Re-constructing place and community : urban heritage and the symbolic politics of neighborhood revitalization

Abstract

Inner-city neighborhoods have gathered new life as the hopeful settings for the resurrection of community, safety, economy, and social vitality. Preservationists, artists, historians, and urban designers make bold claims that urban heritage can strengthen community identity, empower neighborhood residents, and serve as catalysts for economic revitalization. Despite the prominence of such claims in professional and policy discourse, the social and political implications of heritage revitalization strategies remain largely unexplored. This exploratory study therefore builds a theory explaining the ways in which heritage is used by different groups and actors to promote the economic revitalization of historic inner-city neighborhoods. This dissertation uses a comparative case-study method to apprehend three ways in which heritage is used instrumentally to promote neighborhood revitalization: heritage as reclamation, the invocation of legacies to validate disputed claims to space by communities engaged in struggle; heritage as remembrance, the evocation of the past through commemoration; and heritage as restoration, the literal and discursive recreation of the past in the present through ritual and ephemeral urbanism. Two neighborhoods, the 18th and Vine Historic District of Kansas City, Missouri, and Ybor City in Tampa, Florida, represent in-depth case studies of the second and third categories. The model developed in this dissertation identifies four structural factors intrinsic to differences in the outcomes of heritage-based revitalization: 1) small-scale activities by "place entrepreneurs," or individuals with active financial, social, and ethnic commitments to place; 2) the creation, manipulation, and promotion of heritage narratives by heritage institutions (such as museums and historical societies);

(cont.) 3) the public institutions and policies through which heritage is developed and implemented; and 4) the symbolic evocation of memory and place through "ephemeral urbanism", including routine patterns of street life as well as elaborate "invented traditions" such as fairs and festivals. The conclusion offers recommendations for designers and planners engaged in heritage-based practice.