Making and Unmaking Multiethnic Black Neighborhoods: Immigration, Race, and Gentrification in New York and Paris

Author

Maura McGee, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

2-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Sociology

Advisor

John Mollenkopf

Committee Members

Sharon Zukin

Philip Kasinitz

Richard Alba

Subject Categories

Migration Studies | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies | Race and Ethnicity | Sociology

Keywords

urban sociology, gentrification, immigration, race, ethnicity, New York, Paris

Abstract

This dissertation is a transatlantic comparative study of gentrification in multiethnic Black neighborhoods in New York and Paris. It draws on neighborhood case studies conducted in Crown Heights in Brooklyn and la Goutte d’Or in Paris, home respectively to African ancestry immigrant communities from the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. It looks specifically at the causes and consequences of changes in neighborhood social spaces—the commercial landscape and social institutions—rather than at shifts in residential patterns.

Three main questions guide this research. First, what roles do race and immigration play in the process of gentrification, which has historically been most prevalent in white working-class neighborhoods? Second, how do state regulation and local urban development policies influence how gentrification unfolds in different ways across these two national and local contexts? And third, how do immigrants and racial minorities contend with changes to their neighborhoods induced by gentrification, with particular focus on changes in commercial and social spaces?

As a comparative project, this research investigates how differences in settings and communities between Brooklyn and Paris, and more generally, between the United States and France, shape the interactions among race, class, nativity, and local governance in constituting commercial streets and social life in these neighborhoods. It shows that land-use regulation and the degree to which commercial activity is sheltered from the market is critical to how gentrification proceeds. Gentrification has progressed much faster and has affected both the residential and commercial landscapes in Crown Heights while progressing more slowly in la Goutte d’Or, where the commercial landscape strongly maintains its African character. It shows the harmful effects of gentrification on immigrant and racial minority communities, and how residents, users, and merchants navigate and respond to the changes gentrification induces. At the same time, gentrification has opened up new opportunities for minority groups to appropriate contested space. Finally, it shows that anti-gentrification resistance is strong in Brooklyn but has no counterpart in Paris. This highlights a paradox between strong states and weak communities (Paris) versus weak states and strong communities (New York). This paradox is also reflected in how the two settings construct racial difference. This study highlights how the importance of African descent plays out differently in the two settings, and how that intersects with forms of urban transformation.

Recommended Citation

McGee, Maura, "Making and Unmaking Multiethnic Black Neighborhoods: Immigration, Race, and Gentrification in New York and Paris" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5711