The Precarious Project and the Wasted Opportunity: The Social and Cultural Dynamics of Conflict over Urban Development

Introduction

The central conflict in Molotch’s (1976) and later Logan and Molotch’s (1987) growth machine model is between actors who stand to profit or otherwise benefit from city growth and ones who do not, or whose local connections to place are at risk due to rapid or excessive development. Simply put, groups like real estate developers and property owners seek out the best “exchange value,” or profit potential, from land, whereas for residents and community groups the same land has greater “use value”: a place for nonmonetizable attachments, meanings, and everyday routines. There is much research on the roles, relationships, and policies of development actors within a city’s growth coalition (Kimelberg 2011; Sun and Huang 2016); the efforts and influence of community-focused actors who counter pro-growth agendas and projects (Been, Madar, and McDonnell 2014; Cain 2014; Halle and Tiso 2014); and the conflicts, compromises, and outcomes that occur when developers and residents come together over proposed projects (Crowe et al. 2015; Holden, Scerri, and Esfahani 2015; Yung and Chan 2016).

Scholars have also found that the line between the actors who seek exchange value and those who seek use value is not always clear (Jonas and Wilson 1999). Sometimes, use value–seeking residents and community groups support development projects when they perceive them to be in their economic interest (Dokshin 2016; Scally 2013), whereas exchange value–seeking property owners, who are often considered pro-growth, oppose ones that they do not perceive will benefit them (Been, Madar, and McDonnell 2014; Fischel 2001; Halle and Tiso 2014) (commonly known as “NIMBYism,” or “Not In My Backyard,” an oppositional stance toward development due to its perceived impacts). And such disparate perspectives can emerge in response to the same development project. We can better understand why urban residents diverge in their perspectives and actions in support of and opposition to local development projects by focusing on specific cases and contexts.

Based on qualitative research, this article contextualizes conflicts over a controversial urban development project, specifically one that contains subsidized (i.e., affordable and supportive) housing for low-income and vulnerable groups. I consider the case of a single project (which failed to gain city council approval) in Newburgh, a disinvested and impoverished minority–majority city in New York experiencing gentrification and a return migration of the middle class (Harrison 2017). Known officially as the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) Redevelopment Project, the developer’s plan proposed a mixed-use project: mixed-income housing on vacant, city-owned land, as well as the restoration and repurposing of two historic buildings for commercial and community spaces. Announced in fall 2017 and rejected exactly one year later, the inclusion of subsidized housing in the project caused significant tension among residents and revealed numerous social cleavages between gentrifiers and other property and business owners and existing low-income residents and their advocates.

Subsidized housing has been shown to be controversial and contested at the local level, causing divides within communities, usually between property owners and low-income residents (Davis and Bali 2008; Dear 1992; Pendall 1999; Scally 2013). As a gradual transition, gentrification is a unique period in a community’s life when people from highly divergent social class and racial backgrounds are geographically proximate to each other as well as a proposed project. Given their own distinct sets of economic interests, we would expect low-income groups to support the building of more subsidized housing, especially in a gentrifying area where they are at risk of displacement, and property owners to oppose it. But we might also expect those progressive-minded gentrifiers who are conscious of their impacts on existing groups (Donnelly 2018) to also support it, as research has shown them to sometimes actively try to curb further gentrification (Brown-Saracino 2009). Neither is exactly the case in Newburgh, where low-income residents of color and their advocates support the DRC Redevelopment Project but are simultaneously critical of it, whereas mostly White gentrifiers align with other property owners (existing residents and return migrants) in opposing it, but do not want low-income groups to be harmed by gentrification and instead want economic development at the site. Both groups’ reactions, then, undermine their ultimate goals. Why are low-income groups critical of a development project that benefits them? And why do gentrifiers who support and seek to avoid the displacement of existing low-income groups protest such a development?

By examining a broad range of actors in Newburgh, this article aims to add further nuance to our understanding of how urbanites react to controversial development projects by showing the social and cultural dynamics and mechanisms behind the attitudes and actions of people who both support and oppose them in a distinct context. Although self-interest provides a partial explanation for some of residents’ responses and behaviors (i.e., economic need for supporters, NIMBYism for opponents), it is not sufficient as evidenced by the more complex meanings behind them. I argue that we must consider how economic interests and social class positions are intertwined with and rooted in social and cultural factors to understand these perspectives and why they vary, specifically to consider how the different ways that people frame the city and their place within it influence their attitudes and actions toward this project (and other developments like it). A frame, or “an interpretive [schema] that simplifies and condenses the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of actions within one’s present or past environment” (Snow and Benford 1992, p. 137), helps people “to locate, perceive, identify, and label” (Goffman 1974, p. 21) their immediate surroundings and the greater world. Frames and framing processes around social issues also influence mobilization toward those issues (i.e., encourage and justify social action, as well as push certain forms of social action over others) (Benford and Snow 2000; Snow et al. 1986; van Hulst and Yanow 2016).

As I will show, Newburgh’s residents’ frames toward the city are consistent with their groups’ structural position in the gentrification process vis-à-vis property ownership and social class, while revealing how the process is distinct in a small city context. Supporters support the DRC because it will provide more affordable housing for low-income people like them and for those whom they represent, which they claim will help protect them from gentrification. But they are also critical and skeptical of it because of their framing of Newburgh as a city that has consistently mistreated them as low-income people of color. It is, to them, a “precarious project,” with an uncertain result. Their framing, however, undermines their efforts to fully support the project by leading them to be critical of it in ways that dovetail with opponents’ arguments. And opponents certainly protest it from a NIMBYist perspective: They fear its impact on their property values and quality of life. But they also oppose it because they see it as a “wasted opportunity” for what could be a more lucrative and beneficial development at the proposed site. This perspective stems from their framing of Newburgh as a “city of opportunity,” or a place with potential to develop and grow, and of themselves as “place entrepreneurs”—actors capable of shaping its development. And this frame emerges from opponents’ distinct structural position in this context of being both property owners and first-wave gentrifiers—a rare combination in gentrifying neighborhoods (Bain 2018). However, this framing undermines their interest in not harming low-income communities by influencing them to protest such a development project. These conflicting perspectives have emerged as a result of decades of urban poverty followed by gentrification and return migration, which have created a rare configuration of actors, and reveal new ways of understanding community relations in a context of a small city experiencing gentrification.

