborhood change is characterized. The book argues that neighborhoods have become sites of consumption and spaces to be consumed. Discourse is used to add and subtract value from them. The romanticized image of “the neighborhood” exaggerates or obscures race and class struggles while celebrating diversity and income mixing. Scholars and policy makers must reexamine what sustains this image and the power effects produced in order to explain and govern urban space more equitably. The book explores major changes in the structure and dynamics of urban space, with particular emphasis on neighborhoods over the past few decades. The book examines prevailing approaches to the study of neighborhoods and neighborhood change, paying attention to how they help describe and explain as well as produce urban dynamics. It examines the effects of classifying neighborhoods based on ecological indicators, both in the form of representations of space and in the policies/interventions derived from their use. Further, the book explores how today's neighborhoods operate as flexible spaces of accumulation that range between the extremes of gentrification and ghettoization.