ABSTRACT PERMUT, TESSA. Urban Planning, Revitalization, and the Reproduction of Inequality (Under the direction of Dr. Kimberly Ebert). Urban revitalization plays a critical role in housing and community development policy, yet sociological research on gentrification, displacement, and racial turnover often ignores or overlooks it in the reproduction of urban inequality. In this dissertation, I focus on urban planners and the attitudes, processes, and ideologies that underlie their revitalization practices in low-income neighborhoods. I ask: What beliefs, preferences, and dispositions underlie planners’ practices? Why and how do urban planners target neighborhoods for revitalization during a period of urban resurgence? In what ways might these ‘planner factors’ manifest in revitalization plans? In three interrelated articles, I use a mixed-methods approach to investigate planners’ attitudes towards common urban planning practices and revitalization methods during a period of high demand for urban housing. I collect data using semi-structured interviews with urban planners and residents of revitalizing neighborhoods; content analysis of revitalization policies; content analysis of city council minutes, bids, and proposals; participant observation of urban planning forums, courses, and events; and finally, quantitative analysis of data derived from an original survey that I designed and distributed to urban planners who maintain membership with the American Planning Association North Carolina chapter. By bringing sociological theory to bear on the field of urban planning, this project challenges the assumed impartial and constrained practices of urban planning professionals. The findings reveal that urban planners are heavily involved in implementing policy aligned with neoliberal paternalism that reproduces race and class inequality. As a whole, my dissertation demonstrates the relevance of race, class, and the political economy to urban planning in our new era of urban housing demand. Doing so, it provides opportunities for a more efficacious, inclusive approach to urban planning. © Copyright 2020 by Tessa Permut All Rights Reserved Urban Planning, Revitalization, and the Reproduction of Inequality by Tessa Permut A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology Raleigh, North Carolina 2020 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ _______________________________ Kim Ebert Martha Crowley Committee Chair _______________________________ _______________________________ April Fernandes Aaron Hipp DEDICATION I dedicate this work to the city and people of Durham, a community unlike any other I have known. ii BIOGRAPHY Tessa Permut was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, and credits her younger years in that city with her later interest in urban and community inequalities. She received her M.S. in sociology from North Carolina State University in 2016. Her master’s thesis research focused on neighborhood “diversification” in Chicago and its effects on economic circumstances of low- income residents of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. She moved to Durham, North Carolina in 2017 for her dissertation research, where she rediscovered her interest in social justice action and its relationship to sociology. Her research interests include urban and community sociology, spatial inequality, class and critical theory, and stratification. She plans to use her background in sociology to effect social change outside of academia. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My acknowledgements here extend beyond this project, which I see as a culmination of support, guidance, and insights provided by those mentioned over the entirety of my time at North Carolina State University. First, thank you to my chair, Kim Ebert, whose generosity as a mentor and friend over the course of my degree demonstrates the need for a sweeping acknowledgement. Without her encouragement, compassion, and enthusiasm, I would not be the sociologist or the person that I am now. Thank you for being my mentor. I am also grateful to Martha Crowley, whose critical eye for organization and the “big picture” have consistently helped me to better frame and organize my writing in this project and in general. Thank you to April Fernandes, who gave support and encouragement at a critical crossroads in my academic career and provided thorough feedback that helped me to more critically examine the implications of my research for racial inequality. Thank you to Aaron Hipp, who agreed to serve on my committee from outside the sociology department, and for the second time went beyond the expectations of an outside member. I would also like to thank my parents, whose confidence in my abilities kept me afloat during the difficult periods. Finally, thank you to my partner, Joe Nelson, for being a true partner to me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.... ......................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO: URBAN PLANNERS’ ATTITUDES AND NEIGHBORHOOD REVITALIZATION ......................................................................................................................12 CHAPTER THREE: MOTIVATIONS AND INCENTIVES FOR NEIGHBORHOOD REVITALIZATION....................................................74 CHAPTER FOUR: MIXED-INCOME HOMEOWNERSHIP AND THE REPRODUCTION OF INEQUALITY..............................................................................122 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 178 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 189 APPENDIX A. .............................................................................................................................192 APPENDIX B..............................................................................................................................198 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1. Descriptive Statistics………………….………………….……………………….......44 Table 1.2. Results of Ordered Logistic Regression (Odds-Ratios) Estimating Attitudes Toward Distressed Neighborhoods………………….………………….…………………...…...47 Table 1.3. Results of Ordered Logistic Regression (Odds-Ratios) Estimating Attitudes Toward Neoliberal Planning Practices………………….………………….………………….…48 Table 2.1. Initial Open Coding Themes and Codes………………….…………………………..92 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1. Percent of Applicants to Southside Program and Percent Approved by Racial Group………………….…….…….………………….………………….……………...152 vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION In 2018, low-income black residents filed a lawsuit against the DC Zoning Commission to prevent the demolition of Barry Farm, a 444-unit public housing development targeted for a revitalization project in Southeast Washington. The stated goal of the project was to “improve residents’ quality of life” and “protect and expand affordable housing, empower families with the tools to become self-sufficient, and preserve existing community” but the residents claimed that the actions would discriminatorily displace them on the basis of income, age, and race. The court decided the case in the residents’ favor and submitted a statement that their concerns for disparate impact had been improperly disregarded (Giambrone 2018). Nationwide, stories of similar conflicts between planning departments and black residents suggest a divide between urban planners and residents of neighborhoods in which they work. Residents, often low-income people of color, argue that their wants and needs are dismissed to accommodate wealthy, white outsiders. Meanwhile, urban planners maintain that their practices work in the best interests of the neighborhood and its residents and blame dissatisfaction with planning on unpredictable forces beyond their control (Flyvbjerg 1997). They emphasize their professional mission to “plan for the needs of the disadvantaged and to promote racial and economic integration” (American Planning Association 2018; AICP Code of Ethics 2018). From 2017 to 2019, I embedded myself in urban planning circles and events in Durham, North Carolina. I sought to learn about the individuals who enforce and administer relevant zoning and development standards and ordinances, approve new development, and administer, write, and implement subsidized housing policy—urban planners—and to understand their interpretations of the low-income neighborhoods in which they work. I wanted to understand why so many stories characterized urban planners as the adversaries of low-income residents, 1 while urban planners proclaim the altruistic mission of their work. In the three empirical chapters that follow, I ask: What beliefs, preferences, and dispositions underlie and motivate planners’ practices? Why do urban planners target neighborhoods for revitalization during a period of “revival”? How do revitalization plans take shape? I investigate the attitudes, incentives and motivations, and revitalization practices of urban planners to contextualize the negative responses they often receive from residents. The dissertation unfolds in the following chapters. In Chapter Two, I use an original survey of practicing urban planners in North Carolina to explore the race, class, educational, and professional background of urban planners and their beliefs, preferences, and professional dispositions towards poverty, gentrification, mixed-income