Plural whitenesses: competing place identities in Little Five Points, Atlanta, USA

Keywords: placemaking, whiteness, gentrification, Atlanta
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 30

Abstract

Atlanta has been known for decades as a center of black culture and black-owned development in the American south. In the past fifteen years, the city has begun shifting back toward a whiter residential base. As in other American cities, this demographic trend is being driven by a move from the suburban fringe back to the center by relatively mobile, middle- and upper-middle class white residents. While gentrification is overwhelmingly driven by the intra-urban mobility of white residents, the specific nature of white urban identity is less well understood. Often, the particular characteristics of white re-urbanizing culture are overlooked as scholars focus on the mechanics and locational preferences of these residents-in-motion. This paper examines the case of Little Five Points, a seam of confluence that sits between several neighborhoods on the eastside of downtown Atlanta, GA, USA. Little Five Points has a dense concentration of retail establishments and eateries, and it is characterized by a long history of an anti-establishment and ‘funky’ atmosphere. In this study, we draw on whiteness studies and bring it into the geographical conversation about relational place-making. In doing so, we attempt two interventions in the urban and geographical literatures. The first is to emphasize the plurality of white identities that undergird wider processes of gentrification. The second is to examine how various ‘whitenesses’ work together in overwriting alternative spatial imaginaries. Here, we engage briefly with recent work in Black geographies to notice how blacknesses (and, more generally, alternatives to whitenesses) are expressed as resistance.