MEGA‐REAL ESTATE SPECULATION AND RACIALIZED DISPOSSESSION: Miami's Little Haiti

Richard Tardanico

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2025, vol. 49, issue 1, 21-38

Abstract: This article contributes to research on racialized dispossession through the lens of popular responses to local/global conjunctures of urban financial speculation. How has a predominantly Black immigrant community, Little Haiti, confronted a surging variant of Miami's history of racialized dispossession—corporate mega‐real estate speculation—since 2008's global financial crisis? I examine Little Haiti's confrontation with the proposed Magic City Innovation District, which is, in fact, no more than a large‐scale, mixed‐use commercial venture. Greater Miami's conjuncture undermined the community's capacity to resist or effectively negotiate with Magic City's partnership in three ways: a real estate hegemonic metropolis devoid of potent allies; the near absence of neighborhood‐resident resistance leadership in a working‐poor immigrant community; and a political fracture within Greater Miami's Haitian collective responses over the politics of patronage and accommodative versus contentious bargaining. By enveloping patronage practices within speculative imaginaries of inclusive, tech‐led neighborhood and metropolitan prosperity, Magic City's partnership and local government reinforced that fracture and politically marginalized both the accommodative and contentious factions. I conclude by considering the dilemma of disenfranchised communities today when confronting racialized speculative intrusions. The article's empirical content draws primarily on my collaborative‐community activism, city commission planning sessions and official documentation.

Date: 2025
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