A City Divided?

Abstract

Hoboken, New Jersey, is a gentrified city. It was once a thriving working-class immigrant community. Then, like so many American cities, it experienced a period of economic decline before becoming popular with gentrifiers. Today, Hoboken is no longer a gentrifying city; it is gentrified. The Hudson River waterfront, with its views of Manhattan, is lined with upscale and luxury apartment buildings, restaurants, and a W Hotel. The southwest corner of Hoboken, one of the last areas to gentrify, now has its share of $750,000 condominiums as well. Yet, in many ways, this is a city divided. As these excerpts suggest, the relationship between gentrification and low-income public housing in Hoboken is complicated. While renting out the ball field to softball and kickball leagues brings middle-class residents into the public housing neighborhood, earns money for resident services (which the government no longer funds as the social safety net is continually cut), and leads to upkeep of the field, it also creates periods of time when the ball field is no longer available for residents, and young people from the housing authority are relegated to outsider spectator status. Hoboken presents an interesting case for studying the various ways that residing in a gentrified community affects youth in public housing and how outside forces, which I refer to as neoliberal nonegalitarianism,¹ are influencing the lives of low-income youth through education and housing policy.

Tonight I attended a softball game at Mama Johnson Field (part of the main public housing campus in Hoboken). It is a beautiful night, and the back-to-back games are played under the lights. By 9:00 p.m. there are at least 50 young professionals in the bleachers and on the field. Many are spread onto the sidewalk to practice pitching and catching as they await their games or act as informal cheerleaders for other games. The teams wear matching T-shirts named for popular bars in Hoboken. The Green Rock Tap & Grill team, in their matching T-shirts and black and green striped socks, look like the stunning cast of a primetime drama. Of the eight co-ed teams I observe today, all the players save one are white or Asian. After the games, the teams go out for reduced priced drinks at their sponsoring taverns. During the game, the black and Latino residents of the 21 brick public housing buildings, which hover above and surround the field, hang out nearby. Children ride their bikes past, and some residents stop by the outside of the fence to observe or talk to the umpire. Nearby, a number of young black men play basketball on the basketball courts (Field Notes, June 2011).

At the meeting, the executive director of the Hoboken Housing Authority says that adult sports leagues using Mama Johnson Field now generate $30,000 annually to self-fund resident services in public housing … He bought I9 and Zog Sports [organized adult sports leagues] into Hoboken (Field Notes, May 2011).

The [redevelopment of Mama Johnson Field] baseball field, that’s good. They’re doing that; I don’t want to say 100% for the kids of the projects, 50%. The other 50% is for them [yuppies], so they can have somewhere to play because I’m pretty sure they didn’t like the way it was looking or how it was going when they were playing kickball down here. (Participant in focus group with public housing residents, October 2012)