Waiting for Bobos: Displacement and Impeded Gentrification in a Midwestern City

Documenting and Measuring the Extent of Displacement

Evaluating the scope of gentrification–induced displacement is notoriously challenging. Residential and commercial turnover are ubiquitous phenomena, and the demographic turnover that frequently characterizes American urban neighborhoods has, as far back as the original Chicago School (e.g., Park and Burgess 1925), often been interpreted as the manifestation of natural “invasion and succession.” The difficulty in documenting displacement is due, in part, to issues of conceptualization and measurement (Lee and Lodge 1984; Vigdor 2002). It is not always immediately clear whether the outmigration of a given household or business was voluntary or involuntary. The concept of “displacement” is thus imprecise, failing to capture the full range of motives for residential moves (Freeman 2005). Lower–income residents who choose to move from gentrifying neighborhoods are often labeled “displaced,” even if those moves are provoked by factors unrelated to the gentrification of their neighborhoods (Ellen and O'Regan 2011; McKinnish et al. 2010). Freeman (2005) has asserted that there is no significant link between gentrification and the outward mobility of the poor, and has claimed that the augmented economic status of gentrifying neighborhoods is due primarily to the higher economic status of in–movers, not to the lower economic status of out–movers (see also Freeman and Braconi 2004; Vigdor 2002). These findings have provoked strong reactions, prompting both empirical rebuttals demonstrating evidence of gentrification–induced displacement (Hyra 2008; Newman and Wyly 2006) and theoretical and ideological denunciations (Slater 2006; Smith 2008).

Faced with this methodological dilemma, recent empirical investigations of neighborhood demographic and economic change have often skirted the issue of displacement. While not ignoring or denying the potential for displacement, they have emphasized, in line with Freeman's (2005) “displacement or succession” dichotomy, that residential turnover does not necessarily imply an aggressive “revanchist” takeover of the city (cf., Smith 1996). Ellen and O'Regan (2008), noting persistent “urban resurgence” in lower–income neighborhoods during the 1990s, insisted that “gentrification” was “not the only possible mechanism” for economic escalation within neighborhoods, and was not necessarily behind this resurgence (p. 866). Similarly, Owens (2012) developed a multifaceted typology of neighborhoods experiencing “socioeconomic ascent.” Most cases of neighborhood ascent, she argued, do not reflect a process of “gentrification,” in part because the displacement of prior low–SES residents does not always occur as neighborhoods ascend. While Dwyer (2012) found evidence of poverty deconcentration during the 1990s, she referred to the relocation of the poor that enabled some of this deconcentration as “dispersal,” not “displacement.”

Calls for a return to a more critical approach to the study of gentrification (e.g., Davidson 2008; Slater 2006; Wacquant 2008), with a renewed emphasis on displacement, have reverberated throughout the community of urban scholars, but they have had little effect in shifting the course of gentrification research over the past decade. Some scholars have rejected the criticism outright (e.g., Freeman 2008). More frequently, though, scholars have cited such critiques approvingly, even as they have continued to produce accounts of gentrification with a minimal focus on displacement. Discussion of the active displacement of the poor has given way in recent gentrification research, particularly in ethnographic work, to accounts of the motivations and complexities of gentrifiers themselves (e.g., Billingham and Kimelberg 2013; Brown–Saracino 2009; Douglas 2012; Lloyd 2011; Ocejo 2011; Tissot 2014; for exceptions, see Davidson 2008; Maeckelbergh 2012; Zukin 2010). Scholars have noted the dilemmas that politically progressive gentrifiers face as they struggle to enjoy their middle–class urban lifestyles with the knowledge that their presence may contribute, directly or indirectly, to the displacement of less affluent groups (Schlichtman and Patch 2014), and some have highlighted the idealistic efforts of gentrifiers who strive to prevent the displacement of (some, but not all) long–time residents (Brown–Saracino 2009, Ocejo 2011; Tissot 2014). In general, though, this model of neighborhood change portrays displacement as a potential, but not ubiquitous, outcome of gentrification, and therefore as a phenomenon that can potentially be blunted or halted. In doing so, it relegates the issue of displacement to secondary importance, encompassed by the larger issue of gentrification.