Responses to Controversial Development

Many scholars have examined how urban residents react to controversial development projects like affordable housing. These studies usually look at how people act out of their own self-interest, such as economically or in terms of quality of life, or in ways that tie back to their self-interest (Eranti 2017). More privileged residents, such as home, business, and property owners, often take a NIMBY approach when they fight the placement of unwanted projects near them (but not necessarily the type of project elsewhere in a municipality) (Dear 1992; Gibson 2005). Scholars have found NIMBYism toward many types of developments in addition to affordable housing, such as sports stadiums (Halle and Tiso 2014) and industrial projects like waste disposal sites (Botetzagias and Karamichas 2009; Freudenburg and Pastor 1992; Schively 2007).

In terms of human service projects like subsidized housing, property-owning opponents tend to act out of a variety of fears over the impacts of the development and the targeted population. These fears include a decline in property values, an increase in crime, and a strain on public services like education (i.e., a combination of economic interests and quality of life) (Dear 1992; Pendall 1999). Research shows that the actual impacts of projects like low-income housing on such factors as property values and crime in communities are mixed, and sometimes even positive (see Deng 2009; Ellen et al. 2007; Freeman and Botein 2002; Nguyen 2005; Palmer 2016). Still, many residents facing their construction perceive and react as if they will harm their interests.

There is often an assumption in the literature that people with a NIMBY perspective represent a homogeneous group within a given locale, with the same attitudes and actions across different spaces (Pendall 2008; Tighe 2010). But a variety of local factors lead to variation among residents. In comparing six municipalities, Scally (2013) finds that varying housing legacies, existing conditions for development, and local politics and perceptions toward affordable housing all influence whether residents will support or oppose projects for low-income tenants. As the arguments revolve so heavily around markers of social class (i.e., homeownership status), NIMBYism and its adherents can seem colorblind (i.e., it is the presence of facilities for low-income groups, not racial minorities per se, that put real estate values at risk). Racial attitudes among Whites, however, have been shown to be bound up with NIMBYist perspectives (Basolo and Hastings 2003), whereas opposition to human service projects has been examined as part of a local racialization project to construct Whiteness and delineate White spaces (Wilton 2002). Far from race-neutral, then, NIMBYism can reflect racial understandings while serving to spatially reproduce White privilege.

Other studies on controversial projects have found political explanations behind local opposition. For instance, opponents of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” often adopt a “NIABY”—“Not In Anyone’s Backyard”—perspective, in which they rely on political identities and ideology for their opposition (Boudet 2011; Michaud, Carlisle, and Smith 2008). People who hold such a perspective toward projects tend to live on the periphery of their targeted areas, where they would have little economic impact (Dokshin 2016). If NIMBYism implies residents’ geographic proximity to a site, NIABYism seems to indicate a certain distance from it along with a project that has been politicized at a national level. In fact, NIABYism in the form of broad social movements often emerges out of NIMBYist opposition (Hager and Haddad 2015). These projects, however, tend to be industrial ones with potential environmental impacts (e.g., fracking, waste treatment facilities), rather than human service projects like subsidized housing, homeless shelters, and drug treatment facilities, all of which present potential challenges to existing social orders.

On the other hand, supporters of controversial development projects have been shown to have a “PIMBYist” (“Please In My Backyard”) perspective, or when residents perceive a project will grant them economic benefits, such as employment and housing. Framing a controversial project as potentially beneficial works best in places that are economically depressed (Dokshin 2016; Wright and Boudet 2012) and among low-income populations (Boudet et al. 2016; Gravelle and Lachapelle 2015). In short, people proximate to controversial projects will lend their support if they perceive that they will be good for them, even in spite of potential harms. Among more privileged groups, however, PIMBYism has also been shown to be part of a local racialization project that encourages upscale development for White populations (Bonds 2013).

Although development projects can have impacts on all local residents, given their structural position, low-income populations are most vulnerable to the potential harms that could occur from large-scale development, such as displacement, a higher cost of living, health hazards, and a disrupted social order. An increasingly common response to such projects is “Community Benefits Agreements” (CBAs), or negotiated contracts between local groups and private developers (Cain 2014; Mulligan-HanselLeRoy 2008). Instead of pure NIMBY-style opposition, CBAs are attempts to ensure that communities directly gain from developers’ projects—such as by guaranteeing stable employment, affordable housing, and accessible public space for local residents—in exchange for their public support.

However, beyond economic interests and needs and political ideology, it is not clear what other social and cultural factors could be explaining people’s perspectives and actions toward development projects, and whether these are maintained along lines of race and social class that prior research has found. In the case of Newburgh, people who would generally be seen to support the DRC Redevelopment Project were quite critical of it and skeptical of its benefits, whereas opponents made arguments that did not exactly reflect NIMBYist attitudes. In short, there is a need for further comparative and contextual analyses on local reactions toward controversial development projects to explain these nuances.

Reactions to Gentrification

Perspectives toward controversial development projects have rarely been examined under conditions of gentrification, a transitional period that begs for a comparative analysis between disparate groups. Still, much research has been conducted on how residents in gentrifying neighborhoods—both existing low-income residents and gentrifiers—react to the processes’ changes as they are occurring. In analyzing gentrification’s potential harms to underprivileged groups, scholars have most commonly focused on forms of displacement, including residential (Freeman and Braconi 2004; Newman and Wyly 2006) as well as political (Hyra 2015; Martin 2007) and social and cultural, or “everyday” (Stabrowski 2014), displacement (Pattillo 2007). Low-income groups often feel excluded from gentrifiers’ activities, even those that attempt to be inclusive and prevent displacement (McLean and Rahder 2013; Shaw and Sullivan 2011). Research documents various forms of resistance that existing residents enact in reaction to local change, such as forming community groups (Cahill 2006), making claims on public spaces like through forming community gardens (Martinez 2010), and taking political action through protests and demonstrations (Abu-Lughod 1994; Mele 2000). An assumption based on the literature, then, would be that low-income residents, when presented with the opportunity to do so, would support the expansion of affordable housing as a bulwark against displacement in the context of gentrification.

