The City and the City: Tent Camps and Luxury Development in the NoMA Business Improvement District (BID) in Washington, D.C.

Abstract

The NoMA Business Improvement District (BID) is one of Washington DC’s fastest developing areas and has one of the city’s largest concentrations of unhoused tent camps, many of which are located in underpasses that provide bits of protection and privacy. These underpasses were created during DC’s City Beautiful Movement and have been the site of neoliberal antihomeless strategies. In this paper I explore the production of space in the NoMA area and how property owners, business associations, and government actors sanitized public space for wealthy newcomers while excluding poor and unhoused residents.