Dreams of Place: Housing, Gentrification, and the Marketing of Space in El Barrio

This paper examines how a central index of gentrification, a diminishing market for affordable housing, is affecting Puerto Rican dreams of place in El Barrio/East Harlem. I pay special attention to how the area s history and cultural identity are being deployed by developers and residents, and how, despite their differing aspirations for the area, both groups end up advancing a similar development vision and ideology. New governmental policies favoring the privatization of land and property simultaneously intersect with and depart from Puerto Rican and Latino dreams of empowerment, and tap into these dreams in multiple ways. The results are consumption-based developments such as home ownership programs, favored by the Puerto Rican middle class as part of their dream of empowerment through property and the purchase of place, which are increasingly out of the reach of Puerto Ricans and most low and middle income inhabitants of East Harlem.