UC Berkeley

The revitalization of the South Bronx over the last thirty years has been fundamentally shaped by contradiction and struggles over the nature of revitalization itself. In this dissertation, I develop a framework for and a history of the politics of revitalization in the South Bronx. Two conflicting visions of revitalization emerged out of the crisis of the 1970s. Radical and left-liberal visions of revitalization were based on a deep distrust of for-profit landlords and the dynamics of real estate markets inspired by the dramatic abandonment of the South Bronx by landlords and banks in the 1970s. This type of revitalization has involved the creation of alternative ownership structures and housing practices to give South Bronx residents, organizations and communities and some measure of autonomy from external forces causing poverty, exploitation and housing abandonment. A more politically moderate vision of revitalization influenced by the city's neoliberal turn after the fiscal crisis of 1974-5 advocates the repair of real estate markets with subsidies and appropriate regulation so that the power of the private sector can be harnessed to rebuild devastated neighborhoods, and so those neighborhoods can benefit the city through tax revenues and housing for workers and the homeless. This largely state-sponsored form of revitalization has involved the creation of flows of capital through government subsidies, fostering the growth of a responsible for-profit landlord class, and facilitating complex public-private partnerships to produce affordable housing.

Both of these strands of revitalization were included in the institutions the New York City government developed in the late 1970s to revitalize devastated neighborhoods. Radical forms of revitalization have been included because there were few alternatives in neighborhoods abandoned by landlords and banks. Policymakers often preferred working with for-profit actors when and where possible, and the moderate vision of revitalization has gained ground over the last thirty years.

A Bronx-specific revitalization was proposed by Bronx officials, planners and boosters in the late 1980s to reverse the tendency for the Bronx to be used as a regional dumping ground for unwanted people and uses. To achieve this, Bronx planners proposed transformative, large-scale redevelopment, including the redevelopment of the residential neighborhood of Melrose Commons. Melrose residents would have been displaced by the original plan, but they protested, organized very effectively, and demanded to be included in the prosperity finally planned for their neighborhood. Because the Bronx revitalization coalition was internally contradictory, the resident activists and planning professionals were able to develop a collaborative planning process. They proposed a hybrid revitalization where existing Melrose residents were the basis for future growth. This struggle brought to the fore the question of whether existing Bronx residents would be the basis of revitalization, or if their removal would be.

Struggles around revitalization are structured by the funding mechanisms that provide the capital needed. Because those funding mechanisms are constructed, they are a potential site of struggle. In the 1990s, a flow of capital into revitalization was created by forging a relationship between the financial industry and affordable housing development through the Community Reinvestment Act and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. The systematization of this flow of capital has contributed to the alienation of revitalization from South Bronx residents and organizations, and it has become a site of contestation.

Like gentrification, the revitalization of the South Bronx has been a part of the return of capital, people and industry to the city. My dissertation begins to answer the question of how revitalization and gentrification relate to each other by examining the politics of revitalization, specifically the extent to which South Bronx residents, especially poor and working class residents, are able to shape revitalization efforts and fight their own displacement.