Implied Cause and Effect in the Gentrification–Displacement Link

The use of displacement as one important yardstick for measuring the impact of gentrification necessarily posits a theoretical model of cause and effect whereby gentrification—the socioeconomic escalation of an urban neighborhood—brings about the displacement of previous lower–resourced occupants of that space. Even assuming that there is, in fact, a relationship between gentrification and displacement, such a perspective occludes the possibility that displacement may precede, not follow, gentrification. This marks a major departure from conceptions of the role of displacement in urban change that prevailed in the era of large–scale, state–driven urban renewal in the mid–20th century. The clearance of large parcels of land by powerful urban renewal agencies to make way for new government centers, public housing complexes, cultural facilities, and highways resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents in the mid–20th century (Anderson 1964; Caro 1974; Gans [1962] 1982; Talen 2014). Indeed, the elimination of “slums” and “skid row” areas—and the dislocation of their occupants—was an explicit goal of urban renewal in the United States (Anderson 1964; Greer 1965; Hartman 1966; Miller 1982; Talen 2014). Though the Housing Act of 1949 required provisions to relocate displaced families, relatively few housing units were built in the areas where clearance occurred, compared to the number that had existed prior to renewal (Greer 1965; Mollenkopf 1983). The removal of previous occupants was viewed as a necessary prerequisite to redevelopment; that is, upgrading could not begin in earnest until the displacement of less affluent residents and institutions was complete. This displacement–first logic was one of the reasons that federally subsidized urban renewal was highly controversial, sparking opposition and localized conflicts in many cities.

As state–driven urban renewal waned in popularity, the private sector–led (though often state–supported) process of gentrification became a dominant force in remaking central cities, and attracted growing attention among social scientists. The suggestion that gentrification inherently led to the displacement of previous working–class residents was explicit in early formulations of the concept of gentrification (Glass 1964), and much early work on gentrification in American cities focused on how the process provoked involuntary migration, particularly among lower–income residents, the elderly, and racial and ethnic minorities, as well as small businesses and manufacturers (Henig 1984; LeGates and Hartman 1986; Marcuse 1986; Smith and LeFaivre 1984; Zukin 1982; cf. Grier and Grier 1980; Henig 1980).

A major shift has thus taken place in rhetoric and in causal reasoning as large–scale urban renewal has faded and as the prominence of the issue of displacement has slipped within gentrification research. As state–driven urban renewal has receded, and as urban upgrading has increasingly become the domain of the private sector, the removal or displacement of previous residents is no longer portrayed as a necessary precondition for redevelopment, but rather as an occasional byproduct of market–driven change. This represents a change both in the perceived time order of socioeconomic transformation in cities and in the amount of emphasis placed on displacement. Rather than an obligatory first step in the upgrading process, displacement is more frequently portrayed as a last step, an externality signaling the final transition of a neighborhood (Lees et al. 2008).

This shift in rhetoric and time order in analyses of urban upgrading is connected to a changing view of the users of urban space that are subject to displacement. Renters and small businesses have often been the focus of portrayals of displacement in the form of voluntary relocation in the face of escalating costs (e.g., Hyra 2008). The likelihood of displacement, and the means by which displacement is achieved, however, are often quite different for the most vulnerable occupants of space—in particular, the homeless—for whom it less frequently entails a voluntary reaction to changing economic conditions and more often involves involuntary, forced relocation (Davis 1990; Deener 2012; Duneier 1999; Smith 1996). By concentrating on market–driven residential turnover, the gentrification literature tends to restrict the breadth of displacement that is investigated. In thinking about gentrification and its ramifications, it is thus important to consider the precarity of users’ claims to space as a predictor of the likelihood of displacement, the imminence of displacement, the actors responsible for displacement (i.e., agents of either the public or private sector), and the tactics used for achieving the removal of unwanted users, all of which may vary over time and across place in contextually unique circumstances (Hackworth and Smith 2001).

The conceptual linking of gentrification with displacement can lead to the conclusion that displacement as an outcome is the sine qua non of gentrification, thereby implying that the absence of identifiable and measurable physical displacement minimizes the impact or importance of gentrification. Such a perspective runs the risk of ignoring the social, cultural, and political “displacement” that often affects low–income urbanites in gentrifying neighborhoods, even when they do not face physical removal (Hyra 2015). Furthermore, it narrows the scope and explanatory power of the broader processes of gentrification and displacement, a problem I address next.

