Waiting for Bobos: Active Displacement and Fitful Gentrification in a Midwestern City

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 16. Gentrification

Abstract

The degree to which lower-income residents and small businesses in upgrading neighborhoods are displaced by the process of gentrification has provoked considerable debate in urban sociological research. Displacement is generally framed as a possible, and potentially remediable, outcome of gentrification. This stands in contrast to the predominant framing of displacement as a necessary precursor to redevelopment that characterized much of the earlier urban sociological literature on urban renewal. In this article, I challenge the conceptualization of displacement as mere outcome in the gentrification process. Drawing on archival research and media accounts, this paper presents an historical case study of redevelopment over 50 years in Wichita, Kansas. I demonstrate that a “displacement-first” strategy has characterized all attempts – government-led “urban renewal” in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as more recent private sector-driven gentrification efforts – to transform the city’s “skid row” into the hub of a gentrified downtown core. I discuss the implications of these findings for sociological theories of gentrification.

Author

• Chase Michael Billingham, Wichita State University