Being Disadvantaged in a Gentrifying Neighborhood: states of being and belonging

• In Event: Roundtable: Critiquing the Influence of Race, Perception, Violence, and Fear on Victimization in Marginalized Community Encounters

Abstract

This paper examines how racial capitalism involves the (re)construction of bodies and communities residing in neighborhood space to be recast as being ‘out of place.’ In 2001, the Peabody award-winning documentary Visions of Vine Street represented Over-The-Rhine (OTR), Cincinnati, as a disadvantaged, dangerous neighborhood that needed development. The film associated this neighborhood condition with the people who resided in OTR. Alternatively, community residents and grassroots organizations like the People’s Movement for Equality and Justice pushed back on that narrative by pointing out that local law enforcement officers were involved in numerous incidents of excessive force against black bodies, including the 2001 shooting of unarmed black teenager, Timothy Thomas, resulting in his death. A significant uprising against police violence involving national civil rights organizations and residents and community groups in OTR led to massive protests and military actions taken by the city against citizens. In 2003, the City’s response to ongoing unrest was to create a private development company, the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation, to revitalize OTR by developing market-rate housing and public spaces to attract new people to OTR. Approximately 95% of OTR's population was low-income and black before 2003. Since 3CDC was given complete development authority over the neighborhood, this has decreased to approximately 35%. The political-economic project of OTR’s gentrification for capital accumulation is undeniable. Yet, this neighborhood transformation has been underwritten by culture.

Author

• James Fraser, Virginia State University