Surviving suburban redevelopment: Resisting the displacement of immigrant-owned small businesses in Wheaton, Maryland

ABSTRACT

In the past several decades, the suburbs of many U.S. metropolitan regions have seen rising levels of poverty, immigration, and racial and ethnic diversity. At the same time, suburban redevelopment has led to more “urban-like” development patterns and struggles over gentrification and displacement. In a case study of Wheaton, Maryland, this article explores how redevelopment impacted suburban immigrants and small businesses and how they fought back. Using interviews with key stakeholders and secondary documents about Wheaton’s redevelopment, it shows several challenges to advancing equitable development in suburbs, including the capacity of community-based organizations, political representation, and limited government policies and programs. However, grassroots activists and grasstops policymakers have slowly built the capacity of communities to balance the scales of development. As suburbs redevelop, the article offers lessons about the consequences for socially and economically vulnerable groups and the political and community-based structures and support needed to advance equitable outcomes.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Lauren Stamm, Emily Benoit, Katie Gerbes, Joseph Christo, Pranjali Rai, and Margaret Curran for their research assistance.

Notes

1. Grasstops typically refers to activists that have a prominent professional or public profile that can raise public attention or influence decision makers through established connections.

2. With the adoption of a new Wheaton CBD sector plan in 2012, the county officially did away with the overlay. New CBD zoning designations also further raised the height limits to 250 feet in the Wheaton Triangle and to 200 feet in adjacent parcels. WUDAC and WRAC were important platforms for community residents and businesses to provide input in the process.

Additional information

Funding

This research has received funding from multiple sources at the University of Maryland, including the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Research and Scholarship Award administered by the Graduate School; the ADVANCE Program for Inclusive Excellence (NSF award HRD1008117); and the Qualitative Interest Group at the Center for Race, Gender, and Ethnicity. It has also been supported by a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Willow S. Lung-Amam

Willow S. Lung-Amam is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and Director of Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her scholarship focuses on how urban policies and plans contribute to and can address social inequality, particularly in neighborhoods undergoing rapid racial and economic change. Dr. Lung-Amam has written extensively on immigrant suburbanization, equitable development, gentrification, suburban poverty, and geographies of opportunity, including the book Trespassers? Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia (University of California Press, 2017). Her research has appeared in various journals, books, reports, and popular media outlets, including The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun. It has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice, Enterprise Community Partners, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and other local, state, and federal agencies and foundations.