Celebrating Local Histories and Defining Neighbourhood Communities: Place-making in a Gentrified Neighbourhood

Abstract

Processes of place-making in urban neighbourhoods include accounts of history that may vary among social groups of residents, especially in neighbourhoods that have witnessed decay and/or regeneration. This paper investigates the historical narratives of residents of a gentrified neighbourhood formerly known as a Little Italy in New Haven, Connecticut, US, as processes of place-making. It confronts these with histories of agents `absent' in the dominant narratives—here, poor Black residents. The paper addresses the consequences of the discursive dominance of certain narratives over others and discusses how such historical narratives affect place stratification and how the symbolic meanings of place strengthened through such accounts of history affect a neighbourhood's access to resources.