IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section B

Abstract

Drawing on interdisciplinary theories of neighborhood change and urban renewal, and incorporating critical perspectives on Blackness and geographic space and place, this paper documents how racially oppressive tactics by multiple agencies and city leaders produced community trauma in one of Las Vegas’ oldest neighborhoods. As the Historic Westside entered various stages of growth and experienced traditional and unique transitions that increased the community’s vulnerability to harm, the cumulative effects of geographic trauma began to surface. Today, I argue that the Historic Westside is entering a final, equally traumatic form of geographic trauma – gentrification. For historic neighborhoods, this often means the death of something sacred or a “rebirth” to something unknown . Using a rare and treasured Oral History collection of Las Vegas’ first African American residents combined with observational, interview, survey, and archival research over an eight-year period from 2014 to 2022, I tell the story of a unique residential history of Las Vegas’ first African American neighborhood, the Historic Westside. My examination of data spanning 80-years from the 1940’s to current finds that fifteen significant urban geotrauma events occurred to the Historic Westside and its residents. These fifteen events exclude other forms of unique individual events that were equally traumatic for those experiencing them. The events examined in this project include those that had physical, spatial, and/or geographic consequences to the community. Taken alone, any one of these events is traumatic and problematic. Collectively, they show a pattern of slow racial violence with powerful cumulative consequences.