‘Mexicans love red’ and other gentrification myths: Displacements and contestations in the gentrification of Pilsen, Chicago, USA

This article uses experiences from a decade-long community-based research project in the Pilsen neighbourhood of Chicago, a Mexican-American neighbourhood whose residents are both experiencing and resisting gentrification, to show how displacements and contestations evolve in conversation with each other in an iterative process we could call ‘actually existing’ gentrifications. I analyse a series of ‘moments’ in 13 years of research in Pilsen to illustrate the constantly shifting terrain of gentrification politics, covering not just housing affordability, but the nature of identity, democracy and belonging. As communities develop resistance strategies to gentrification, so too do city planners, policy makers and developers adapt to these community strategies to reframe their vision of the community. In highlighting both the success of community resistance in mitigating some of the worst effects of gentrification and the co-optation of some of these same strategies in the reframing of gentrification, my goal is to show that gentrification is rarely ever done or complete but is continuously enacted and resisted, challenging the idea that gentrification is somehow inevitable. 本文利用对芝加哥皮尔森街区长达十年的社区研究项目经验, 来展现拆迁和竞争如何在我们可称之为“实存”绅士化的过程中以对话方式展开。皮尔森是一个墨西哥裔美国人居住区, 其居民既经历着绅士化, 又抵制着绅士化。本文分析了皮尔森 13 年研究中的一系列“时刻”, 以说明不断转变的绅士化政治格局, 其中不但涉及住房负担能力, 也涉及身份认同、民主和归属的性质。随着社区发展出抵制绅士化的策略, 城市规划者、政策制定者和开发者也作出了调整来适应这些社区策略, 重新框定他们对社区的愿景。本文既强调了社区抵制行动成功减轻了绅士化的一些恶劣影响, 也强调了在绅士化的重新框定过程中, 这些相同的策略所涉的共同选择。本文的目的是表明, 绅士化很少有完成的状态, 而是持续不断地上演和抵制, 从而挑战了绅士化在某种程度上不可避免的观点。