Pushed off the map: Toponymy and the politics of place in New York City

Abstract

This article examines conflicts over neighbourhood renaming and the politics of place. Toponymy, or the practice of place naming, is central to the constitution of place, and neighbourhood renaming is a pervasive urban strategy. But despite its prevalence, the role of neighbourhood toponymic conflict in processes of urban restructuring has not been given sustained engagement from urban scholars. This article uses archival and ethnographic data from an area in Brooklyn, New York to argue that contemporary neighbourhood renaming facilitates uneven local development. Real estate developers and residents of expensive private housing use toponymy to legitimise their privileged positions, while public housing residents experience the same toponymic change as a form of symbolic displacement. Conflicts surrounding neighbourhood renaming should therefore be seen as elements of struggles over resources, property, identity, and belonging in urban space.