They Not Just Fixing This Up For Us: Fears of Displacement in a Mixed-Income Community

• In Event: 563 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Residential Mobility, Immobility, and Displacement

Abstract

In this work, I employ ethnographic research to explore the anxieties experienced by low-income and working-class African American women living in a mixed-income public housing development on Chicago’s South Side. I contend that these anxieties stem from a history of broken promises by the Chicago Housing Authority and current gentrification that they see in their immediate and surrounding larger communities. The anxiety that residents experienced and voiced can be understood in a larger context of broken promises by the CHA, the city and other institutional actors, their own past experiences and observations with these institutions and their representatives, their watching residents of other complexes displaced, not being invited to the table when there are discussions on the future of their development and larger community, and being ignored when they do attempt to show up and be heard by officials, planners, and developers, as well as a context of racism and other forms of discrimination. I analyze how residents of this development are steeped in an insecurity fueled by unknown future that is held in the hands of others long perceived as hostile to their interests. There was agreement that residents could band together and preserve their community. A sentimental attachment to home may offer insight into why low-income residents in particular felt a claim to the property and were more likely to believe that they would not be forced to leave during any changes driven by the city or CHA.

Author

• Tennille Nicole Allen, Lewis University