African-American women's activism and ghetto formation in a Washington, D.C. neighborhood

How did Northwest One become a ghetto? How and why is it losing its ghetto status? In this research I am concerned with social processes of place construction. I analyze the relationships that have sustained, shaped, and been shaped by a piece of urban land in Washington, DC. Comparing 1960s urban renewal redevelopment with current redevelopment plans illuminates place-making processes that involve historically evolving relationships between residents, planners, developers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. I use ethnographic and historical methods to describe neighborhood change during urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s, and changes in the same area during the contemporary period of the late 1990s. Interviews, archival data, census data, and ethnographic fieldwork inform my analysis. Space and place theories, and political economy perspectives on urban change guide my interpretations.