COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

environments, such as Ida Susser (1986), Jeff Maskovsky (2003), and Neil Smith (1986),
have documented the dynamics and complexity of gentrification and urban activism in
cities. Since the early 1970s, the news media and an increasing number of academics
have chronicled gentrification, or the movement of middle-income households into low-
income neighborhoods throughout cities in the U.S. (Knox 1987:654). “Gentrification
may have affected less than 1 percent of the central-city housing stock in the U.S.,”
which is “not great when measured against the broad sweep of urban change” (Knox
1987:654). But, as Knox suggests, “The reasons for the extensive literature and
disproportionate interest of academics, politicians, and the media in gentrification are to
be found in what gentrification may (or may not) represent. It encapsulates an ideology”
and
For others,
Not only does a neighborhood populated by ‘upscale’ individuals represent a flow
of money into the city; it also represents a highly esteemed
lifestyle….Gentrification, moreover, confirms the possibilities of upward
mobility. [Beauregard 1985:56]
Gentrification is further evidence of the regressive consequences of the uneven
outcomes of advanced capitalism, with the poor, the elderly, and minorities
bearing the cost of urban change. Further, because it fosters capital accumulation
and the reproduction of the middle classes, gentrification has become a symbol
and portent of urban change for the ‘new wave’ of liberal/socialist urban politics.
[Knox 1987.654-655]
Meanwhile, for academics
Gentrification processes represent a microcosm of urban change in which to test
and develop theory. It is a highly visible expression of changing social relations
and of the interaction of social classes in space and, as such, it offers a convenient
focus for debate over the relative importance of structural forces, historically
contingent events, and human agency. [Knox 1987:655]
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