We Belong Here

Gentrification, White Spacemaking, and a Black Sense of Place

Shani Adia Evans

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English

University of Chicago Press
06 February 2025

Social classes; Urban communities; Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies; Black & Asian studies

A landmark study that shows how Black residents experience and respond to the rapid transformation of historically Black places.

Although Portland, Oregon, is sometimes called ""America's whitest city,"" Black residents who grew up in the neighborhoods of northeast Portland have made it their own. The district of Albina, also called ""Northeast,"" was their haven and a hub of Black community life. But between 1990 and 2010, Albina changed dramatically—it became majority white.

In We Belong Here, sociologist Shani Adia Evans offers an intimate look at gentrification from the inside, documenting the reactions of the residents of Albina as the racial demographics of their neighborhood shift. As white culture becomes centered in Northeast, Black residents recount their experiences with what Evans refers to as ""white watching,"" the questioning look on the faces of white people they encounter, which conveys an exclusionary message: ""What are you doing here?"" This, Evans shows, is a prime example of what she calls ""white spacemaking"": the establishment of white space—spaces in which whiteness is assumed to be the norm—in formerly non-white neighborhoods. While gentrification typically describes socioeconomic changes that may have racial implications, white spacemaking allows us to understand racism as a primary mechanism of neighborhood change. We Belong Here illuminates why gentrification and white spacemaking should be examined as intersecting, but not interchangeable, processes of neighborhood change.

By: Shani Adia Evans
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 286g
ISBN: 9780226837758
ISBN 10: 0226837750
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 06 February 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

1: Introduction 2: From White Space to Black Place and Back Again 3: Homeplace 4: Making Sense of Neighborhood Change: Beyond Gentrification 5: Life in White Space 6: Claiming Black Place: Possibilities and Contradictions 7: Conclusion: At Home in Black Place Postscript Acknowledgments Appendix: The Research Process Notes Bibliography Index

Shani Adia Evans is assistant professor of sociology at Rice University.

Reviews for We Belong Here: Gentrification, White Spacemaking, and a Black Sense of Place

"""We Belong Here beautifully reclaims the story of Black Portland and offers new frameworks for identifying – and hopefully dismantling – the ways that White spaces are intolerant of and oppressive for Black people."" -- Mary Pattillo, author of 'Black Picket Fences, Second Edition: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class' ""We Belong Here is a fundamental correction to class-based interpretations of Black displacement. Shani Adia Evans develops a very useful conceptual sketch (e.g., “white spacemaking” and “white watching”) to classify the various practices Whites use to push Blacks out of their historical neighborhoods. Unlike other analysts, Evans also includes Blacks’ resistance to this process and documents their continuing efforts to make Black space even in white-dominated Portland. I will definitely assign this book in my classes."" -- Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, co-author of 'White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology'"