“Impeded Gentrification” and the Broadening Conception of Gentrification

The focus on gentrification–induced displacement has the effect of theoretically isolating gentrification from other urban demographic and economic trends that also facilitate displacement. Celebratory accounts of urban “revitalization,” “rebirth,” or “renewal” have tended to frame the process as a potential antidote to the flight of capital, jobs, and middle–class residents that devastated many American cities in the second half of the 20th century (e.g., Duany 2001). But as some have persuasively argued (Hackworth 2007; Smith 2002), gentrification is, in fact, part and parcel of broader processes of neo–liberalization. As such, it shares with other dimensions of urban social change a relationship with—indeed, a reliance upon—the displacement of unwanted users of space. As Desmond (2016) has recently reminded sociologists, displacement is common in the contemporary city, and not merely an unfortunate byproduct of gentrification in a relatively small number of revitalized urban neighborhoods (see also Lee and Lodge 1984).

Gentrification is thus not merely a set of outcomes; rather, it is frequently a deliberate process sought by developers, business leaders, and municipal officials and oriented toward the escalation of prevailing land values and upscale cultural transformation (see Hackworth 2007). The gentrification process may or may not ultimately be successful in achieving those ultimate objectives, however. As Ley and Dobson (2008) explain, local factors, including “impaired supply, policy responses and community resistance to change” (p. 2473) may impede the flourishing of gentrification (see also Walks and August 2008). Such obstacles to gentrification, though, do not necessarily prevent or obstruct precursory displacement undertaken to make way for ultimately unfulfilled gentrification. In this article, I provide a historical case study that illustrates this broader view of gentrification while complicating the role that displacement plays in its unfolding.

In the remainder of this article, I examine how homeless and “vagrant” men, as well as the institutions that serve them, have been blamed for the failure to successfully gentrify downtown Wichita. I focus on the displacement of urban residents and institutions who enjoy (at best) a fragile recognition of their right to the city, and I challenge the prevailing formulation of displacement in much contemporary research as a mere byproduct of gentrification. Drawing on archival research and media accounts of redevelopment activity in a section of downtown Wichita from the 1960s to the present, I argue that a displacement–first strategy has consistently underlain the 50–year string of aborted efforts and half–fulfilled achievements in the campaign to transform Wichita's notorious “skid row” into the core of an upscale, gentrified neighborhood. I highlight three moments in the history of the area: (1) the period of repeated attempts to remove the people and institutions responsible for the area's “skid row” image; (2) the demolition of a city block of undervalued structures to make way for a new park; and (3) the conversion of a low–cost hotel into a luxury apartment complex. I show that in each instance, whether the effort was led by the public sector or the private sector, the elimination of unwanted people and institutions was viewed as a necessary prerequisite before redevelopment and middle–class resettlement could occur. When, time and again, the area failed to fill with “bobos” (Brooks 2000) and institutions catering to them, these failures were attributed primarily to the continued presence and insufficient exile of the homeless and other stigmatized groups, and not to the timidity of developers, the missteps of municipal leaders, or soft demand for middle–class amenities in the neighborhood, all of which contributed to “impeded gentrification” (Ley and Dobson 2008) in downtown Wichita.

Though these three developments occurred on adjacent city blocks, overlapped in time, and influenced the outcomes of one another, I present them in series for the purpose of clarity. In each case, I highlight the actions of key public and private actors, and I explain how their efforts entailed—indeed, depended upon—the displacement of the previous users of the area. I conclude with a discussion of my findings and suggest that future gentrification research would benefit from a thoroughly developed theory explaining how the precariousness of city dwellers’ claims to space may predict their vulnerability to displacement.

East Douglas Avenue: Fitful Attempts to Transform “Skid Row” into “Old Town”

Wichita is a relatively young city, incorporated in 1870 in south central Kansas. Within a few years of incorporation, Wichita had become a boom town, particularly after the arrival of its first railway in 1872. Early in the city's history, Douglas Avenue developed as the main commercial thoroughfare through downtown Wichita, and it has retained that preeminence, through upturns and downturns, ever since (Long 1969). However, by the middle of the 20th century, two blocks of East Douglas Avenue on the eastern edge of the city's downtown, and particularly the corner of Douglas and St. Francis Street, had emerged as Wichita's “skid row,” the central “civic space for the containment of moral and material dereliction” (Huey and Kemple 2007: 2310; see Bardo et al. 1981; Hamrick 2008). The elegant Eaton Hotel, situated at that intersection, quickly transformed into a low–rent rooming house inhabited by poor older single men. The Salvation Army maintained several facilities, including a shelter and substance abuse treatment center, at that intersection, as did the Union Rescue Mission, a shelter for homeless men. Scattered throughout the area surrounding that intersection were single–room occupancy hotels, bars, liquor stores, adult movie theaters, and other quintessential “skid row” establishments (see Hoch and Slayton 1989; Sommers 1998).

