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Books by Christopher Niedt

Isaac William Martin and Christopher Niedt Available at http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=25837.

American suburbs have been seen as both exclusive idylls for elites as well as crucibles for new ... more American suburbs have been seen as both exclusive idylls for elites as well as crucibles for new ideologies of gender, class, race, and property. But few have considered what the growing diversity of suburban America has meant for progressive social, economic, and political justice movements. Social Justice in Diverse Suburbs is a pioneering and multidisciplinary volume that reassesses commonplace understandings of suburban activism.

Editor Christopher Niedt and his contributors shed light on organizing and conflict in the suburbs with historical and contemporary case studies. Chapters address topical issues ranging from how suburbanites actively fought school segregation to industrial pollution and displacement along the suburban-rural fringe. Social Justice in Diverse Suburbs also considers struggles for integration and environmental justice as well as efforts to preserve suburban history and organize immigrant communities.

Contributors include: Douglas R. Appler, Aaron Cavin, Nancy A. Denton, Lisa Feldstein, Casey Gallagher, Anne Galletta, Joseph Gibbons, Robert Gioielli, Lucas Owen Kirkpatrick, JoAnna Mitchell-Brown, Manuel Pastor, john a. powell, Jason Reece, Alex Schafran, June Williamson, and the editor.

Journal articles by Christopher Niedt

This article examines recent plans for US municipalities to use the state legal power of eminent ... more This article examines recent plans for US municipalities to use the state legal power of eminent domain to forcibly acquire ''underwater'' mortgages (i.e. those with negative equity), and to refinance them on terms more favorable to the homeowners in question, as a way of addressing in a socially progressive way the nation's ongoing foreclosure crisis. The article makes three main arguments. The first is that insofar as the plan threatens to disrupt prevailing norms of value distribution and risk bearing, it represents a fundamental challenge to the existing political economy of urban financial capitalism in the US and the law's mediation thereof. The second is that value, risk, and their mediation through law must be understood in the context of geographical unevenness and shifting scales of legal governance. The third is that the geographical political economy associated with the eminent domain plan is about discourses—of risk, of markets, and indeed of law per se—no less than materialities; and that the two are indelibly linked, with discourses having material effects when, through law, they structure value and risk for the manifold actors who operate within the sphere of housing finance.

Data from the National Suburban Survey from September 2010 permit the first statistical portrait ... more Data from the National Suburban Survey from September 2010 permit the first statistical portrait of Americans displaced by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. The average person who has experienced home mortgage foreclosure since September 2007 resembles the average American but is somewhat likely to be younger, Latino, and a parent. The foreclosed are also more likely to report various other measures of financial distress, including recent job loss. The experience of foreclosure is associated with more problems in the neighborhoods where respondents currently reside, including such problems as crime, unemployment, and a lack of affordable housing. Respondents who have not personally lost a home, but who know the foreclosed, are also experiencing more economic distress and more neighborhood problems than those who have not. These descriptive findings suggest the human costs of the foreclosure crisis and the limits of informal social safety nets for addressing those costs.

Large-scale urban redevelopment projects catalyze moments of peril and opportunity.

