Background
Gentrification arises from the intersection of history, policy, and the dynamics of capitalism. The process of gentrification and urban revitalization has been intimately linked to sustainability discourse, with “smart growth” rhetoric mobilized to justify investments in the city to attract a higher class cohort (Smith 2002; Goodling et al. 2015; Lees 2000). Investments in transit and active transportation (walking and biking) are a key aspect of smart growth and urban revitalization in general. As Duncan (2011) writes, “the attraction of modern rail investment is the potential for such investment to influence property values and generate development impacts” (2125). In the absence of sizable public subsidies and/or restrictive municipal policies (like rent control), the “success” of these investments will regenerate landscapes of privilege. The fact that the expansion of infrastructure to support relatively cheap modes of mobility is employed as a strategy to raise the class character of an area constitutes a major contradiction in transportation provision. Several scholars have empirically assessed the relationship between transit or bike infrastructure and gentrification, finding, in most cases, statistically significant associations (Flanagan et al. 2015; Grube-Cavers and Patterson 2015; Zuk et al. 2015; Revington 2015).
Drawing on Slater’s (2011) call for critics of gentrification to “document displacement (in any or all of its forms) ‘from below'” (580), I intend to examine the politics around transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure within neighborhoods in Portland, OR. I will do so through reference to the activities of Anti-Displacement PDX, a coalition of neighborhood groups in Portland dedicated to combating gentrification. This recently formed group has managed to get their recommended set of anti-displacement policies placed in Portland’s Comprehensive Plan. As a broad coalition, Anti-Displacement PDX contains a set of potential heterogeneous orientations towards gentrification, zoning policies, and transportation. It represents neighborhood groups of a range of socioeconomic status, including relatively affluent ones in the Inner Eastside and ones representing marginal populations either at the current forefront of gentrification or deep in the East Portland periphery. While they are united by their opposition to displacement, their notion of the proper strategies for addressing this vary dramatically. Still-disadvantaged neighborhood associations advocate up zoning in the more central and expensive neighborhoods, while those in said expensive neighborhoods view such development as character-changing displacement. Interrogating how this potentially contradictory relation is expressed in the political orientation towards transit/active transportation infrastructure will illuminate the effects of gentrification “on the ground.”
Research Question
How do the various actors in Anti-Displacement PDX perceive transit and active transportation investments in relation to gentrification? Does this perception affect their support or opposition of infrastructural investments?
Methodology
- Examine existing case studies on political conflicts over planned transit or bike infrastructure investments in the context of gentrification.
- Analyze the content of the recently added anti-displacement policies in Portland’s Comprehensive Plan.
- Map data on education, income, and race from the 2010 Census and 2014 American Community Survey to assess recent changes in socioeconomic status by neighborhood in Portland and categorize neighborhoods according to their position within Portland’s landscape of gentrification.
- Conduct participant-observation research on two selected neighborhood-based groups in Anti-displacement PDX, one representing a relatively affluent area experiencing ongoing gentrification and one representing a still underprivileged area at the forefront of displacement.
- Conduct a survey of those two neighborhoods, asking residents about their opinions about development, the expansion of transit, bicycling infrastructure, and sidewalks, and neighborhood change.
References
- Duncan, Michael. 2011. “The Synergistic Influence of Light Rail Stations and Zoning on Home Prices.” Environment and Planning A 43 (9): 2125–42.
- Flanagan, Elizabeth, Ugo Lachapelle, and Ahmed El-Geneidy. 2015. “Riding tandem: Does cycling infrastructure investment mirror gentrification and privilege in Portland, OR and Chicago, IL?” Paper Accepted for Presentation at the Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting Washington, D.C., January 10-14, 2016.
- Goodling, Erin, Jamaal Green, and Nathan Mcclintock. 2015. “Uneven Development of the Sustainable City: Shifting Capital in Portland, Oregon.” Urban Geography 36 (4): 504–27.
- Grube-Cavers, Annelise, and Zachary Patterson. 2015. “Urban Rapid Rail Transit and Gentrification in Canadian Urban Centres: A Survival Analysis Approach.” Urban Studies 52 (1): 178–94.
- Lees, Loretta. 2000. “A Reappraisal of Gentrification: Towards a ‘geography of Gentrification.’” Progress in Human Geography 24 (3): 389–408.
- Revington, Nick. 2015. “Gentrification, Transit, and Land Use: Moving Beyond Neoclassical Theory.” Geography Compass 9 (3): 152–63.
- Slater, Tom. 2011. “Gentrification of the City.” In Wiley Blackwell Companions to Geography : New Blackwell Companion to the City, by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. Somerset: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Smith, Neil. 2002. “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” Antipode 34 (3): 427–50.
- Zuk, Miriam, Ariel Bierbaum, Karen Chapple, Karolina Gorska, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Paul Ong, and Trevor Thomas. 2015. “Gentrification, Displacement and the Role of Public Investment: A Literature Review.” Community Development Investment Center Working Paper.
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