The city's Urban Renewal Agency (URA) viewed the rehabilitation of this key portion of downtown as one of its top priorities. Like urban renewal agencies in cities nationwide, the Wichita URA adopted as its mission the acquisition, clearance, and redevelopment of blighted land in the urban core in an attempt to modernize the city, to appeal to businesses and professionals, and to halt or slow the outward flow of capital, jobs, and residents. With its prime location in the heart of the city, the potential for East Douglas to be a hub of profit and culture was as evident as its current state of disrepair. As The Wichita Beacon wrote in a 1967 editorial:

After conducting a survey of the integrity of structures in the East Douglas corridor in 1966, URA determined that “the area was blighted and appropriate for urban renewal” (Wichita Eagle 1966). URA recommended to the City Commission that the city work with private business to acquire and clear significant portions of the district. The Commission expressed reticence, however, about government taking the lead role in development, hoping that a private leader would step forward and take the initiative (Townsend 1967b, 1967c).

Over the next several years, though, despite a sense of urgency on the part of URA officials, no serious, financially sound plans from private developers emerged. Several fanciful proposals were floated over this period, but none of these plans was accompanied by any substantial financial backing, and each was promptly shelved (Daugherty 1968b; Wichita Sunday Eagle 1967). As proposals for overhauling East Douglas continuously emerged and failed, the area's reputation as Wichita's “skid row” persisted through the end of the 1960s. Despite the inaction, the threat of urban renewal hung over the district, and local business owners were split on how to deal with it. Some resisted, like the operator of a small hotel, who exclaimed that urban renewal “is strictly unconstitutional and I can prove it to them.” Others acquiesced, or even longed for renewal, like the owner of a pawn shop on East Douglas who suggested that the agency “[t]ear it all down … no, burn it, that's easier” (Daugherty 1968a). As the potential for renewal loomed, local landlords displayed no enthusiasm for initiating repairs to their own properties, because they might soon be seized and demolished by the city and URA. Many in government and business preferred the idea of private–led development, but none seemed imminent. One major reason, according to landlords, was that the transient and homeless population occupying the rooming houses on East Douglas made the area feel unsafe (Townsend 1967a; Wichita Beacon 1967a).

Addressing the problems created by this population and the institutions that served them thus became a top stated priority, even as little actual progress was made toward redevelopment over the following five years. In 1972, planners charged with advising the city on urban renewal and development put forward the original germ for the idea that would guide the future of East Douglas for the next four decades. The planners suggested that a large portion of downtown Wichita should be transformed into an “Old Town” area; in the vision of the planners, “many of the 1890–era buildings in the area would be saved and the area developed as a major tourist center” (Sankey 1972a). The development of “Old Town” would require significant land clearance for new museums and other attractions. While redevelopment efforts would be spread across the area, the corner of Douglas and St. Francis would serve as ground zero for renewal (Sankey 1972b).

Much of the focus of redevelopment efforts was directed toward quality–of–life concerns, and particularly toward dealing with the low–income “derelict” population that inhabited East Douglas. Their presence had, over the years, repeatedly been cited as a concern among investors and as a potential obstacle to securing financing for redevelopment. As efforts to initiate private–led development stalled, some turned their frustrations on this population, blaming them for the failed renewal. The problems on East Douglas—drug use, prostitution, and loitering, among others—could be remedied by aggressive policing, civic leaders alleged. The commercial and social service ventures of “skid row” also attracted scorn. Perhaps most important among these, the Salvation Army operated several facilities catering to the homeless and poor population of Wichita, including a thrift store, a social service center, and a dormitory for recovering alcoholic men. Several cheap hotels lined the street, housing mostly older single men who were estranged from their families and resisted living in a nursing home. They, and the institutions serving them, were seen as obstacles to redevelopment, standing in the way of the dream of a rejuvenated, profitable “Old Town” on East Douglas (Quinlisk 1976, 1977; Stock 1974, 1979b; Wall and Wells 1974; for an examination of “skid row” men and their role as perceived obstacles to redevelopment, see Sommers 1998).