NIEDT C. and WEIR M. Property rights, taxpayer rights, and the multiscalar attack on the state: c... more NIEDT C. and WEIR M. Property rights, taxpayer rights, and the multiscalar attack on the state: consequences for regionalism in the United States, Regional Studies. Studies of 'new regionalism' often focus on the new actors or goals characteristic of contemporary regional coalitions, at the cost of recognizing how competing social movements might constrain regional policy. This paper considers the recent evolution of the property rights and taxpayer movements in the United States, and how their attacks on state regulatory and tax capacity have affected regional governance. The development and strategic use of 'scalar repertoires' and framing strategies has enabled these movements to take advantage of political opportunities at different scales. Regionalists have been slow to build the versatile scalar repertoires needed to respond to these challenges. Social movements Regionalism Property rights Tax limitations Regulatory takings Kelo case NIEDT C. et WEIR M. Les droits de propriété, les droits des contribuables, et l'attaque contre l'Etat de tous côtés: les conséquences pour le régionalisme aux Etats-Unis, Regional Studies. Les études à propos du 'nouveau régionalisme' portent souvent sur les nouveaux acteurs ou les buts qui caractérisent des coalitions régionales contemporaines, au prix d'une reconnaissance de la façon dont les mouvements sociaux qui se rivalisent risquent de limiter la politique régionale. Cet article cherche à examiner l'évolution récente des groupes de pression aux Etats-Unis qui soutiennent les droits de propriété et les droits des contribuables, et comment leurs attaques sur la capacité réglementaire et fiscale de l'Etat ont influé sur la gouvernance régionale. Le développement et l'emploi stratégique des 'répertoires scalaires' et des stratégies-cadres ont permis à ces mouvements de profiter des possibilités politiques à divers niveaux. Les régionalistes ont tardé à construire les répertoires scalaires polyvalents nécessaires pour répondre à ces défis. Mouvements sociaux Régionalisme Droits de propriété Limites fiscales Recettes fiscales Etude de cas Kelo NIEDT C. und WEIR M. Die Rechte von Eigentümern und Steuerzahlern und der multiskalare Angriff auf den Staat: Konsequenzen für den Regionalismus in den USA, Regional Studies. In vielen Studien über den 'neuen Regionalismus' liegt der Augenmerk auf den neuen, für zeitgenössische regionale Koalitionen charakteristischen Akteuren oder Zielen, wobei jedoch verkannt wird, wie sich miteinander konkurrierende Gesellschaftsbewegungen einengend auf die Regionalpolitik auswirken können. In diesem Beitrag werden die in letzter Zeit entstandenen Bewegungen für die Rechte von Eigentümern und Steuerzahlern in den USA untersucht, und es wird die Frage erörtert, wie sich aufgrund der Angriffe dieser Bewegungen auf die regulative und fiskale Kapazität des Staates die regionale Regierungsführung verändert hat. Die Entwicklung und der strategische Einsatz von 'skalaren Repertoires' und Rahmenstrategien haben es diesen Bewegungen ermöglicht, politische Chancen auf verschiedenen Ebenen zu nutzen. Seitens der Regionalisten wurden nur zögerlich die erforderlichen vielseitigen skalaren Repertoires aufgebaut, um diesen Herausforderungen zu begegnen. Gesellschaftsbewegungen Regionalismus Eigentumsrechte Steuerliche Einschränkungen Staatliche Enteignungen Fall Kelo

Most existing research on neighborhoods facing gentrification has portrayed residents as resistan... more Most existing research on neighborhoods facing gentrification has portrayed residents as resistant or politically quiescent. Drawing from a year of fieldwork in Dundalk, MD, I argue that developers and the neoliberal state will probably find popular support for gentrification as they reinvest in the politically divided industrial suburbs of the United States. Local homeowners and community associations have emerged as gentrification supporters for three interrelated reasons. First, many of them have drawn from a resurgent national conservatism to explain decline as an effect of government subsidies and ''people from the city;'' their desire to reclaim suburban space-a ''suburban revanchism''-although avoiding accusations of racism makes gentrification-induced displacement appealing. Second, the rebirth of urban neighborhoods and other industrial suburbs provides visual evidence of gentrification's success. Third, the neoliberal state's retreat from social programs and its emphasis on private-sector redevelopment allay suspicion of government and enable collaboration between the local state, developers, and homeowners. The redevelopment efforts of two local organizations illustrate how residents have become indispensable partners in Dundalk's emergent pro-gentrification coalition.

Papers by Christopher Niedt

Christopher Niedt and Marc Silver

In an October 2009 Urban Studies article, Dick Carpenter and John Ross present new research on em... more In an October 2009 Urban Studies article, Dick Carpenter and John Ross present new research on eminent domain in the US. The authors study areas where local governments plan to acquire property via eminent domain and convey that property to other private owners. They show that area residents are disproportionately members of ''less politically powerful populations'' and situate their findings within critical urban theory. This response argues that, although Carpenter and Ross do make a useful empirical contribution to the literature, there is an unacknowledged dissonance between their theoretical and normative frameworks and those of most critical urban theorists. The latter understand redevelopment within the broader context of neo-liberalism and structural inequality, and advocate equitable and communitycontrolled redevelopment. While Carpenter and Ross' position on neo-liberalism and community control is unclear, they are affiliated with an organisation that prioritises individual property rights rather than equity.