Several scholars have examined how gentrifiers try to prevent further, more advanced forms of gentrification (i.e., usually an influx of even wealthier residents), which could also displace them as well as underprivileged groups, through a variety of social, cultural, and political strategies and practices (Lloyd 2006; London 2017; Schlichtman et al. 2017). Brown-Saracino (2009) develops the term “social preservationists” to describe gentrifiers who identify an “authentic” existing group in their neighborhood and act to both preserve their cultural heritage and prevent their displacement. Missing from their narratives and efforts, however, are other “inauthentic” groups at risk of being displaced who may actually represent a majority of existing residents. Scholars who study gentrifiers have even put themselves and their own experiences as newcomers under analysis (Pattillo 2007; Schlichtman et al. 2017; Schlichtman and Patch 2014). A concern of theirs and others (see Zukin 2008) is the tension between appreciating the place characteristics of their new neighborhood (e.g., its diversity, “grittiness,” and “authentic” qualities) and recognizing that their presence may be putting its existing groups at risk of displacement, in all its various forms. Donnelly (2018) examines how gentrifiers resolve this tension through narrative techniques that demarcate themselves as “good” gentrifiers and displace responsibility for the process onto other actors. However, gentrifiers’ recognition of this tension and appreciation of diversity does not necessarily lead to changes in their behavior (Lees 2008; Rose 2004).

Although the vast majority of gentrification research has been conducted in large cities, several studies have looked at how the process plays out in municipalities of other sizes, such as rural areas and small towns (Brown-Saracino 2009; Hines 2010; Stockdale 2010) and midsized cities (Bain 2017, 2018). We know comparatively little, however, about how the process occurs in small cities (for a rare study, see Brown-Saracino 2018). A significant distinction of gentrifiers in places outside of large cities is the greater likelihood and opportunity for them to be property owners. Usually reserved for wealthier gentrifiers (see Lees 2003), such a structural position in a small urban context of property ownership grants middle-class gentrifiers greater stability, and the opportunity to organize their efforts, collectively shape local conditions, and influence development objectives (Bain 2018; Hoyle 2000). Among the many unknown issues of small city gentrification is how such gentrifiers who own property react to changes in their neighborhood, such as controversial development projects, and whether their reactions reflect an appreciation of diversity and consideration of existing low-income groups.

Addressing and adding to this literature, this article uses frames and framing to analyze why disparate sets of actors respond to a controversial development project in a gentrifying neighborhood as they do. Along with looking at how they frame their urban environment (the city as a whole, in this case), I also consider how they frame their own role within it vis-à-vis change and development. As I will show in the case of Newburgh, a small city revitalizing from gentrification and return migration amid conditions of entrenched poverty, although supporters show a PIMBY perspective and generally want the DRC Redevelopment Project to be built because it aims to benefit them in terms of housing and employment, they are also quick to criticize it and be skeptical that it will not do what the developer proposes. The arguments they make, ironically, sometimes dovetail with those of the project’s opponents. Their framing of Newburgh as a “city of mistreatment,” particularly toward groups like them (i.e., low-income people of color), for many decades explains this ambivalence. And although some opponents—gentrifiers, return migrants, and existing property owners—show a NIMBY attitude toward the project because of its component of affordable and supportive housing (i.e., fear that it will harm property values, bring the “wrong” element to the city), they also protest it for being the wrong type of project for Newburgh at this time in what they see is the city’s period of “renewal.” Their framing of it as a “city of opportunity,” rather than a place of harm or mistreatment, and of themselves as “place entrepreneurs,” or people with the vision and means to expand this renewal, explains their nuanced response. And they can frame themselves as playing such a role because of their structural position as property owners. Ironically, then, the project’s opponents and supporters both want and push for development in Newburgh, but also envision far different aims depending on their framing.

Newburgh: Decline and Renewal

Newburgh is an incorporated city of nearly 30,000 people on the west bank of the Hudson River in the mid-Hudson River Valley, a very scenic and historic part of New York State. It is located about 60 miles North of New York City. Newburgh’s story begins in the colonial era, and it was an integral site in the Revolutionary War. But for this article’s purposes I will provide a brief history of the city from the twentieth century to today. ¹ Newburgh began the last century as an industrial beacon and an important urban center for the region, as well as an immigrant destination. It already boasted many Italianate- and Victorian-style mansions and houses built by well-known architects of the day for industrialists and successful merchants, and added more in the century’s early decades. It reached its peak population of 32,000 people in 1950 and was named an “All-American City” by the National Civic League in 1952.

From this point, the city declined. The “Great Migration,” when African-Americans from the rural South moved to northern cities, took place in Newburgh around the same time as deindustrialization began, with many manufacturing businesses ironically moving south. A budget shortfall in the early 1960s led to city leaders declaring a racially inflected war on welfare recipients, which became an international news story (Mencher 1962; Neubeck and Cazenave 2001; Ritz 1966), followed by race riots later in the decade. New developments—the construction of two interstate highways and a bridge across the Hudson River, the opening of a nearby shopping mall—created arteries and businesses outside the city limits, choking the commerce within. They also ended the city’s 220-year-old cross-river ferry service to Beacon, where residents could catch the closest train to New York City. All of these factors led to “White flight,” suburban growth, and economic decline in the city, especially its downtown, main shopping district, and riverfront. From 1958 to 1970, the city took advantage of federal urban renewal funds and razed approximately 1,330 buildings, destroying its downtown and riverfront properties in the process. ² The demolition was slated to displace 2,132 people, 1,818 of them Black, which was more than a third of the city’s non-White population at the time. ³ A lack of financing and planning meant that they did not start developing these spaces for decades (and most are still undeveloped today). But urban renewal led community activists to fight to protect old buildings, which resulted in the creation of the East End Historic District—the largest contiguous historic district in the state.