By 1975, despite the work of URA, the Old Town idea had still not taken off, and “drunks” and “transients” were increasingly portrayed as the key stumbling block. A group of downtown business owners filed a petition complaining that drunks were “a nuisance to customers,” and the police pledged to investigate ways to solve the problem (Wichita Eagle–Beacon 1975a). Their efforts were hampered by a 1972 law that had decriminalized public intoxication; the police were no longer allowed to arrest drunk people and put them in jail. Even so, local officials decided to step up enforcement to the extent allowed under the law, detaining drunk people and bringing them to detox centers. The city's newspapers endorsed the new vigilance, arguing that “[t]he public has just as much right to be protected from being accosted by drunks on the sidewalk … as it does from drunken drivers” (Wichita Eagle–Beacon 1975b).

Still, though Old Town remained a top priority for URA, little progress toward land acquisition and clearance was made. In 1976, URA announced plans for streetscaping and pedestrian improvements to the area, including the addition of old–fashioned lampposts, benches, and trash barrels “to refurbish the walkways in a turn–of–the–century motif” along six blocks of East Douglas (Atcheson 1977; Wichita Beacon 1976b). URA had devised the streetscaping plan to boost land values and promote more profitable business ventures in the area, but the oncoming change was not auspicious for all. Along with skeptical business owners, who worried that escalating land values might force them to relocate their establishments to cheaper areas, the “derelicts” and “winos” who inhabited the area had misgivings about their potential displacement. Those concerns were soon realized, as the cheap hotels lining East Douglas shut their doors in the face of renewal. “What's people like me supposed to do? This is the only cheap place left in Wichita,” said one resident (Johnson 1978; see also Bearth 1978).

It became increasingly clear that URA was explicitly targeting not just the “skid–row” businesses, but also the low–income residents of East Douglas, for displacement. A URA–funded study of the area revealed that institutional amenities—including the presence of a newly built park (see below), the low–rent hotels, and a liquor store—made East Douglas “more attractive to winos and transients” (Stock 1979a). The researchers behind the study suggested that moving the liquor store could work to disperse the “derelicts and drifters.” One URA board member recommended that the agency should do more to rid the district of people who, he claimed, “frighten away potential investors who consider building restaurants, nightclubs or other businesses in the area” (Stock 1979a). The city also began cracking down on nuisances in the East Douglas area, especially those involving the low–income resident population, and the police stepped up enforcement of the city's existing loitering ordinance (Curry 1979; Stephens 1979).

URA obtained federal funds for property acquisition at the northeast corner of Douglas and St. Francis. Their request to the City Commission to approve these acquisitions ran into obstacles, however, when the Commission instructed them to negotiate with property owners to work out disagreements. Those owners objected to URA's plan, which would have led to occupants being bought out and evicted from their East Douglas facilities. Ultimately URA's plan for this block collapsed altogether. URA's repeated failure to achieve its goals diminished the credibility that it held among the City Commission and among residents, and in 1980 URA was disbanded altogether. The tasks of urban renewal would continue in Wichita, but under the control of the City Commission and with the leadership of private developers and property owners (Garofalo 1979a, 1979b, 1980; Garofalo and McNeely 1980; Vitt 1981).

Despite URA's failure to bring the Old Town cultural district to life, the “Old Town” name for the area stuck. By the early 1980s, individual “pioneer” developers had begun to renovate some of the languishing properties. Developers took on the renovation of several of the old low–rent hotels on East Douglas in an attempt to create fashionable loft–style downtown apartments. This initiative led in 1983 to the formation of the Old Town Association (OTA), a group of local property owners, business owners, and residents aiming to promote future development in the East Douglas area (Anspach 1983; Effron 1984; Henry 1983b). The potential for increased vitality was obstructed, these new landlords worried, by the continued presence of the “transient” population. One new property manager even took to walking through the alleys to wake up sleeping men, shooing them out of the district. “We still have two or three … men who walk the streets, refuse to leave,” complained one developer. “They're not sociable people. If others [i.e., professionals] start coming down here, they're going to move out. They're already moving out,” said another hopefully (Vitt 1981).

Middle–Class Aspirations Collide with Homeless Realities in Wichita's “Wino Park”

Amidst its failures, URA did succeed in clearing one entire block in 1976, on the southeast corner of Douglas and St. Francis. In line with its earlier efforts to improve the streetscape with period lighting and brick sidewalks, the agency decided to tear down the disreputable buildings—including the Salvation Army men's shelter—that contributed to the street's stigmatized status, displacing the “skid row” people and establishments to make way for a new park. The Naftzger family, a prominent Wichita banking family, donated $100,000 for the park, which was consequently named Naftzger Memorial Park. From the start, Naftzger Park was envisioned not just as a beautification project but as a deliberate attempt to attract affluent visitors to East Douglas and to eliminate the seedy aspects of the area that, it was presumed, had hampered renewal efforts. Old Town backers hoped that Naftzger Park, in conjunction with a revitalized luxury hotel across the street (see below), would restore the neighborhood's charm (Belden 1977; Wichita Beacon 1976a; Wichita Eagle–Beacon 1976).

