MEGA-REAL ESTATE SPECULATION AND RACIALIZED DISPOSSESSION: Miami's Little Haiti

Abstract

This article contributes to research on racialized dispossession through the lens of popular responses to local/global conjunctures of urban financial speculation. How has a predominantly Black immigrant community, Little Haiti, confronted a surging variant of Miami's history of racialized dispossession—corporate mega-real estate speculation—since 2008's global financial crisis? I examine Little Haiti's confrontation with the proposed Magic City Innovation District, which is, in fact, no more than a large-scale, mixed-use commercial venture. Greater Miami's conjuncture undermined the community's capacity to resist or effectively negotiate with Magic City's partnership in three ways: a real estate hegemonic metropolis devoid of potent allies; the near absence of neighborhood-resident resistance leadership in a working-poor immigrant community; and a political fracture within Greater Miami's Haitian collective responses over the politics of patronage and accommodative versus contentious bargaining. By enveloping patronage practices within speculative imaginaries of inclusive, tech-led neighborhood and metropolitan prosperity, Magic City's partnership and local government reinforced that fracture and politically marginalized both the accommodative and contentious factions. I conclude by considering the dilemma of disenfranchised communities today when confronting racialized speculative intrusions. The article's empirical content draws primarily on my collaborative-community activism, city commission planning sessions and official documentation.