By the 1980s, the city was economically devastated, crime-, gang-, and drug-infested, severely blighted, and politically corrupt. In the 1990s, Newburgh, like other small cities in the Hudson Valley and elsewhere, became a new destination for immigrants, specifically from Latin America (Massey 2008; Miraftab 2016; Villarrubia-Mendoza 2016). These groups partially rejuvenated some of the city’s main commercial streets by opening businesses in their empty storefronts. Some recent statistics show the conditions of Newburgh today that residents and city leaders face. Demographically, Newburgh is 48% Latino, 28% Black, and 19% White. According to 2016 statistics, it has a violent crime rate of 18.64 incidents per 1,000 residents, which is more than four times the state average (4.1/1,000), and its overall crime rate is more than double the national average (although local police report that violent crimes declined in 2017 and 2018). Newburgh has a poverty rate (i.e., residents with incomes below the poverty level) of 38.6%, and 27% of households are on food assistance. The median household income is $33,469 (compared with $73,025 for the county, and $62,209 for the state), and only 13% of the population has a BA or higher. In terms of housing affordability, 59% of renters (who make up 54% of the city) pay at least 30% of their income on rent (and 54% of all households do so, including homeowners), which is usually considered the maximum amount a household should pay for their home to be “affordable” (Schwartz and Wilson 2007; Tighe and Mueller 2013). Finally, the vacancy rate of Newburgh’s housing stock is 19%, and more than 700 buildings are abandoned or vacant, which means that nearly every street is pockmarked with empty buildings and/or vacant lots, and only 7% of its housing was built after 1980. As a consequence, the city has a substantial amount of properties that do not generate tax revenue either due to the tax-exempt status of their occupants (nonprofits, places of worship, publicly owned buildings) or because they come into its possession due to bank foreclosure and tax delinquency. Newburgh, then, has a large population struggling with poverty, a mostly uneducated workforce, a higher-than-average crime rate, a considerable amount of blight and old buildings, and little investment in new developments.

But amid these severe urban problems are trends showing how some neighborhoods in Newburgh are gentrifying. Gentrification takes different forms (Halle and Tiso 2014) and both looks and operates differently and at varying speeds, depending on the context (Brown-Saracino 2010). Despite its size, the early stage of gentrification in Newburgh closely resembles how the process has unfolded in New York City (Mele 2000; Ocejo 2014; Smith 1996) and other large cities (Lloyd 2006): well-educated, middle-class Whites in the creative economy moving to low-income and industrial-looking neighborhoods and making them more suitable for middle-class lifestyles, with a key difference being that they are mostly buying their housing (Bain 2018; Zukin 1982). The areas where most newcomers are moving to are within the East End Historic District, which spatially takes up about a fifth of the city, including its densest and most populous sections. Perhaps not surprisingly, this part of the city has several place characteristics that urbanites favor: walkability; old and historic architecture (Paccoud and Mace 2018); an industrial, “gritty” texture (Lloyd 2006; Zukin 2010); and access—physical and visual—to the river. Some newcomers have bought homes outside of the district, much of Newburgh’s population remains poor, and many of its streets are still blighted. For the most part, however, it is where newcomers have chosen to move, renovate homes and buildings, and open businesses. And they have been joined by return migrants, or people who grew up in Newburgh, moved away for school and/or work, and, then, moved back as adults (Harrison 2017). Although common factors like family have been instrumental in their decision to return, so has the prospect of being able to contribute to the city’s rejuvenation, which is a popular topic in local media sources.

Research Methods and Participants

This article is based on an ongoing qualitative research project on how small cities are adapting to conditions of the twenty-first century, with Newburgh as my case, that I began in February 2017. My methods consist of both ethnographic fieldwork and interviewing. For my fieldwork, I have been focusing on several sites throughout Newburgh where residents from all backgrounds gather: cafes and eateries, coworking spaces, churches, arts spaces, special events, and public parks, as well as the regular meetings of city council, government agencies, and community groups (these all include those at which the redevelopment project was either discussed or the central focus). I have also joined several organizations—those founded by existing residents, returnees, and newcomers—as a volunteer. This work has granted me close access to people in Newburgh who come from a variety of backgrounds, and allowed me to observe and participate in their work in the city. I average three trips to the city per week and spend several hours in the field per visit.

I have thus far conducted 110 formal, semi-structured interviews with people who live and/or work in Newburgh. Forty-five are newcomers, or people who have moved there from other cities (nearly all from New York City) within the past 10 years, which corresponds with the onset of gentrification. Most of them (36) own their own home (most of the rest intend to buy), several own more than one building (some for their own business) and have become landlords as well as owner-occupants, and a small number own several buildings and have plans to expand their own business, attract new ones, and/or add housing. Each of them has at least a college degree and/or formal arts education and training. Although it is a problematic concept (see Markusen 2006), occupationally most newcomers are members of the “creative class” (Florida 2002) and, for the most part, work in cultural industries and the broader creative economy in some form: photographers, artists, musicians, writers, artisans (carpentry, bookbinding, letterpressing, skin products, craft beer), and designers of various types (furniture, graphics, clothing). Aside from six (three Black women, two Black men, and one Asian woman), all are White.

Nineteen people in my sample are either lifelong or long-term residents, with “long-term” referring to people who moved to Newburgh with their parents when they were young. Most of them (15) are low-income African-Americans and from Latinx communities (nine and six, respectively), but some are White property and business owners (four). I have also studied five other “long-term” residents who moved to Newburgh as adults more than 10 years ago, usually from New York City, and tend to resemble more recent arrivals (i.e., White middle-class homeowners). ⁶ Thirteen people in my sample are returnees, or people who were born and raised in Newburgh and its surrounding area, moved away for a significant amount of time (usually for college and/or work), and, then, returned as adults. Some of them do not live in the city limits, but own property in Newburgh and are active in its political and civic life. All except two are White. Twenty-one are people who work in Newburgh—in the social service and nonprofit industries, own businesses, run events—but who do not necessarily live in the city limits. Some of the people in this subsample support and advocate for low-income communities, whereas others more closely resemble newcomers. Finally, my sample includes seven people who are involved in economic development or real estate. They are workers in local nonprofit economic growth agencies, real estate brokers and property managers, and property owners. Only the brokers live in the city. These numbers, I should note, do not include the many other informal interviews I have conducted with residents and actors while in the field, or the behavioral observations I have made of people in public settings like government meetings.