Naftzger Park opened in 1979 on the former Salvation Army site, featuring flowers, bushes, trees, winding brick walkways, a gazebo, and a pond—all designed, the Wichita Eagle–Beacon reported, to “provide a quiet, green area for meditation in the heart of bustling downtown Wichita” (Curtright 1979). Worries surfaced quickly, though, that rather than displacing the “transient” population, the new park would simply provide a new home for them. City officials quickly dismissed such concerns. A URA officer emphasized that tight security, surveillance, and steady use by middle–class residents would prevent the park from becoming a haven for the “skid row” men. “I think people imagine that transients will be sleeping in the park on the benches,” he said. “I don't think so” (Overstake 1979). At first, signs of vice were scarce. The introduction of the park as an antidote to East Douglas's “skid row” image seemed to be working. Despite those early hopes, however, “degeneracy and decay,” in the words of a local columnist, would soon enter the park (Getz 1979).

This was not a terribly surprising result. After all, Naftzger Park sat on land previously occupied by the Salvation Army's housing and social service centers, and across Douglas Avenue from the still–operating Union Rescue Mission. Despite the ambitions of its backers, Naftzger Park did not, and could not, singlehandedly displace Wichita's “skid row”; rather, the park was essentially absorbed by “skid row,” as “skid row” patrons began using the park for their own leisure and recreation. As a result, within a few years Naftzger Park had gained a reputation as a dangerous location and a place to be avoided by respectable people. Along with low–income men from Wichita, “drifters” came to the park to sleep, and they became targets for robbery and assault by other homeless men. Even residents of the Eaton Hotel, itself perceived to be a seedy location, avoided Naftzger Park. One 63–year–old hotel resident went on at length about his distaste for the park and its occupants:

The idea of transforming “skid row” with a new, beautiful park was largely viewed as a failure, even by its creators. As one newspaper put it, the park had been intended as “a public pasture to lure private business,” but had instead become a “picturesque playground for penniless people in tattered clothes” (Henry 1983a). City development officials and the OTA continued to express the belief that progress in Old Town would lead to the displacement of this group, but these assurances seemed little more than wishful thinking (Ginsberg 1983b).

A consensus grew that East Douglas's persistent “skid row” status was the result of an overabundance of amenities (including the new park) catering to the down–and–out population, so as complaints about the park's clientele continued, the city acted to reform its hospitable image. In 1983, responding to persistent pressure from the OTA to enhance enforcement in Naftzger Park, the city Park Department began closing the park earlier each day and opening it later. This policy shift was ostensibly made to allow for park maintenance, but officials did not disguise the fact that their aim was to alter the profile of park occupants. “[P]arks should be available to all people, and we don't want any group put off by unattractive conditions,” said a city official (Ginsberg 1983a). Not surprisingly, the new ordinance was highly unpopular with the park's regular users. Calls for evicting the homeless from Naftzger Park altogether arose throughout the 1980s, and OTA members contributed their own private money to hire a Wichita police officer to patrol the district during the holiday shopping season. Meanwhile, middle–class Wichitans, even the slowly growing “yuppie” population of Old Town, continued to steer clear.

The reduction of hours during which Naftzger Park was open had little deterrent effect on the “winos” and “transients” who frequented the park (Henry 1983a). Periodic bursts of crime troubled the area, and though the police patrolled the park and exercised surveillance over its regulars, they seldom took action to force them out, frustrating business owners hoping for stronger police efforts to cleanse the park. Even as the Old Town district did sluggishly come to life over several decades, gradually replacing “skid row” on East Douglas, Naftzger Park remained a gathering place for low–income, often homeless, people from Wichita and elsewhere. Indeed, users of the park, as well as those who avoided it, frequently referred to it simply as “Wino Park” (Gorski 1992; Schrodt 1996; Wichita Eagle 1990).

