Seeing like the shadow state: philanthropy, memory, and public housing redevelopment in Syracuse, NY

Abstract

This article examines Blueprint 15, a planned neighborhood redevelopment and public housing transformation in Syracuse, NY. It argues that Blueprint 15 provides an ideal project through which we can interrogate the role of the philanthropic and non-profit sectors in urban governance in the twenty-first century in a way that attends to Peck’s (2004) call for attention to actually existing neoliberal cases. Analyzing Blueprint 15 confirms something that has been noted in many studies—the trend of devolving or offloading urban governance to these sectors—while also, as we will argue, demonstrating some nuanced ways in which shadow state institutions go about their work. In particular, we draw on Scott (1998) to argue that shadow state actors mobilize local, albeit selective memories of urban renewal to make both neighborhood space and populations legible in ways that reinforce their particular governing logics. Thus, something as highly intangible as memory is mobilized to concretely remake urban space.