Reframing public housing in Richmond, Virginia: Segregation, resident resistance and the future of redevelopment Amy L. Howard a,1 , Thad Williamson b, ⁎ a Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, 28 Westhampton Way, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, United States b Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, United States abstract article info Article history: Received 19 November 2014 Received in revised form 9 October 2015 Accepted 15 October 2015 Available online 22 December 2015 Keywords: Public housing Resistance Redevelopment Tenant organizing This paper is a three-part assessment of the history of public housing in Richmond, Virginia and an account of cur- rent efforts to create a progressive model for public housing redevelopment in the city. Part One provides a short history of Richmond's creation of nearly exclusively African-American public housing in the East End of the city in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and describes a regional context in which virtually all public housing in the entire metropolitan area is located within a central city that is home to just one-sixth of the overall metro population. Part Two provides an account of the Blackwell public housing complex in Richmond under the Hope VI program, beginning in the late 1990s, and an account of the tenant activism that arose in response to the many problems and shortcomings with that project. That activism later resulted in the tenant-led coalition Residents of Public Housing in Richmond Against Mass Evictions (or RePHRAME). Together non-profit and tenant activists in RePHRAME have collaborated over the past several years to challenge redevelopment practices that threaten to diminish the number of public housing units in the city. Part Three is an in-progress report on an effort we are each personally involved in that includes participation by RePHRAME members as well as several community organizations and leaders that have been part of the RePHRAME coalition: to create a new resident-driven, pro- gressive redevelopment process for the city. This process aims to build consensus among city policymakers and many tenants that redevelopment of the city's highly concentrated public housing units for the sake of improving opportunities and living conditions for residents is a moral imperative. Recognizing and articulating the history of segregation, mismanagement, and deep distrust between residents and public authorities, this process takes se- riously the deep-seated and legitimate concerns of tenants with the aim of assuring much more positive out- comes in future redevelopment processes. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Over one hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War in the United States, Richmond, Virginia continues to bear both the label and the burden of the “Capital of the Confederacy.” Racial segregation—inscribed through policies and practices throughout the 19th and 20th centuries—shows up both in the historical sites and tours from the Slave Trail, American Civil War Center, and Valentine His- tory Center's exhibit of sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement—and in the persistent location and lived experience of African American public housing residents. Like Baltimore (R. Williams, 2004), Chicago and At- lanta (Vale, 2013), among other cities, Richmond leaders in the mid- twentieth century built and maintained segregated public housing. In Richmond, this resulted in the construction of low-rise public housing concentrated primarily in one area of the city (the East End) and housing nearly exclusively African Americans. In a regional context in which virtually all public housing in the entire metropolitan area is lo- cated within the landlocked central city and the city and surrounding counties operate under separate governments, Richmond adopted a recipe virtually guaranteeing the generational perpetuation of extreme poverty. Richmond's current child poverty rate is 39%—rising to as high as 75% in the five census tracts comprising the core of the East End. This concentration of racialized poverty, combined with neglect by the city and missteps by the Richmond Redevelopment Housing Authority (RRHA) on Richmond's only HOPE (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) VI grant in the 1990s, created isolated and neglected pub- lic housing communities and bred deep tenant distrust of the RRHA. In the face of these overwhelming challenges, public housing resi- dent activism emerged in 2008 in response to redevelopment plans for Gilpin Court, the oldest public housing development in Richmond. Like public housing tenants in Baltimore (R. Williams, 2004), Chicago (Feldman & Stall, 2004), and San Francisco (Howard, 2014) who forged community bonds and employed a range of formal and informal prac- tices to challenge the state to improve public housing, public housing residents in Richmond joined with non-profit and citizen allies to fight Cities 57 (2016) 33–39 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ahoward3@richmond.edu (A.L. Howard), twillia9@richmond.edu (T. Williamson). 1 Tel.: +1 804 484 1602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.10.007 0264-2751/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities