The Precarious Project and the Wasted Opportunity: The Social Dynamics of Conflict over Development in Newburgh

• In Event: 1565 - Implementing Racial Inequality in Urban Policy

Abstract

While urban scholars have extensively examined conflicts over growth policies in large cities, we know comparatively little about how residents in small ones react to controversial development projects. Based on an analysis of residents’ attitudes toward a single proposed project containing affordable housing in Newburgh, New York, an impoverished small city experiencing an influx of middle-class homeowners through gentrification and return migration, this paper reveals the social factors that explain conflict in a community in transition. Its supporters, who are mostly either low-income residents or their advocates, frame it as a “precarious project”: potentially beneficial for them, but also potentially inadequate. Conditions of poverty influence both their support for and skepticism toward the project. Meanwhile, its opponents, who are mostly either newcomers or return migrants, frame it as a “wasted opportunity”: the wrong kind of project for the city at the proposed location. A desire to see the city revitalize further influences their opposition. This paper contributes to the urban literature by revealing new forms of community conflict and expanding our understanding of the debates around growth initiatives in small cities.

Author

• Richard E. Ocejo, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY