What happens to a historically African American church when its local African American community no longer exists? Can attempts to emphasize its historic heritage help it to survive? In this dissertation, I consider the racial politics of urban gentrification and the ways in which one historic Black church community utilizes cultural heritage politics as a survival strategy and resistance to city planning in the city of Dallas, Texas. This case study is part of a much broader phenomenon dating to the post-WWII era whereby U.S. local, state, and federal government officials “redeveloped” urban neighborhoods as part of urban renewal plans. Some of these government actions resulted in drastic changes to neighborhood landscapes, displacing entire “minority” communities. Affected by similar circumstances, the St. Paul Church community chose to remain in its original neighborhood and restore its historic building, rather than bend to the will of Dallas city planners. In particular, I examine two church heritage projects; a public archaeology project in which a shotgun house site was excavated on the church property and a public history project which resulted in an interpretive history exhibition on the church. I examine how this church community became involved in these two projects and whether these approaches are practical to the historic preservation of this church community. Basic contributions of this work include: 1) filling gaps in public archaeology research by examining a public archaeology project, beyond the excavation, and critiquing its viability in jeopardized urban contexts, 2) analyzing strategies of political mobilization around heritage politics; 3) determining which Black communities are more likely to engage in and benefit from this type of political mobilization; and 4) problematizing what constitutes giving the power to a community to negotiate its past in the present. This dissertation project finds that although African-American and other minority groups are often politically and economically disadvantaged when challenging eminent domain abuse, these communities are not powerless. The St. Paul community’s utilization of heritage politics as a means to avert eminent domain abuse is one case in point. / text

This dissertation explores parent-gentrifiers’ lived experiences of the school-selection process, including the social networking and the influence of those social networks in their selection of schools. School choice and parent involvement are forms of social capital, and such social capital represents the results of social networking and parental agency. The unknown is how this scenario manifests itself in gentrifying parents’ school-selection process in Atlanta’s Kirkwood and Grant Park neighborhoods. Gentrifying children’s absence in urban public schools is of interest as residential areas integrate, while schools (re)segregate. The research paradigm is interpretivist as it investigates the qualitatively different ways in which people experience or think about a phenomenon (Marton, 1986). Purposive snowball sampling is used to reach 30 eligible participants in two neighborhoods. The methodological approach is qualitative phenomenographic interviews. The research found five options considered by parent-gentrifiers in the school-selection process that are consistent with the previous literature: public school, charter school, private school, homeschool and undecided/not yet. The forms of communication utilized in the social networking were face-to-face, phone, e-mail, social networking sites, and texting. Participants varied by work schedule, neighborhood communication infrastructure, and level of social network in their forms of communication. Parent-gentrifiers’ approaches to school selection included: activating agency, social networking, operating in social spaces, their social agenda with regard to diversity, and their educational agenda with regard to curriculum, instruction, and school characteristics. The results show that while parents espouse racial and socioeconomic diversity, their choices in the option-demand system in Grant Park resulted in racial segregation among the schools. In contrast, the lack of formal options in Kirkwood resulted in racial integration in the public elementary school. The actions interpreted and ideas constructed in the process of selecting schools as a parent-gentrifier are of practical value to district efforts to understand the urban middle-class school-selection process. In light of increasing school segregation and student attrition, continued urban revitalization efforts and the sustainability of those efforts for many major cities in the United States is highly dependent on their ability to regenerate and maintain quality schools that attract the middle-class.

The 2008-2010 foreclosure crisis and the Beltline project present two significant forces shaping neighborhoods throughout Atlanta. Both the high foreclosure rates and the promise of public and private investment create conditions for the displacement of existing residents and for the gentrification of the southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Pittsburgh in particular. Through qualitative analysis, including interviews with residents, community leaders, and government officials, the development of overlay analysis maps of Pittsburgh, as well as studying the various stakeholders' perception of risk for gentrification in Pittsburgh, this research examines how and why these stakeholders' perception of the risk of gentrification in Pittsburgh varies, and what these various perceptions mean. Furthermore, it suggests that scholars of the gentrification process should more fully consider the ways in which residents of impacted neighborhoods understand both local and more “global” dynamics of property markets and how various policies seek to mitigate the deleterious effects of gentrification.

