Bargaining for Benefits: The Dilemmas of Implementing the West Harlem Community Benefits Agreement

Abstract

Universities have historically functioned as anchors for broader visions of urban development. As sites where residents mobilize to protect their livelihoods and communities from university expansion, these spaces prompt two important questions. How can residents exert influence over these projects to ensure they benefit from new development? And how can communities better ensure that promised benefits are effectively delivered over time? This article uses the West Harlem Community Benefits Agreement to explore these questions. It evaluates its unfolding implementation, specifically the frustrated link between successful negotiation for community benefits and effective delivery of them. I argue these frustrations stem from the outsourcing of responsibility for benefits delivery to the West Harlem Development Corporation, which lacked opportunities for long-term public accountability and the effective ability to implement them. More broadly, this article problematizes development strategies that prescribe private and localized solutions for structural urban problems.