Place-making or place-claiming? Creating a ‘Latino Quarter’ in Oakland, California

Proposals for higher-density development in established neighbourhoods are frequently opposed by local community members who argue that the existing ‘character’ of a place would be damaged or destroyed. This article considers the use of these community-based understandings of character as a tool for actively shaping processes of urban change. The article relates a case study of the Californian district of Fruitvale, where recent processes of redevelopment were driven by community perceptions of a ‘Latino character’. The article finds that this existing Latino character was used to great effect as a design tool in Fruitvale, but in a way that can be seen as essentialist and socially divisive; a Latino character here was deployed at the expense of alternative conceptions of Fruitvale as ‘multicultural’. Reflecting on the case through theories of place and social difference, the article raises questions about the politics of character, and the uses and abuses of the term in urban planning and design practice.