I obtained my sample from using both convenience and snowball techniques. My interview questions have consisted of the reasons why people move to, remain in, or move back to Newburgh; their experiences in the city; their impressions of the city, its people, and its reputation; and their preferences and hopes for its future. In most cases, I directly discussed the DRC Redevelopment Project with participants. When we did not discuss it, whether because the interview took place prior to Alembic’s selection or the person was unfamiliar with it (a rare occurrence), I would bring it up with them later in more informal conversations. And in any event, development projects of the distant and recent past were a regular topic in all interviews. Each interview lasted between one and two hours, and undergraduate research assistants, a transcription service, and I transcribed them. I alone coded them inductively and refined my categories and explanations while analyzing the data (Charmaz 2001). I used the NVivo qualitative data analysis software program.

This article mainly focuses on meetings and interviews from the one-year period when the city selected Alembic as the developer to the city council’s rejection of the project. This time featured significant unrest in the city, with neighbor against neighbor, and both old and new tensions rising to the surface. Residents and workers regularly discussed the project at events, in cafes, restaurants, and bars, and on the streets. The forthcoming analysis therefore also draws upon resident responses and actions toward other initiatives in the city. Finally, although the project failed and the data below refer to specific events in the past, I maintain use of the present tense. I do so because the behaviors from this point in time signify larger patterns of meaning that apply to other aspects of residents’ lives and their attitudes and actions in Newburgh, from the development-focused to the mundane.

Supporting a “Precarious Project”: Legacies of Mistreatment

Most of the people who support the DRC project are themselves people of color and low-income residents, groups the project targets, or people who advocate on their behalf (e.g., activists, nonprofit leaders, social service workers). These proponents certainly emphasize the needs and interests of the city’s struggling and vulnerable groups, especially the need for housing that is affordable, stable, and reaches quality standards; supportive services; and employment. They cite specific housing conditions they live under. “We need to understand that there are actually really people that don’t have housing that’s livable,” says Andre, a 30-year-old activist and Newburgh native of El Salvadoran descent:

There are families that are living with places that, as soon as you walk in, they have no roof. These are people that have lived here for 10, 20, 30 years, and they live just a few blocks away from here.

Residents regularly cite conditions like mold and vermin, and unresponsive landlords (see below). Wallace is a 40-year-old African-American lifelong resident who today works for a local nonprofit offering homeownership and job training opportunities, and in the past he has also run financial literacy programs. Along with adequate housing, he also advocates for more jobs and more training programs:

We need to make it so that there’s more industry, so people can have a chance. Like, a way to fight. I don’t want to make it like “Hey, let’s lower the price for everything so people who can’t afford it could just stay doing what they’re doing and be able to afford it.” No. I want programs to give opportunities to make people want to improve their situation. Mentorship programs, financial literacy programs, teach financial literacy to the public.

Their concern, then, combines both more housing that targets low-income populations, as well as resources (jobs, programs) that will help them afford that housing.

The project’s supporters describe their struggles as longstanding and multicausal. They have been compounded by recent gentrification. Michaela, a 39-year-old Black resident and volunteer for a housing advocacy nonprofit, equates gentrification with opposition to the DRC project:

When I talk about gentrification, I’m mostly talking about wealthy people coming into a space and seeing that it’s raw and being like, “This is awesome. I’m going to live here,” and then raising up the rents and not making it an equitable thing. There is no intent of trying to make it equitable. It’s just like a reclaiming of a space that historically y’all wanted nothing to do with and now all of a sudden it’s the hot do do, because people of color made something out of it and it’s something that’s seen as attractive. You can have development without displacement and there are strategies nationally that talk about how to do that. [But] most of [their opposition to the DRC project] is not predicated off of anything logical. It’s predicated off of their fear and bias around low-income people and people of color.

As Michaela states, existing low-income residents are critical of gentrification that is not equitable, and feel opponents’ opposition is fueled by fear toward low-income minority groups (see below). But development can be good when it comes “without displacement.” Maya, a 24-year-old lifelong African-American resident, discusses low-income groups’ relationship with recent changes:

[Newburgh]’s gentrified up. Everything changed. We’re being pushed out, pushed out more and more and more and more. Affordable housing should be basic human rights. And don’t get me wrong, evolution is not a bad thing. And I think when people hear people say they’re against gentrification, I think people think that we’re against like, you know, turning something from looking rundown to something looking luxurious. We’re not saying that like, you know, we don’t want that to happen, but we want the people that are here to be given the opportunities to do that and not be run out of their city and being able to like, you know, actually afford these luxuries.

Maya expresses a sentiment by many existing residents: Gentrification and revitalization in Newburgh are positive in principle, but only if they also benefit from them. To them, the DRC project could serve as a bulwark against displacement by providing a greater amount of adequate and affordable housing as well as employment. Residents and their advocates describe wanting a chance and more opportunities to live more comfortably in Newburgh, and this project proposes to help them do so. Marco, a Dominican resident, puts it simply: “You know why I want it? Because it’s affordable housing and jobs.”

At the same time, however, supporters of the project are also very critical of it and skeptical that it will actually do all that Alembic proposes it will. From their descriptions, it is a “precarious project”: only potentially beneficial for them, and possibly harmful, despite the developer’s stated intentions. Scholars have been using the term “precarious” to characterize the conditions of uncertainty and instability that low-income people of color face in their daily lives (see Duck 2015). Newburgh residents use similar language when they talk about life in the city, and when they criticize the DRC.

