Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 22 Issue 1

© 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue I Version I 15 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 C The Revanchist City: Downtown Chicago and the Rhetoric of Redevelopment in Bronzeville Source: Robert Taylor Homes – Phase A 2001 HOPE VI Application June 22, 2001 Figure 13: Robert Taylor HOPE VI Redevelopment Unit Composition of Proposed Development The plans allows for only a third of housing development tenants to remain in the area. Of the third, all will have to meet stringent requirements to gain approval to stay in the community (e.g., the one strike rule of no late lease compliances, no criminal or drug record and, no pending cases with the Illinois Department of Children and Family services) (The View From The Ground One Strike Discussion on WBEZ 06/17/2002). The efforts of downtown Chicago have historically been tied to a cycle of disinvestment and reinvestment in Bronzeville—its eventual gentrification and absorption by downtown capital and middle and White ruling class elites. The rent gap, the final outcome of a contrived devalorization cycle, indicates how low the median home value and rents (ground rent) are allowed to go before the area is declared ‘slum and blighted’ and prime for reinvestment and the reclaiming of the area by middle and White ruling class elites, officials, private developers and their financial and real estate agents. IV. C onclusion The new urban frontier of the Revanchist City fully describes the patterns and trends involved in the devalorization cycle that captures the intricate link between disinvestment and reinvestment—with the end result of gentrification and massive displacement of poor and working poor families (Smith, 1996). The Chicago School of urban sociology typically relied on theories of land use economics and ‘natural areas’ to analyze redevelopment in the built environment of Chicago. These theories followed “rational” choice models of urban development where logical decisions were said to be made by calculated risks in an expanding or contracting market. Therefore, the built environment of the urban landscape is more a product of natural circumstances rather than contrived plans linked to the private and public interest of urban capital and city money (Alonso, 1978). We affirm that the gentrification of Bronzeville is tied to a new urban frontier of the Revanchist City. We articulate the ‘racialized’ transformations that were historically grounded in the vicissitudes of evolving plans and practices dating back to the first wave of Blacks to Chicago during the Great Migration (Spear, 1967; Drake and Cayton, 1945; Hirsch, 1998; Massey and Denton, 1993; Omi and Winant, 1994). The historical and contemporary evidence substantiate that the massive disinvestment and now, reinvestment in Bronzeville are not rooted in beneficent private and public policies but rather, are tied to a racial code of confinement and displacement that has been the historical and contemporary treatment of low-income, working poor and indigent African Americans in Chicago since 1890. We have demonstrated in this paper how the rhetoric and language of local politicians in the 50 and 60s to simultaneously reclaim and disinvestment in Bronzeville are remarkably similar to the rhetoric and language of reinvestment in Bronzeville in the 21 st century. The data provided in the paper evidence how the disinvestment and reinvestment in Bronzeville is tied to a rent gap that is not simply an out-growth of fluctuations in the economy or changes in consumer taste but of how gentrification is both contrived and planned. Therefore, it should be seen as no accident that reinvestment in Bronzeville neatly coincided with the city of Chicago’s marketing of Bronzeville as an icon of Black culture and the Great Migration of Blacks to the Mid-west. Under the façade of multiculturalism and diversity Bronzeville is marketed as Chicago’s epicenter for Black culture. Similar to the discussions around the reinvestment and revitalization of Bronzeville, the marketing of historic Bronzeville elides the long standing history of segregation, discrimination, and institutional racism that exploited and undermined the life chances of the majority of Bronzeville’s Black residents. The end result of this historical transformation led to a contrived policy of neighborhood disinvestment, public housing concentration, and Black confinement (see Hirsch, 1989). Today, under the rhetoric and language of being concerned for the well-being of the urban poor, the primary goal of downtown Chicago and other public and private interests is to reclaim urban space for the 33% 27% 18% 22% Unit Composition of Proposed Redevelopment Public Housing Affordable Rental Units Market Rate Affordable Homeowner