Corporately Sponsored Redevelopment Campaigns and the Demographic Stability of Urban Neighborhoods: St. Louis Re-Revisited

ABSTRACT:

Much popular speculation and scientific thinking continues to hold that inner-city neighborhoods cannot be redeveloped in a manner that is congenial to a broad array of interests and people. Lower income and minority citizens are not supposed to find a permanent place in redeveloped neighborhoods, especially, perhaps, when the rebuilding process is influenced strongly by corporations with a stake in the area being rehabilitated. This reassessment of five redevelopment campaigns in Saint Louis affirms that rebuilding sponsored by businesses and nonprofit institutions and aided by government agencies can attract and hold persons from different backgrounds, stages of life, and social classes. Maintaining a racial mix of people that is proportionate to their representation in the general population much less skewed toward becoming whiter is difficult, however.

Notes

1 Following the findings of Schlossberg (2003), we use the smallest areal unit available for neighborhood analysis. Block level data would be the ideal, but very limited data exist at the block level. For this reason, the block group level should be used. The “proportional split” approach should be used in neighborhood analysis. The proportional split method “applies the proportion of a census zone that is within the study to the census data of that particular census zone.” We combined these two, using block group-level data and the proportional split method. For a fuller explanation and example of the methods used, please refer to https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/st-louis-redevelopment/