They direct their criticism at several sources. First, they see the project itself, in its proposed form, as inadequate even for what Alembic is proposing. Adriana, a 35-year-old African-American activist, says,

The reality is that fifty-six [supportive] units is nothing in comparison to the something like over 11,000 people who are scrambling or figuring out how to live in the City of Newburgh who are living well below the standards for federal poverty in this community. Like, fifty-six units ain’t shit.

Following this argument, Crystal, Adriana’s friend and colleague, says, “Me, personally, I’m really into making it into an entirely low-income housing and sustainable project. I’ll take out the gym and all that kind of stuff that I feel like we really don’t need, and put another room there.” ⁷ Brenda, 60, an African-American Newburgh native who volunteers for a variety of community-based organizations, breaks down the “affordable” nature of the units:

Now, there are different types of people that live here in the City of Newburgh. You have to think about the diversity of this city. Now, I have here your projected rents, OK. Fifty-six units will receive rents between $190 and $380—are you kidding me? Who y’all trying to sell that to? I don’t think that’s possible here in the City of Newburgh. You also have 30 units with rents between $927 and $1,300. That’s somebody’s damn mortgage! You have to think about the diversity of this city. We need low income housing.

To truly benefit the city’s underprivileged residents, then, supporters feel that the project needs a lot more affordable housing than what is being proposed, while also addressing a broader range of the disadvantaged.

Other supporters are skeptical of the developer, Alembic, being truthful and fulfilling its promises. Michelle, 55, is an African-American Newburgh resident and member of a local advocacy organization for low-income people of color. Although she supports it, her concern with the project is who the proposed employment opportunities will benefit:

One of my preferences was for jobs. We need to make sure that there’s more City of Newburgh training and hiring. We know that they’re going to come in, and they’re going to hire outside groups, and we need to work with them as far as the training so that you won’t hire people from the community and then say that they don’t have the proper training to keep the job. [Emphasis added]

Michelle knows that Alembic will try to hire workers from outside the city, and/or that they will not provide adequate training for existing residents to qualify for employment (giving them an excuse to hire outside workers). Residents express certainty that these tactics will be used. Similar to employment, they also raise the risk that Newburgh residents will not get priority for the housing, and that the units adequately provide for the full range of people who live there.

Brenda expresses this concern: “I’d like for them to have to [make] sure there’s a preface for Newburgh residents to be able to move in to those units. The plan should say which government subsidized or other sorts of assistance will be accepted.” ⁸ In other words, like the project’s opponents, supporters are also skeptical of it and the developer’s intentions. The difference is that they want to see it improved rather than rejected. Their words reflect a desire to negotiate with Alembic, as in a CBA (Cain 2014).

But although they use language to suggest ways to improve the project, their skepticism of it goes beyond preliminary stances in a negotiation. This perception is influenced by their framing of Newburgh as a city that has consistently mistreated them as low-income people of color. “This city is the result of many false promises,” says Miguel, 55, a lifelong resident of Puerto Rican descent, summarizing a widespread sentiment among this community. He continues: “Because of a long history of corruption and misappropriation and all that, like, folks have suffered through that.”

Supporters draw from the past—both personal experience and collective memory (see Small 2004)—their skeptical leanings toward the DRC project. From them arise what they see as several unresolved racial tensions in Newburgh. These legacies of mistreatment have many sources. A popular one is the city’s existing landlords, or “slumlords,” as they regularly call them. Low-income residents blame both slumlords for substandard housing conditions and the city for lack of enforcement. Sharon, a 40-year-old African-American resident, explains,

I think that [the city] need[s] to be holding these landlords accountable for the fact that a lot of these buildings are in such bad condition because of disrepair, and there need to be consequences for some of these landlords.

They point to longstanding corruption between the real estate industry and city government as an explanation for both this negligence and for why they think the DRC will ultimately fail. “[Politicians] have always been in [slumlords’] pocket. It’s the slumlords who are putting pressure on the politicians to turn [the DRC project] down,” says Miguel, “because the new units are going to be affordable housing, which will take away from the pool of housing candidates.” And as these quotes suggest, existing residents are also mistrustful of elected officials, who they do not feel always have their best interests in mind. “They only ever cater to the people who vote—the White people—and they ignore the rest,” says Marco. “Once they’re in power, they don’t make any attempts to help people in the city.”

These points reflect a general history of relationships that existing low-income residents have had with landlords and city government (many also cite specific examples of individual landlords and officials). But the most significant event that many mention—particularly African-Americans—and looms large in their collective memory is the urban renewal era. As mentioned, urban renewal took place in Newburgh from 1958 until 1970, with most of the demolition occurring in the late 1960s, or approximately 50 years ago. Most of today’s African-American residents were either not alive or were very young then. ⁹ Still, the stories of how the city displaced African-Americans from their homes and businesses have been passed down and are part of many family histories. Wallace’s grandfather lost his business on the waterfront during urban renewal. He reflects on this time period’s importance today:

When you talk about the urban renewal initiative, people try to speak about it in a less racialized manner, as if it wasn’t a racialized attack. Yes, there were some White folks who did get displaced, a lot of them. But there was a racialized attack and people are not, there’s a lot of disingenuous people out there, they’re disingenuous and they’re liars to your face. They’ll tell you, “Hey, it wasn’t just about . . .” It was. So, my thing is when people say “Hey, there’s a lot of potential [to develop there],” but we have another contingent of people that look at things and say, “There’s a lot of potential on our backs.”

Wallace directs his comment about “potential to develop” to the DRC project’s opponents, who prefer market rate development (see below). His words reflect one of two views that stem from this history: first, that an injustice was done on that land, and a development that at least somewhat addresses it by providing subsidized housing for Newburgh’s low-income Black residents, and many hold this view; second, that the injustice itself was indicative of longstanding mistreatment that continues to the present. Debbie, for instance, was born in 1966, too young to remember urban renewal. Her family was displaced, however, and the legacy has led her to think that the waterfront is entirely lost for African-Americans. “I actually don’t care about the waterfront,” she says. “They took that from Black people a long time ago. I don’t even think about it. Whatever they end up doing there isn’t going to be for us.” For some, memory of the racialized project of urban renewal from 50 years ago informs skepticism that the DRC will benefit African-Americans. Their perspective that the project will not deliver on its promises, then, is a consequence of entrenched poverty intertwined with experienced and perceived legacies and current forms of mistreatment.