Efforts to purge Naftzger Park of the “winos” gathered steam once again in the mid–1990s. Spurred on by local business owners, in 1996 a police officer whose beat included Naftzger Park collected signatures on a petition seeking an ordinance that would allow police to make arrests for consumption or mere possession of any alcohol in city parks. “People have told me they won't come downtown to shop; they say they don't feel safe … because of all the drunks,” said one business owner who supported the petition (Lessner 1996). By 1998, the city had passed and begun enforcing the stricter ordinance. Observers briefly noticed a change in the park's atmosphere, with a reporter noting that the “homeless men and sometimes women who once spent the day in the park drinking, arguing and sleeping are fewer and less boisterous” (Short 1998). Parks officials took additional steps to try to make the park more appealing to middle–class users. They removed the large gates that had seemed to wall in the park, and they cut back bushes and trees that had been used as hiding places for illicit activities. Enforcement of vagrancy, jaywalking, and loitering laws also intensified (Roy 1999a, 1999c), reflecting a trend observed in many cities (for an account of more aggressive police action to rid a public park of homeless occupants, see Smith 1996; see also Mitchell 1997; cf., Stuart 2014).

Still, two decades after its creation, very few nonhomeless people frequented the downtown park, and it was “still not meeting the potential that city officials imagined when they built it 20 years ago as an urban renewal project,” a Wichita Eagle reporter lamented (Short 1998). As aggressive enforcement of public intoxication laws proved insufficient in dispersing the homeless population, city officials and downtown boosters expanded their efforts, targeting more directly the institutions that facilitated homeless occupation of the park. Specifically, they went after local churches that had, for over a decade, come to Naftzger Park on weekends to provide food and resources to the homeless. In 1999, the police and local business owners protested this practice, alleging that the feedings “generate trash and enable alcoholics,” while hindering the ability of the police “to keep downtown's homeless people out of a park they feel they've already cleaned up” (Roy 1999a).

“The final straw,” local police asserted, came when they heard a story of prostitutes in the park exposing themselves to a passing bus full of schoolchildren (Cooper 1999). On a recommendation from local police, the Wichita Board of Parks and Recreation boosted efforts to revamp the park and oust the homeless. Benches, tables, and shrubs were removed; neighborhood watch signs were posted. More controversially, the Board began assessing a fee of $25 per hour for organizations to use the park to feed the homeless on weekends. Homeless advocates charged that this policy was a thinly veiled attempt to “get rid of the people who live there” (Roy 1999a). Undeterred, church members returned to Naftzger Park a few days before Thanksgiving, serving a turkey dinner to dozens of homeless people. To stay within the bounds of the new ordinance, they paid $50 to obtain a two–hour permit. A month later, a coalition of churches ramped up their response, hosting a turkey and roast beef Christmas dinner at the park and refusing to pay the fee, hoping (unsuccessfully) that their protest would provoke a police action and call attention to the difficulties facing the homeless. As the conflict spread, the City Council voted to temporarily suspend the fee until the city and advocates could develop a plan to address the needs of the homeless (Martell 1999a; Roy 1999b, 1999c).

Naftzger Park was closed entirely in 2000 for a renovation designed to make it more appealing and “people–friendly” for the new, middle–class residents expected to move in to a redeveloped apartment building across the street in the former Eaton Hotel. Among the renovations was the installation of benches with armrests that discouraged people from sleeping or lying down. Because of the closure, weekend feedings of the homeless were displaced for months. Fearing that Naftzger Park's reputation as “Wino Park” would dissuade potential renters from moving into the renovated Eaton, city leaders considered reinstating the fee charged to organizations using the park to serve the homeless, and discussions began on whether to ban those events altogether. Ultimately, though, attempts to evict the homeless once and for all from Naftzger Park were unsuccessful (Martell 2001; Saxon 2001; Strole 2000).

Over the next decade, complaints emerged periodically about the homeless, coming to a head in 2005, with the homicide of a homeless man in an alley south of Naftzger Park. Attention to the issue increased again in the summer of 2006, when a 64–year–old homeless man died of heat exposure next to Naftzger Park (Finger 2005, 2006). In recent years, Naftzger Park has been used sporadically as a gathering site at the end of an annual gay pride parade, as a location for an annual block party, and as a scenic backdrop for professional photographers (McCoy 2008; Neil 2007; Tanner 2009). But it has never shaken its reputation as a homeless hangout and as a dangerous location to be avoided by businesspeople and local residents. When the city unveiled its new master plan for downtown development in 2010, it selected this site as one of the first locations for new development, with a redesigned park flanked by new mixed–use development. In the six years since the city adopted the master plan, though, no significant upgrades or construction have taken place at the park or its environs (Goody Clancy 2010; Wichita Downtown Development Corporation 2013; Wilson 2010).

