Development's Paradox: is Washington DC a Third World city?

Abstract

This article examines an urban centre in the heart of the First World through a critical development lens. It contends that traits of the Third World entail certain characteristics which remain consequential as axes of analysis for a variety of economic, political and geographic settings, including new applications in contexts that are typically excluded from the focus of international development practice and scholarship. The article discusses characteristics of 'third worldality' in relation to Washington DC. It posits that, despite being emblematic as a power centre, the city exhibits many of the characteristics of a Third World city. Highlighting disenfranchisement, socioeconomic inequality, and environmental health issues, the article reveals a paradox: underdevelopment in the heart of the 'developed' world. The article calls for greater recognition of the paradoxes of development theory and practice so as to confront persistent problems of orientalism and lack of selfreflexivity in the field of international development.Every autumn I teach a course for undergraduates called 'Third World Cities'. My students generally take the course just before or immediately after studying abroad in far-away places. They come into the course seeking to make sense of the troubling problems of under-development which they witnessed from an urban development perspective. The course offers students a chance to investigate problems of urban development around the world, but we use Washington DC as an empirical case to explore the topic. This proves jarring on a number of levels: the investigations do not conform to expectations of what constitute problems of the Third World and, moreover, it forces critical inquiry into places which are traditionally avoided by international development practitioners. This article aims to provoke development students, scholars and practitioners alike to critically examine the geographies of development, following calls for greater self-reflexivity from within the development field. In what ways might the field of development reconsider its focus, so that it might avoid falling into the pitfalls of 'othering' and misperceived problems of (and solutions to) poverty Eve Bratman is in the

From Urban Resilience to Abolitionist Climate Justice in Washington, DC

“…From this side of the Anacostia, America's capital can more properly be seen as sedimented with settler colonialism, racial slavery, militarism, and racial segregation. It can also be understood to continue as an internal colony with respect to the rest of the nation, given its lack of democratic representation in Congress, and the political and economic disenfranchisement of its African American residents (Bratman 2011; Williams 2001).…”

“…Not surprisingly, these areas underscore the city's stark racial geography. Ward 7 experiences nearly double the rate of poverty compared to the District average (US Census Bureau 2017), making it a piece of the "Third World" within the "First" (Bratman 2011). This is an area associated with "trash", "dump", and "stench", as Joe Lapp, an anti-Vietnam War activist and a long-time resident of Kenilworth, penned in his poem 'The war from this side of the Anacostia River', referencing the ward's legacy as host to an open-burning incineration facility.…”

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“…Such recognitions are used to argue for the idea of ‘global development’ that untethers development processes from particular places and simultaneously urges analysis at a ‘smaller spatial scale’ (Horner and Hulme, 2019: 369). Similarly, Comaroff and Comaroff (2012: 127) point out that ‘there is much South in the North, much North in the South, and more of both to come in the future’; the first point refers to the precarity experienced in the global South that is increasingly being experienced in the global North, though clearly not something to celebrate (see also Bratman, 2011). However, as Arsel and Dasgupta (2015) rightly observe, the mere existence of Third World‐like conditions in a given locality does not help us to explain such situations analytically.…”

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“…On the other, attempts are being made to rethink but not jettison completely concepts like the Third World. Echoing Rieff () who wrote that Los Angeles is the capital of the Third World, Bratman, for instance, coins the term of ‘third worldality’ to represent and unify ‘conditions…[which] persist in places that are outside the scope of traditional development geographies’ (: 1542). These conditions that define ‘third worldality’ as a contemporary spatial category include ‘political exclusion, social segregation and inequality, and poor environmental health’, and can be found, Bratman argues, not just in the Third World but also in Washington DC, which is the focus of her article.…”