As mentioned, supporters of the project attended fewer meetings in fewer numbers and were less organized than opponents. To advocates of Newburgh’s low-income populations, these legacies also explain their inaction. They employ a common metaphor, as Arthur, a 62-year-old Black social worker, uses: “[Low-income residents of color are] not angry and pissed off as they should be. They’re beaten down. They’re tired. The mental health is compromised, the physical health is compromised and so on and so forth, they’ve been beaten down.” As potential victims of gentrification via residential, social, or political displacement, on top of other forms of ongoing mistreatment, advocates feel that low-income residents should be angrier and more willing to fight for more affordable housing like the DRC promises. They see the task, however, as highly daunting. Given their history in Newburgh, the frame low-income residents use encompasses more than just attitudes about the potential harms of gentrification. It also draws from what they see is their own structural position in the city as people who have been mistreated.

Opposing a “Wasted Opportunity”: Visions of Place in a City of Opportunity

Some opponents, on the other hand, who are home- and business-owning gentrifiers, return migrants, and a few existing, lifelong residents who own property and became successful despite Newburgh’s poor economy, certainly hold a rather clear NIMBYist perspective: they do not want a subsidized housing project in that location because they fear what it will do to their property values and/or quality of life. As Brian, a 41-year-old newcomer, says,

[Alembic] will have the authority to place people with chemical dependency issues, people with psychological imbalances, and even level one and in some cases level two sex offenders in buildings like the one that’s being proposed.

Who’s gonna rent the higher-end units that will go for over $3,000 a month? To live next to people who you already encounter daily who harass you for change and urinate on the street?

The identity of who would occupy the project’s supportive housing units was never determined. Brian specifies some possible groups to emphasize his fear-based point and also makes a more rational argument that many opponents make: Why would someone who can afford the market rate units want to live in the same mixed-income building as low-income tenants and/or ones in need of supportive services? They intend this argument—that is, as proposed, the project will surely fail—to persuade the city council to reject it.

These NIMBY attitudes, however, do not explain the full range of opponents’ perspectives. They also oppose it because they see the DRC as a “wasted opportunity.” A proposed development project could only be considered a wasted one if people think the space has potential for a better use. The site’s location—prime waterfront real estate with sweeping views—and the potential for a project there to alleviate strained municipal finances are a frequent element of opponents’ arguments. As Roy, a 49-year-old return migrant, states,

Newburgh happens to sit at the most beautiful part of the most beautiful river. You have left 1.8 acres where you can have what I think is an extremely valuable tax base to support a city that needs lights, roads, police, fire[fighters], parks, and a lot of other things for our community. Here we have this opportunity. Why is the most beautiful and the most valuable piece of property given for low-income housing?

This argument stems in part from the property taxes opponents (most of whom are property owners) pay on their homes, buildings, and/or businesses. “I’ve seen my neighbors lose their homes over high taxes, and that destroys neighborhoods,” says Shelly, a 42-year-old newcomer. Along with saying their taxes are too high, opponents also talk about not getting enough in return from the city for what they pay, such as adequate fire department and law enforcement protection and infrastructure repair.

To opponents, the problem with the DRC is that the city chose a developer whose proposed plan, they claim, will not maximize the amount of property taxes they could receive from a different type of project, specifically one that contains properties that are all market rate instead of partially publicly subsidized. Most opponents are not against affordable housing in principle, politically or otherwise. ¹⁰ They are against wasting this site’s potential. Henrietta, 62, a business owner and resident, explains:

I’m about as blue as they come. I’m so blue I’m almost conservative on certain things. I do believe that we need housing for all. I do believe that everybody deserves a roof over their head and meals and education more than anything, and healthcare—everybody should have healthcare. But I also know for a fact that if you don’t have the money to pay for that, you can’t have it.

In other words, the city is wasting an opportunity to generate tax revenue from land it owns—revenue that, theoretically, could be used to really help the people it needs to help through improved services. Opponents, then, hold a perspective that is a NIMBY–PIMBY hybrid: They want development in Newburgh, and they want it in their backyard, just not this development in their backyard. And their perspective is shaped by their status as property owners, or people in a structural position to both gain from and shape growth.

In addition, this perception of an opportunity wasted is also influenced by their framing of Newburgh as a “city of opportunity,” or a place that is growing with the potential to grow more, and of their own local identity as place entrepreneurs, or community stakeholders and shareholders with a vision of place for the city and the material means to enact it (see Bain 2018; Elwood, Lawson, and Nowak 2015). James, a 32-year-old performance artist, says, “I and people I know have renovated abandoned buildings and put them on the tax roles, we employ people, and I know others who want to move to town but the only thing holding them back is the taxes.” Similarly, Phyllis, a 52-year-old painter, also expresses both frames of Newburgh:

My hope for Newburgh is that everybody who is paying attention to send a clear message that this [project] cannot happen, that here we [newcomers] are coming in here to invest, this is 60 miles away from New York City, this is such an ideal location. I want a renaissance renovation that is all-inclusive.

Here, Phyllis uses a lot of common language and sentiments among newcomers: that Newburgh is an “ideal” place for growth, especially given its location, that they (“we”) are coming to invest in the city, and that a “renaissance renovation” is happening (they regularly use both terms, but never together like she does; more on the “all-inclusive” term below). Most importantly, she uses these points about Newburgh and newcomers as an argument against the project.