Isaac William Martin and Christopher Niedt Available at http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=25837.

American suburbs have been seen as both exclusive idylls for elites as well as crucibles for new ... more American suburbs have been seen as both exclusive idylls for elites as well as crucibles for new ideologies of gender, class, race, and property. But few have considered what the growing diversity of suburban America has meant for progressive social, economic, and political justice movements. Social Justice in Diverse Suburbs is a pioneering and multidisciplinary volume that reassesses commonplace understandings of suburban activism.

Editor Christopher Niedt and his contributors shed light on organizing and conflict in the suburbs with historical and contemporary case studies. Chapters address topical issues ranging from how suburbanites actively fought school segregation to industrial pollution and displacement along the suburban-rural fringe. Social Justice in Diverse Suburbs also considers struggles for integration and environmental justice as well as efforts to preserve suburban history and organize immigrant communities.

Contributors include: Douglas R. Appler, Aaron Cavin, Nancy A. Denton, Lisa Feldstein, Casey Gallagher, Anne Galletta, Joseph Gibbons, Robert Gioielli, Lucas Owen Kirkpatrick, JoAnna Mitchell-Brown, Manuel Pastor, john a. powell, Jason Reece, Alex Schafran, June Williamson, and the editor.

This article examines recent plans for US municipalities to use the state legal power of eminent ... more This article examines recent plans for US municipalities to use the state legal power of eminent domain to forcibly acquire ''underwater'' mortgages (i.e. those with negative equity), and to refinance them on terms more favorable to the homeowners in question, as a way of addressing in a socially progressive way the nation's ongoing foreclosure crisis. The article makes three main arguments. The first is that insofar as the plan threatens to disrupt prevailing norms of value distribution and risk bearing, it represents a fundamental challenge to the existing political economy of urban financial capitalism in the US and the law's mediation thereof. The second is that value, risk, and their mediation through law must be understood in the context of geographical unevenness and shifting scales of legal governance. The third is that the geographical political economy associated with the eminent domain plan is about discourses—of risk, of markets, and indeed of law per se—no less than materialities; and that the two are indelibly linked, with discourses having material effects when, through law, they structure value and risk for the manifold actors who operate within the sphere of housing finance.

Data from the National Suburban Survey from September 2010 permit the first statistical portrait ... more Data from the National Suburban Survey from September 2010 permit the first statistical portrait of Americans displaced by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. The average person who has experienced home mortgage foreclosure since September 2007 resembles the average American but is somewhat likely to be younger, Latino, and a parent. The foreclosed are also more likely to report various other measures of financial distress, including recent job loss. The experience of foreclosure is associated with more problems in the neighborhoods where respondents currently reside, including such problems as crime, unemployment, and a lack of affordable housing. Respondents who have not personally lost a home, but who know the foreclosed, are also experiencing more economic distress and more neighborhood problems than those who have not. These descriptive findings suggest the human costs of the foreclosure crisis and the limits of informal social safety nets for addressing those costs.

Large-scale urban redevelopment projects catalyze moments of peril and opportunity.

