There’s Money to be Made in Community: Real Estate Developers as Brokers of Social Connections

• In Event: 099 - Regular Session. Bringing Sociology's 'Community Question' Back to the 21st Century City

Abstract

A great deal of research has focused on the social negotiations that occur in gentrifying communities. Supply side actors, however, are generally left out of these accounts and are thought to contribute primarily to the built environment. This paper attempts to fill that gap using 47 in-depth interviews with real estate developers and homeowners in a gentrifying neighborhood in Baltimore, MD, which after decades of decline has shown unprecedented levels of private investment. We find that the process of reconstructing a community rich in social capital is a complex one that simultaneously integrates and excludes legacy residents based on their social standing and habitus. Adding to the literature, we find that real estate developers are not just rehabilitating housing but are actively shaping the social systems of this new community. They carefully manage the process of residential sorting and provide residents with the institutional architecture necessary to build social capital. Although these investments can help the community reduce disorder, the developers’ social projects are ultimately self-serving; they work to construct a community that aligns with potential middle class homebuyers’ vision of safety and cohesion, thus increasing future home sales. We conclude with a discussion of how the withdrawal of public and community institutions from high-poverty neighborhoods – a key part of the neoliberal turn – has left a social capital vacuum that can and will be filled by the private sector.

Authors

• Philip M.E. Garboden, Johns Hopkins University

• Christine J. Jang, Johns Hopkins University