Newcomers frequently express a vision for what they want to see develop in Newburgh and how they want to see it grow. Given their professional backgrounds as workers in cultural and creative industries, this vision usually contains cultural and creative pursuits. They specifically refer to a variety of projects that should go on the waterfront instead of subsidized housing. For instance, Florence, a 48-year-old graphic designer, places Newburgh within its regional context and compares it to other nearby small cities with world-class art facilities: “Beacon has Dia, there’s Storm King, there’s the art museum in New Paltz. I want to see the Met[ropolitan Museum of Art] in the Dutch Reformed Church. Cultural institutions is what we should be targeting.” Other examples of possible projects include “boutique” hotels and event spaces. In reference to a public space on the waterfront named the People’s Park, Bernie, a 55-year-old existing resident and business and property owner, says, “That shouldn’t be called the People’s Park. That should be called the People’s 50-story Hotel . . . Open your arms and let developers in.”

They also frame themselves as an integral part of this vision. In this framing, they have been the progenitors of positive change and growth in Newburgh, which they can capably propel going forward. Anais, a 35-year-old designer and sculptor, discusses how Newburgh’s trajectory is partially predicated on a shift in mind-set among newcomers:

When the people who have the creative vision to move it beyond just a, “I want a studio in my house” into “what are the other productive uses for these properties that we can creatively transform them into something that is also more about an economic generator?”

As she implies, moving to a city with affordable real estate to make one’s art or start/expand one’s business is the existing, and quite common, scenario in cities (i.e., gentrification). But a group of individual artists and cultural workers doing so as part of a collective effort to “creatively transform” urban space into a growth engine is another (i.e., economic development).

Recall Phyllis’s quote above about wanting a “renaissance renovation that is all-inclusive.” Both sentiments—revitalization and including instead of harming others—are common among newcomers. Like other gentrifiers in the literature (Brown-Saracino 2009; Donnelly 2018), Newburgh’s newcomers are self-aware of their potential impacts on the city. They praise its diversity and claim to not want to disrupt or displace existing low-income communities. And, in a general political sense, many also support policies like affordable housing (as mentioned, some specifically state their views in their protests against the DRC project). It is contradictory, then, that they would actively protest an affordable housing project in this location, at the center of where gentrification is taking place. Given the above analysis, we can explain this contradiction by considering how they frame the city and their role in it. To them, market-based endeavors (i.e., a development project that fully maximizes the potential value of the space), like the kind that gentrification has already brought to Newburgh, specifically in prime locations in the city and with middle-class-coded cultural/creative activities, will be more equitably beneficial than publicly subsidized ones. This view dovetails with those of returnees and existing property and business owners, who, in the literature and in Newburgh, typically demonstrate a NIMBYist or NIABYist perspective. Although opponents’ opposition to this project is colorblind in the sense that they do not target racial groups (although some target groups who may be eligible for the supportive housing), it is also, to them, beneficent toward low-income groups, who are mostly racial minorities. Opposing the DRC, however, does not necessarily eliminate the contradiction—it undermines the desire to mitigate gentrification’s harms.

Conclusion

Based on the case of Newburgh, a small impoverished city experiencing gentrification, in this article, I examined why low-income groups are critical of an affordable housing development project that benefits them, and why gentrifiers who support and seek to avoid the displacement of existing low-income groups protest such a development. The answers, I have argued, go beyond economic self-interest and quality of life, as much of the literature on what motivates people’s behavior toward controversial local projects suggests. I have aimed to show how social and cultural factors, particularly how residents frame their city and their role within it, also influence why groups who support such a project are also critical of it and why groups who oppose displacement also oppose a project that would protect groups at risk of being displaced. In doing so, both groups end up undermining their stated goals: Low-income groups provide critical takes on a project they generally feel will protect them from gentrification, and gentrifiers who are sensitive to gentrification’s impacts on at-risk groups protest a project that would serve those groups.

This article’s findings make several contributions to the urban literature and have several implications for furthering our understanding of the motivations behind residents’ reactions to controversial development projects. First, this study shows the need for more contextualized analyses of residents’ reactions to urban change. Municipalities, communities, and projects are not homogeneous across time and space. An in-depth examination of on-the-ground activities reveals significant nuances and variation in how people in specific types of places react to such development initiatives amid broader changes from gentrification. For instance, this article shifts the usual attention that is paid to conditions in large cities by focusing on those in a small one. It is in this context that low-income residents have been living for generations, still geographically close to where their families have been mistreated and harmed. These legacies help shape their framing of Newburgh as a “city of mistreatment.” And it is in this context that gentrifiers occupy a new structural position as property owners that helps align them with existing actors with their own business and real estate interests and make claims to leading Newburgh’s future potential growth. Their framing of the “wasted opportunity” in a “city of opportunity,” then, is shaped by their context-specific social status. In short, future research must consider the intertwining of social and locational influences on people’s attitudes and actions toward such projects.

Second, this case contributes to the gentrification literature by expanding our knowledge of both how residents react to changes that are occurring in their neighborhood as the process unfolds and how the process differs in small cities. Or, at the very least, it shows how small cities in general create conditions more suitable for gentrifiers to become property owners and play a stronger role in shaping local development. Future gentrification studies should continue taking a comparative approach while focusing greater attention on cities of different sizes.

Finally, this study contributes to urban planning and development policy by revealing some of the hidden conflicts among local populations that could damage a project’s prospects to succeed. Unbeknown to Alembic, the developer, and perhaps even to members of the RFP selection committee and city council (or at least underappreciated by each of these actors) was a social and cultural dynamic among residents that emerged over decades of poverty and a recent surge of gentrification and reinvestment. This dynamic resulted in a year-long public conflict that went unresolved and led to the project’s demise. Policy analysts and planning professionals would benefit from considering the social and cultural factors, such as frames, that influence residents’ reactions toward controversial development projects.

Although this article reveals nuance in the range of perspectives toward this particular development project, a limitation is that it still places them within an “in-favor” and “in-opposition” analytical framework. Excluded from it, largely in the interest of space, are people who are genuinely on the fence and ambivalent in their perspectives toward the project, the developer, and their preferred path forward for Newburgh, as well as the handful of negative cases of people who diverge from their group (e.g., gentrifiers who support the project, low-income advocates who oppose it). These cases represent people from a variety of social backgrounds, including those analyzed in this article. Their existence supports the assertion that future research on residents’ reactions to development must consider the wide range of variation that exists both across and within groups.