Gainesville’s Forgotten Neighborhood

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings

This study contributes to our understanding of how planning reproduces the “dominant narratives” of the most powerful, especially those that stigmatize minority neighborhoods, but also how equity-minded planners can identify and apply residents’ views, or their “counternarratives.” To enable the focus on social equity, we used critical race theory (CRT) to examine enduring racial stigma, particularly against African Americans, in historical and current planning narratives. Specifically, we conducted a case study of more than 5 decades of neighborhood planning in the Porters neighborhood of Gainesville (FL) to understand how planners’ roles in storytelling and narratives reinforce inequity. Using a thematic narrative analysis, we discovered patterns and relationships in stories and narratives from within and outside the neighborhood and how dominant narratives became embedded in planning documents. The thematic narrative analysis of the Porters case was informed by our 2017–2018 research project to pilot a participatory neighborhood narrative for use in local planning. Through this analysis of practice in an African American community within a Deep South college town, we conclude that narratives matter and have profound consequences. Although neighborhood planning has shifted to include participatory methods, planners often fail to examine their own biases and the racist presumptions of planning culture and institutions before crafting policy.

Takeaway for practice

Narratives are not only externally imposed on locales by surrounding residents but are also integrated and reproduced in planning documents. Reflective equity-minded planners can use narrative inquiry and CRT to deliberately examine the prevailing narratives within their historic and current policies. Using this study’s approach as a starting point, planners can examine how narratives can compete and are reproduced in the media and planning documents, by planning staff, and among neighborhood residents and to what ends.

Keywords:

• critical race theory
• narratives
• neighborhood planning
• social equity
• territorial stigma

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be found on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1 The Porters community is located within two larger census tracts that include nearby denser student housing as well as another historic African American neighborhood, historic White neighborhoods, and the downtown business district. This approximation of the neighborhood population is based on a residential parcel count of 209 and an average persons per household figure of 2.35. The parcel data were collected from the Alachua County Office of the Property Appraiser. The average persons per household figure was collected from the City of Gainesville Comprehensive Plan. The population for Porters based on these figures is 491.

2 Porters Neighborhood has also been called Porters Quarters; although the history of the names is beyond the scope of this study, it is an example of a potential point of intrigue for narrative inquiry.

3 Initiated in 2010, the Innovation District is an approximately 16-acre area associated with technology and business development offering office, restaurant, lab, and retail spaces. The Innovation District is a University of Florida–sponsored public–private partnership planned in coordination with the Gainesville CRA. The Gainesville CRA was responsible for infrastructure planning and rezoning the area to allow for a unified development plan. The Innovation District borders the Porters neighborhood to the west, across SW 6th Street.

4 The quoted language from Frank et al. (2018) mirrors language that appears in the SDP regarding the strengths of the broader urban area as bolstered by the university.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tyeshia Redden

TYESHIA REDDEN ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Africana Studies Program at Gettysburg College.

Laura Dedenbach

LAURA DEDENBACH ([email protected]) is an instructional assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florida.

Kristin Larsen

KRISTIN LARSEN ([email protected]) is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florida.

Kathryn Frank

KATHRYN FRANK ([email protected]) is an associate professor and acting director of the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Florida.