The Politics of Cross Class Alliance-Building in a Mixed-Income Neighborhood

Anisa Jackson, University of Washington

This research project considers the politics of cross-class relationships in the Seattle mixed-income neighborhood NewHolly.  Formerly a public housing project, the neighborhood was redeveloped into a mixed-income project through the controversial Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere program (HOPE VI).  HOPE VI planning efforts emphasize aesthetic adjustments to the urban landscape, the ‘dilution’ of poverty through the selective reduction of public housing residents and the introduction of middle class actors to the neighborhood.  My research draws on relational poverty knowledge to contemplate how the mixed-income neighborhood positions middle classness as natural, legitimate, and aspirational.  Acknowledging the loaded allegory of HOPE VI, I question how NewHolly residents relate within the development.  I explore the contradictory ways in which NewHolly’s structure both reinforces and provides opportunities to contest dominant poverty knowledge through the devolved task of community building.  By analyzing where residents first articulate the affective connections between themselves and residents who are different from them, I trace the possibilities for, and barriers to, how these relationships might move towards a transformative politics, where dominant narratives of poverty and middle class privilege are challenged and deconstructed.

Twitter: @_anisa_jackson