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The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville, by Derek S. Hyra. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008. 214pp. $22.50 cloth. ISBN: 9780226366043.
For better or for worse, urban scholars often draw comparisons between two iconic black communities -New York's Harlem and Chicago's South Side. In The New Urban Renewal, Derek S. Hyra uses an extended case study method to explore how middle-class gentrification and urban renewal have transformed these two communities.
Hydra argues that local government and global processes have interacted with federal and community forces to shape the direction of local economic redevelopment. In the end, he claims, it is class that matters on the ground and that determines the winners and losers of this latest phase of urban redevelopment. He credits government programs like Tax Increment Financing (TIF's) in Chicago and Business Improvement Districts (BID's) in New York, along with federal programs such as the Empowerment Zone (EZ) Initiative and the HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere), as keys to funneling billions of dollars to blighted areas like Central Harlem and the near South Side. Combined with the growth of a new crop of black middle-class gentrifiers who have chosen to return to the hood, the new urban renewal observed by Hyra is no longer...