Le Plateau Mont-Royal est l'un des quartiers centraux montréalais qui ont connu, après une période de « dégénérescence » au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, un regain d'intérêt et une gentrification extraordinaires durant les trois dernières décennies. Cependant, très peu d'études se sont penchées sur le processus par lequel ce quartier central, autrefois mésestimé, a acquis dès les années 1970 une qualité d'attractivité exceptionnelle. Cette thèse de doctorat s'est efforcée de retracer, à travers l'analyse des quotidiens montréalais de 1970 à 1995, cette phase fascinante de l'histoire urbaine du quartier. Elle s'est précisément intéressée à dévoiler les représentations médiatiques rattachées au quartier durant cette période de renouveau. L'objectif principal n'était pas d'expliquer le phénomène de gentrification du quartier en tant que tel, mais de mettre en lumière l'imaginaire médiatique qui fut susceptible d'influencer ce phénomène. La recherche a révélé que l'imaginaire médiatique construit autour du Plateau a connu, en accompagnant toutes les étapes du processus de restructuration du paysage urbain du quartier, trois moments. Le premier moment (décennie 1970), caractérisé par la déstabilisation de la ville sous la poussée de l'urbanisme moderne, est le moment le plus décisif de l'histoire de la revalorisation médiatique du Plateau. Par opposition à l'urbanisme moderne du moment qui ravage les quartiers centraux, le Plateau se voit investit d'un discours promotionnel qui l'érige, entre autres, comme un modèle d'urbanité et d'urbanisme, le lieu privilégié de la sociabilité, le cadre par excellence de la tolérance sociale et un des joyaux de l'identité montréalaise. Avec sa métamorphose urbanistique et sociale initiées durant les années 1980, le Plateau incarne pour la presse le renouveau urbain. Durant la décennie suivante, le développement urbanistique et culturel du Plateau est achevé, et ce dernier est présenté par la presse comme un bastion de la postmodernité, le principal foyer culturel de Montréal et un des quartiers mythiques de l'Amérique du Nord. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Quartiers centraux, Revitalisation urbaine, Gentrification, Représentations médiatiques, Plateau Mont-Royal, Montréal.

The 2008-2010 foreclosure crisis and the Beltline project present two significant forces shaping neighborhoods throughout Atlanta. Both the high foreclosure rates and the promise of public and private investment create conditions for the displacement of existing residents and for the gentrification of the southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Pittsburgh in particular. Through qualitative analysis, including interviews with residents, community leaders, and government officials, the development of overlay analysis maps of Pittsburgh, as well as studying the various stakeholders' perception of risk for gentrification in Pittsburgh, this research examines how and why these stakeholders' perception of the risk of gentrification in Pittsburgh varies, and what these various perceptions mean. Furthermore, it suggests that scholars of the gentrification process should more fully consider the ways in which residents of impacted neighborhoods understand both local and more “global” dynamics of property markets and how various policies seek to mitigate the deleterious effects of gentrification.

Seeking to widen the existing literature on postcolonial cities, this thesis conducts an inquiry into the multilocality of postcolonial space. Through ethnographic research in Sri Lanka’s Galle Fort, it investigates how different social groups differently use and interpret the city’s former colonial built environment. Specifically, it examines how the postcolonial city is socially produced and constructed as a place of home for local communities, a World Heritage Site, and a gentrifying neighborhood. Using interviews, observations, and spatial analyses, it teases out the local, national, and transnational socio-economic forces that drive these processes, as well as the power-dynamics and resistances that come into play. It finds that postcolonial uses of space often relate to, and sometimes recall, social struggles that characterized urban space under colonialism. Drawing on these findings, it highlights the importance of studying social relations, heritage management, and gentrification in postcolonial cities in conversation with literatures on colonial urbanisms.

