Making a Place for Community

Rethinking Exclusionary Zoning or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love It

“…Specifically, while most Anti-EZers do not seem cognizant of it, the root cause of their urgency to intensify land-use patterns in affluent suburbs stems from the spectacular post-War failure to manage uneven growth processes elsewhere in urban regions, especially in central cities and some inner-ring suburbs (see Hackworth 2007). The result of this failure was either massive disinvestment leading to urban abandonment and decay or, more recently, over-investment leading to urban gentrification and serial displacement (see, for example, Elliott-Cooper, Hubbard, and Lees 2019; Feagin and Parker 1990; Williamson, Imbroscio, and Alperovitz 2002). Both of these phenomena—under-investment and over-investment—spurred (and continue to spur) the often-desperate need for the disadvantaged to flee cities (and now many distressed inner-ring suburbs; see Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom 2014).…”

“…Yet, what is missed by the neoliberal Anti-EZ Project is an adequate understanding of the enormous costs that stem from these wider regional growth processes. Namely, either the established built environment and its infrastructure is simply “thrown away” and must be rebuilt elsewhere (see Jakle and Wilson 1992; Williamson, Imbroscio, and Alperovitz 2002), or enormous human and social deprivations are experienced by gentrification’s displaced populations (see Fullilove 2004; Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2008). It is thus a far more sustainable solution (both socially and economically) to manage uneven neoliberal growth patterns properly in the first place , 12 rather than cleaning up the mess after-the-fact by promoting additional growth in affluent suburbs (via Anti-EZ measures).…”

“…Many of these measures, such as the efforts to build worker co-ops in cities like Cleveland, Ohio and Jackson, Mississippi, fit with the general idea of building a “solidarity economy” in American cities (Scher 2015), or the “new municipalism” emerging from the rise of so-called “Fearless Cities” (Russell 2019; also see McInroy 2018). Community land trusts, such as created by the DSNI, are another example, as well as public banks and community finance institutions, consumer co-ops, and a variety of municipal and community-owned business enterprises (see Alperovitz 2013; Imbroscio 2010; Williamson, Imbroscio, and Alperovitz 2002). Moreover, while broader in scope, the recently developed policy platform put forth by the Movement for Black Lives shares a strong affinity with these efforts, particularly in its call to direct governmental resources to “support the development of cooperative or social economy networks.” 20…”

“… 12. By, for example, pursuing a host of anti-gentrification measures to mitigate problems from over-investment (see, for example, Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2008) or facilitating public/community-controlled urban redevelopment in areas suffering chronic disinvestment (see, for example, Williamson, Imbroscio, and Alperovitz 2002). I return to these policy alternatives in the concluding discussion. …”

Analyzing Urban Politics: A Mobilization–Governance Framework

“…It follows that such locales might also prove to be fertile ground for grassroots political activity among groups seeking a redistribution of wealth and power. Also, cities with a substantial level of indigenous economic activity within their neighborhoods might be more conducive to mass mobilization (Williamson, Imbroscio, and Alperovitz 2002). A vibrant nucleus of community development corporations and other community-based organizations provided the foundation for a progressive governing coalition in Boston during the 1980s (Dreier and Ehrlich 1991).…”