For decades, Chicago's South Side has provided the material for the iconic representation of black urban poverty in the USA. Today, the poorest (but best-located) parts of this vast homeland - where land and homes could be had for a pittance two decades ago - are being celebrated by the City, eyed by developers, and featured by the media for their rise from the dust. This article focuses on how they are also being reclaimed by affluent African Americans, and the resulting contests over the representations of blackness. Three years of ethnographic research in North Kenwood - Oakland, located near the heart of black Chicago, highlight the class and lifestyle fractures within black identity, while affirming the persistence of blackness as a collective experience and endeavor. Nonetheless, the distinctions made by affluent blacks, which marginalize the behaviors and interests of their poor black neighbors, have real consequences for the distribution of neighborhood resources.
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