This thesis provides an ethnographic examination of the contribution of recreational hunting in developing a sense of rural identity among hunters in Wellington County, Ontario. Throughout Summer and Autumn 2012, 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted with recreational hunters and their peers, with a total of 17 participants. Using the theoretical framework of anthropology of space and place, this thesis suggests that hunting functions to connect rural residents to a sense of identity in Wellington County, particularly in the context of landscape changes associated with rural gentrification. Hunting provides a means of control over hunters’ experience as rural people, while also providing a mechanism for establishing attachment to place through mastery and sensory experience. The results of this study indicate that hunting provides a reference point for establishing an identity in alignment with what participants recognized as rural values, and in opposition to what participants identified as urban characteristics.

This research explores culture-led regeneration; specifically, how and why small, community-based culture-led regeneration projects potentially affect their respective communities. Methodology is founded on an in-depth case study of The Edge Artist Village in Winnipeg, supported by a literature review, quantitative research examining property values, and archival research. The practicum shows that The Edge Artist Village has had a tremendous impact on the community of North Main Street. While various stakeholders interpreted The Edge‘s impact in different ways, perceptions of safety in the community have improved, and long vacant buildings in the neighbourhood are finding new tenants. This study makes recommendations as to how planners can potentially play a role in encouraging culture-led regeneration projects such as The Edge Artist Village, and suggests ways in which private developers and municipal government can collaborate more effectively to support their communities.

This dissertation aims to expand our understanding of how lifestyle migrants from the Global North impact the urban space of a Global South city, particularly the built environment. In order to situate the questions posed in this dissertation, I focus on how lifestyle migrants from the Global North and their foreign capital transform the city of Granada, Nicaragua through processes of gentrification, and how the social and economic climate of the city and its residents are impacted. This research allows for empirically informed theoretical critiques to be made about the economic and social implications of the globalization of gentrification resulting from heterogeneous lifestyle migration. The property markets in many Global North locations, most notably the US, have pushed lifestyle migrants to look abroad; gentrification has gone international, spreading to the Global South. For reasons such as affordability and proximity to the US and Canada, many Global North property-buyers are looking to the colonial historic city center of Granada, Nicaragua as a site for relocation and investment. These migrants are purchasing and remodeling colonial-style homes as part of a broader transformation of the historic center to cater to international tourism and elite consumption. Many lifestyle migrants involved in the gentrification processes occurring in Granada are choosing transnational lifestyles by maintaining citizenship in their home countries, and simultaneously engaging in economic and social relationships in both Nicaragua and their home (or other) countries. The advantages that accompany their positions as migrants from the Global North greatly affect the lifestyle migrants’ roles in the transformation of the city, regardless of their own personal social and economic status at home. Many lifestyle migrants embrace a role of economic and social developers, and often enact a racist and neocolonialist understanding of the Nicaraguan people and culture as needing “improvement”. Lifestyle migrants are generally able to benefit from capital accumulated in Global North markets and their Global North citizen status enables them to live a mobile, transnational lifestyle. Such economic and mobility opportunities are unavailable for many Nicaraguans, further exacerbating the inequalities between local Nicaraguan residents and privileged lifestyle migrants.

In my critical discourse analysis of The Intown Academy's (TIA) various documents and media—including the school's charter petition, charter, Parent-Student Handbook, and website—I articulate the school's subjectifying narratives and analyze how these narratives function to (re)produce particular subjects according to tropes of threat/crisis, opportunity, corporate/non-profit benevolence, and personal responsibility. Identifying these subjects, I analyze how they are effected/affected by the practice of education at TIA. To this end, I examine the various practices of school discipline codified in the Parent and Student Contracts in TIA's 2012-2013 Parent Student Handbook, including mandates for the wearing of school uniforms, volunteer labor, and reorientations of the family and the private space of the home. I conclude that TIA discursively produces indebted subjects whose educational and economic survival depends on the reorientation of their lives in service to the school.