John Betancur

• Professor (Full) at University of Illinois Chicago

"The history of the incorporation of Latino workers into the economy best explains the Latino experience in the Chicago area and provides a backdrop for understanding the impact of economic restructuring."

Governance is a polysemic prescription for contemporary government and at an urban level has been instrumental in some radical and often striking reshaping of cities. This paper examines the interests and power structures behind those changes through the critical examination of the case of Medellin, Colombia, until recently a model of “good governa...

Most of the literature and other publications on CBOs assume that they speak the voices and pursue the interests of the communities they claim to represent. While acknowledging the transformative work of some of them, recent studies have portrayed CBOs as forces of social control and poverty management. This paper reports the findings of a study ex...

This chapter examines prevailing approaches to the study of neighborhoods and neighborhood change, paying attention to how they help describe and explain as well as produce urban dynamics. It begins with a chronological review of the early work of the Chicago School and subsequent theories it generated—filtering, life cycle, racial tipping, and rev...

This chapter explores how today's neighborhoods operate as flexible spaces of accumulation that range between the extremes of gentrification and ghettoization. It first examines how the new postindustrial regime weakened and dissolved the industrial era order of space, and how it gave rise to a distinct dialectic of ghettoization (disinvestment) an...

This chapter explores various efforts to “sell” neighborhoods as well as the construction and destruction of community through commodification. Using as examples Paseo Boricua in Humboldt Park and Halsted North (Boys Town) in Lakeview, it shows how particular ethnicities or lifestyles have been appropriated by cities and capital to be commodified a...

This chapter examines how the transformation of public housing leads to neighborhood change by focusing on two Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini Green on the Lower North Side and Lakefront Properties on the South Side. More specifically, it considers how each neighborhood was transformed over decades into a space of flexible accumulation in which to b...

This chapter examines how race and ethnicity get attached to neighborhood change by comparing and contrasting the presumed gentrification of two Chicago neighborhoods, Pilsen and Bronzeville: the first is predominantly black and the other is predominantly Latino. More specifically, it considers the role played by representations in the process of f...

This book has highlighted the shortcomings of both mainstream and critical approaches used to explain how and why neighborhoods change by focusing on the case of Chicago. The evidence it has presented shows that neighborhoods are important yet limited spaces for study, policy making, and activism. This concluding chapter discusses the three broad c...

This chapter examines how community development can be caught in the trappings of flexible accumulation and even contribute to the displacement of the people it claims to represent. Focusing on the process of social engineering vis-à-vis mixed-income housing that the Chicago Housing Authority has been advancing through its Plan for Transformation,...

This chapter offers a historical account of how Englewood—a South Side neighborhood that went from white to black and from middle-class to poor—became a ghetto. More specifically, it examines the material and representational construction of Englewood by focusing on two major moments that helped produce its current space: the production of “normal”...

This chapter examines the effects of classifying neighborhoods based on ecological indicators, both in the form of representations of space and in the policies/interventions derived from their use. It starts with the assumption that existing theories of neighborhood change have given rise to a particular discursive space in which to interpret urban...

For decades, North American cities racked by deindustrialization and population loss have followed one primary path in their attempts at revitalization: a focus on economic growth in downtown and business areas. Neighborhoods, meanwhile, have often been left severely underserved. There are, however, signs of change. This collection of studies by a...

This article offers a structural interpretation of Black–Latino relations based on critical insights especially from political economy and the work of Pierre Bourdieu. It argues that, socialized to play the roles that correspond to their positions, Blacks and Latinos have limited control of their relations; rather, relations express racial structur...

This article explores how community-based organizations working in low-income residential neighborhoods of U.S. cities employ e-tools and social networking platforms to engage the youth. The authors interviewed representatives of community organizations that work with young adults from lower-income groups in Chicago to comprehend their actual usage...

This paper offers a critical review and interpretation of gentrification in Latin American cities. Applying a flexible methodology, it examines enabling conditions associated with societal regime change and local contingencies to determine its presence, nature, extent, and possibilities. Questioning the uncritical transfer of constructs such as gen...

div> This volume emerged from a collaborative Network of Excellence project funded by the European Commission. The Network, which comprises thirty-two institutes from Europe and beyond, integrates European research capabilities across disciplines and countries to provide the society and the state with tools for managing cultural diversity as a key...

This article examines the 2006-2007 phase of the immigration movement in Chicago with a particular focus on the capacity of Latinos to advance initiatives of this magnitude. It studies the factors and forces involved and the ways in which they combined in opposition to federal immigration bill HR 4437. The experience points to a multifaceted moveme...

Critical authors of gentrification point to its deleterious impacts on displaced residents. Research on the nature or actual forms of impacts has not advanced much, however. This paper attempts to specify impacts on low-income racial/ethnic groups (Latinos in particular) in five Chicago neighbourhoods, with a particular focus on neighbourhood-based...

Governance now appears to be a critical feature of urban restructuring in modern society. It marks a shift from a belief that government can solve the problems facing society to one that implicates a wide range of stakeholders in the process of problem solving. A commitment to governance implies a process of bringing together the public sector, the...

This paper examines the genesis and trajectory of diversity in the USA. It argues that unfortunately diversity was more a product of market interests and differential processes in the recruitment of workers at different times and for different purposes than a smooth process of incorporation of immigrant groups from different cultures and continents...

This chapter studies African American-Latino relations in the United States. Drawing on existing literature, it examines their nature, dimensions, and methodological questions while, at the same time, advancing some proposals. Still in its infancy, the study of African American-Latino relations has profited from its white-African American counterpa...

This article examines the transformation of community development in Chicago in the last three decades from a predominately grass roots movement for social change to a much smaller and fragmented one led by professionalized groups. It focuses on Harold Washington’s and Richard M. Daley’s mayoral regimes and the ways they helped to shape the context...

The author examines the local dialectics of power associated with gentrification in the community of West Town in Chicago, discussing the process, contentions resulting from opposite interests, strategies of the major players involved, and the painful and emotional struggles that have resulted from the advance of gentrification. Today, West Town is...

This review essay examines four books representing some of the main positions and proposed solutions regarding African American and Latino underdevelopment in the United States today. It summarizes and contrasts the various, often contending views, present in the books. The author argues that the debate reflects deep contradictions in American soci...

This article describes the process and characteristics of Latino settlement in Chicago. It identifies elements of segregation and discrimination associated with Latino status. The analysis disagrees with Massey's claim that Latino settlement is proceeding along the lines of the ecological model. It claims that, though descriptively relevant, the mo...

Efforts of community groups and local governments to gain jobs for a specific pool of unemployed workers often suffer from a limited and fragmented approach that does not give sufficient priority to the unique conditions, skills, and experience of the workers themselves. This article suggests a remedy. It documents the shortcomings of traditional f...

Without Abstract

The downtown growth strategy increasingly is receiving criticism for ignoring neighborhoods and for producing negative impacts on nearby neighborhoods, residents, and businesses. In Chicago between 1978 and 1987 massive downtown growth produced industrial displacement - the forced relocation of businesses - alongside the new investment, jobs, and t...

Spontaneous settlements have been perceived by many authors as a solution to the housing problem in the underdeveloped world. This article contends that their descriptions of spontaneous settlements miss key variables and are often misleading. In particular it argues that calling spontaneous settlement housing a solution results in the legitimation...