Planning for empowerment: Upending the traditional approach to planning for affordable housing in the face of gentrification

Kathryn L. Howell

Planning Theory & Practice, 2016, vol. 17, issue 2, 210-226

Abstract: The recent growth and gentrification of many cities has shifted the electoral and financial power, leaving low-income households with few options through which to claim rights to the city and remain in their communities. This type of community empowerment has been theorized as a dialectical relationship between the institutionalization and the assertion of discursive rights. However, this relationship requires the interactions of diverse actors and structures of governance to change the opportunities for marginalized groups to resist and build substantive rights. Using the case of housing and community development in Washington, DC, this paper explores the interplay between multiple sites of planning that have interacted over the past 40 years. These sites – government, advocacy and grassroots – have institutionalized discursive rights and created the conditions in which these rights can be effectively exercised to create opportunities for resistance against displacement. These relationships have created a new kind of governance based on housing policy and community empowerment in Washington, DC.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2016.1156729

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