Immigrants and the Revitalization of Los Angeles: Development and ...

of the low-income community. To my surprise, I was wrong in my initial expectation. Ten years after both the infrastructure project and the revitalization program were completed, the immigrant Mesoamerican community was stronger than ever. The community is now a safer, cleaner, more vibrant space. Affordable housing has increased, and the population has access to the subway, an important regional transportation system that, in turn, has opened new labor markets to them. The projects have come to fruition, and the community has improved.

Redevelopment is an exciting field within city planning, as it represents institutional efforts to create concrete social changes in an expedient manner within a spatially defined area. Redevelopment brings all of planning's specialties and tools to bear in an area to “improve” that space. Hence, redevelopment policy and practice are linked to transportation, economic development, design, housing, environmental planning, community development, land use, etc. and integrate these factors into efforts to change low-income marginal spaces. Analyses of redevelopment projects are, thus, at the cutting edge of planning theory and practice. This study is a critical case that has an unusual outcome and contributes to theory based on the validity of that unique empirical finding that “shakes up” the field as it is contrary to the established norms and expectations and hence contributes to new knowledge. Combining a case study approach with a form of grounded theory, the present study documents the mechanisms by which the Mesoamerican immigrants' community of the MacArthur Park neighborhood could survive and thrive when a large-scale redevelopment project appeared likely to destroy or displace it.

If this case study sheds new light on redevelopment policy, since it affects emerging immigrant neighborhoods in the U.S., then such knowledge could be harnessed by city planners entrusted to help create social and physical change in communities, especially immigrant communities. Their planning work might, then, be more likely to actually serve the public good. I hope that the positive experience of MacArthur Park's community, and that of the city planners, politicians, and all of the others who worked with the community, will pave the way for others.