Sounding the Powers of Place in Neighborhoods: Responses to the Urban Crisis in Washington Heights and New York City

Abstract

As scholars move from studying the city as the setting for larger social processes to exploring how cities play constitutive roles in historical change, it is important to explore the most fundamental and complex unit of urban life—the neighborhood—in all its subjective meanings and dimensions. This essay, which builds on my book, Crossing Broadway: Washington Heights and the Promise of New York City (Cornell, 2015), examines how residents of the Washington Heights section of northern Manhattan, who mentally divided their neighborhood into smaller and separate enclaves, overcame their divisions to avert the worst threats of the urban crisis in impressive displays of collective efficacy. Residents crossed and redefined neighborhood boundaries to preserve housing, empower Dominican immigrants, reduce crime, and recover parks and public spaces that had been damaged by neglect and violence. Ironically, the success of their efforts set off a surge in gentrification that threatens to displace poor and working-class residents. The study of their efforts, especially with oral history interviews, reveals the micro-neighborhoods that exist within a neighborhood boundary, the importance of thinking about space in urban culture and politics, and the value and limits of neighborhood action for social change.