Constructing the Antiracial City: City Planning and Antiracialism in the 21st Century

Abstract

This study asks: How does racism continue to shape city spaces in the 21st century marked by more subtle forms of new racism or antiracialism? This article performs a rhetorical analysis of the city of Cleveland’s urban planning documents from the early 2000s to explore how rhetorics of contemporary urban planning rely on a form of neoliberal racism or antiracialism to at once recognize race while eliding the relevance of racism in the construction of urban spaces. Three strategies—market logic, hegemonic memory, and multiculturalism—give appeal to the plan by giving voice to issues of race, diversity, and even urban inequality while filtering out the more complex issue of structural racism.