NIEDT C. and WEIR M. Property rights, taxpayer rights, and the multiscalar attack on the state: c... more NIEDT C. and WEIR M. Property rights, taxpayer rights, and the multiscalar attack on the state: consequences for regionalism in the United States, Regional Studies. Studies of 'new regionalism' often focus on the new actors or goals characteristic of contemporary regional coalitions, at the cost of recognizing how competing social movements might constrain regional policy. This paper considers the recent evolution of the property rights and taxpayer movements in the United States, and how their attacks on state regulatory and tax capacity have affected regional governance. The development and strategic use of 'scalar repertoires' and framing strategies has enabled these movements to take advantage of political opportunities at different scales. Regionalists have been slow to build the versatile scalar repertoires needed to respond to these challenges. Social movements Regionalism Property rights Tax limitations Regulatory takings Kelo case NIEDT C. et WEIR M. Les droits de propriété, les droits des contribuables, et l'attaque contre l'Etat de tous côtés: les conséquences pour le régionalisme aux Etats-Unis, Regional Studies. Les études à propos du 'nouveau régionalisme' portent souvent sur les nouveaux acteurs ou les buts qui caractérisent des coalitions régionales contemporaines, au prix d'une reconnaissance de la façon dont les mouvements sociaux qui se rivalisent risquent de limiter la politique régionale. Cet article cherche à examiner l'évolution récente des groupes de pression aux Etats-Unis qui soutiennent les droits de propriété et les droits des contribuables, et comment leurs attaques sur la capacité réglementaire et fiscale de l'Etat ont influé sur la gouvernance régionale. Le développement et l'emploi stratégique des 'répertoires scalaires' et des stratégies-cadres ont permis à ces mouvements de profiter des possibilités politiques à divers niveaux. Les régionalistes ont tardé à construire les répertoires scalaires polyvalents nécessaires pour répondre à ces défis. Mouvements sociaux Régionalisme Droits de propriété Limites fiscales Recettes fiscales Etude de cas Kelo NIEDT C. und WEIR M. Die Rechte von Eigentümern und Steuerzahlern und der multiskalare Angriff auf den Staat: Konsequenzen für den Regionalismus in den USA, Regional Studies. In vielen Studien über den 'neuen Regionalismus' liegt der Augenmerk auf den neuen, für zeitgenössische regionale Koalitionen charakteristischen Akteuren oder Zielen, wobei jedoch verkannt wird, wie sich miteinander konkurrierende Gesellschaftsbewegungen einengend auf die Regionalpolitik auswirken können. In diesem Beitrag werden die in letzter Zeit entstandenen Bewegungen für die Rechte von Eigentümern und Steuerzahlern in den USA untersucht, und es wird die Frage erörtert, wie sich aufgrund der Angriffe dieser Bewegungen auf die regulative und fiskale Kapazität des Staates die regionale Regierungsführung verändert hat. Die Entwicklung und der strategische Einsatz von 'skalaren Repertoires' und Rahmenstrategien haben es diesen Bewegungen ermöglicht, politische Chancen auf verschiedenen Ebenen zu nutzen. Seitens der Regionalisten wurden nur zögerlich die erforderlichen vielseitigen skalaren Repertoires aufgebaut, um diesen Herausforderungen zu begegnen. Gesellschaftsbewegungen Regionalismus Eigentumsrechte Steuerliche Einschränkungen Staatliche Enteignungen Fall Kelo

Most existing research on neighborhoods facing gentrification has portrayed residents as resistan... more Most existing research on neighborhoods facing gentrification has portrayed residents as resistant or politically quiescent. Drawing from a year of fieldwork in Dundalk, MD, I argue that developers and the neoliberal state will probably find popular support for gentrification as they reinvest in the politically divided industrial suburbs of the United States. Local homeowners and community associations have emerged as gentrification supporters for three interrelated reasons. First, many of them have drawn from a resurgent national conservatism to explain decline as an effect of government subsidies and ''people from the city;'' their desire to reclaim suburban space-a ''suburban revanchism''-although avoiding accusations of racism makes gentrification-induced displacement appealing. Second, the rebirth of urban neighborhoods and other industrial suburbs provides visual evidence of gentrification's success. Third, the neoliberal state's retreat from social programs and its emphasis on private-sector redevelopment allay suspicion of government and enable collaboration between the local state, developers, and homeowners. The redevelopment efforts of two local organizations illustrate how residents have become indispensable partners in Dundalk's emergent pro-gentrification coalition.

Christopher Niedt and Marc Silver

In an October 2009 Urban Studies article, Dick Carpenter and John Ross present new research on em... more In an October 2009 Urban Studies article, Dick Carpenter and John Ross present new research on eminent domain in the US. The authors study areas where local governments plan to acquire property via eminent domain and convey that property to other private owners. They show that area residents are disproportionately members of ''less politically powerful populations'' and situate their findings within critical urban theory. This response argues that, although Carpenter and Ross do make a useful empirical contribution to the literature, there is an unacknowledged dissonance between their theoretical and normative frameworks and those of most critical urban theorists. The latter understand redevelopment within the broader context of neo-liberalism and structural inequality, and advocate equitable and communitycontrolled redevelopment. While Carpenter and Ross' position on neo-liberalism and community control is unclear, they are affiliated with an organisation that prioritises individual property rights rather than equity.