Not diverse enough? Displacement, diversity discourse, and commercial gentrification in Santa Ana, California, a majority-Mexican city

Abstract

This research investigates how diversity discourse unfolds as part of commercial gentrification when public and private growth actors call for increased diversity in a city that is majority Latinx in the United States. My argument is twofold: first, commercial gentrification is itself a racialised project to manage diversity; second, the discourse around diversity foments spatial strategies used by both state and private actors that dislocate immigrant communities and economies. This in-depth case study using Santa Ana, California, provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between diversity and commercial gentrification in a majority Mexican immigrant city. The research finds that, as diversity discourse promotes liberal colourblind practices within a majority Latinx city, it also contributes to distributing resources along racial lines. Diversity discourse presented a liberal and inclusive form of gentrification while also providing a justification for the displacement of immigrant-serving businesses by positioning them as exclusionary or backward. The dislocation or erasure of immigrant-serving businesses occurred through spatial strategies backed by the state to make new property available in the downtown commercial area. Removal was not only physical but also occurred through assimilation, wherein businesses ‘adapted’ to survive. Planning and development actors in this case failed to recognise the value of cultural and economic community networks while also diverting attention and resources away from immigrant-serving businesses. The case provides unique insight into the multiplicity of economic and political interests in a Latinx-majority place.