Interrupting a white will to improve: race, design, and community self-determination

Abstract

This critical case study investigates the cultural politics of one urban renewal effort rhetorically designed to serve the needs of most marginalized community members in Oakland, California. We extend recent scholarship examining the broader landscapes of young people’s lives and examine how the “urban” is made and remade in ways that impact education equity. Informed by critical urban theory and critical whiteness studies, we argue that urban planners enacted a white will to improve: a paternalistic approach to design that utilizes liberal democratic norms of voice and inclusion to deflect attention to the material realities of racism. Paying attention to contests over the urban—specifically the ways in which the “targets” of urban renewal interrupted official urban design processes—offers an important location for considering more ethical approaches to advancing community self-determination and education justice.