And, indeed, the derelict atmosphere of Naftzger Park has not changed, either. The park is largely empty most days, except for a handful of lower–income men who sit, hang out, and sometimes sleep there. On the weekends, it fills with a larger crowd of low–income people, often accompanied by social service providers. Meanwhile, the social problems associated with the park continue. In recent years, deaths, beatings, stabbings, fights, and robberies in and around the park have reinforced its stigmatized reputation (Finger 2014; Neil 2013; Riedl 2013; Voorhis 2013). And still, nearly 40 years after its construction, the progress of redevelopment around the park remains sluggish. A restaurant in a converted warehouse next to the park has been shuttered for over a decade, and the spacious parking lot that abuts the park is consistently underutilized. A few apartments, shops, restaurants, and a bar occupy the East Douglas block facing the park, but empty storefronts and abandoned buildings remain in what was originally to have been the core of Old Town. Perhaps most notably, the “Wino Park” nickname is still in wide use.

Whereas the park had originally been viewed as a catalyst for middle–class growth downtown, today it is generally viewed by municipal officials as an obstacle to further progress. “We're trying to activate the park and make it more family friendly,” Wichita's park director said in 2016. But, echoing concerns raised for decades by developers, the director acknowledged that “chang[ing] the demographics of the park” would be necessary in order to “get the park more active” for “[middle–class] people moving into the downtown area and wanting to use green space” (Stumpe 2016). In the quest to drive out the homeless to make way for middle–class resettlement, Naftzger Park underwent a substantial shift in status, from potential catalyst to frustrating obstacle. That shifting status was shared by Naftzger Park's next–door neighbor, the storied yet much–maligned Eaton Hotel.

From Catalyst to Obstacle: 30 Years of Stalled Restoration at the Eaton Hotel

The Eaton Hotel was the pride of Wichita when it opened in 1887 on the southwest corner of Douglas and St. Francis. Its location just one block from the city's central rail depot provided a convenient destination for travelers while train travel remained popular, but as people moved increasingly toward private automobiles, and as development spread increasingly toward the urban fringe, the Eaton's central location proved less of an asset and its condition declined (Norman 1987). By the 1970s, the Eaton had become a cheap hotel housing mostly low–income single men, and it was the centerpiece of Wichita's “skid row” (Hamrick 2008), towering over the rest of the area. It was the largest, most recognizable, and most noteworthy structure on East Douglas, and it was also the most controversial of the low–cost hotels on the street.

In 1970, a corporation was formed to purchase the hotel and most of the other buildings on the block. Named Carey House Square, Inc. (CHS), after the original name of the hotel, the company was headed by Phil Kassebaum, the husband of U.S. Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum (Cross 1995b; Tanner 1992). Soon after purchasing the property, Kassebaum announced ambitious plans to renovate and upgrade the hotel, restoring its luxurious appeal. Kassebaum's announcement was interpreted as a sign that, regardless of URA's inability to enact large–scale government–led renewal on East Douglas, the district might soon, via private initiatives, evolve into a commercial and tourist center, with the redevelopment of the Eaton serving as the catalyst for neighborhood revival (Heaton 1974).

Despite some early cosmetic repairs, though, very little changed at the Eaton during Kassebaum's 20–year ownership. His repeated promises to revitalize the hotel were revealed over time to be hollow. By the 1980s, the stalled rehabilitation of the Eaton, which had once seemed imminent, became a constant source of consternation for boosters of Old Town. Indeed, whereas the Eaton had once been viewed as the necessary catalyst for the development of Old Town, it came to be seen over time as the biggest obstacle to further progress in the area. In the late 1980s, the hotel's condition had deteriorated to the point where only 89 of the original 134 rooms could be rented. “It's getting worse,” said one tenant, “and you can tell ‘em but they won't do nothing” (Norman 1987). OTA officials, doubting the sincerity of Kassebaum's promises to rehabilitate the hotel, put increased pressure on him, and a standoff developed between Kassebaum and the OTA. While boosters blamed the neighborhood's sluggish growth on Kassebaum's reticence, he countered that his reticence reflected his concerns over the slow pace of neighborhood change. This standoff, and the neighborhood stagnation that it exacerbated, dragged on for over 10 years (Henry 1983b).

After nearly two decades of holding the property but making few upgrades, Kassebaum finally put the unprofitable Eaton up for sale in 1989. Kassebaum, it turned out, was in severe financial straits, which would not become fully known for several years. Regardless, municipal officials and civic leaders hailed his decision to sell the entire block (including the hotel and the surrounding buildings and parking lots) as a critical step in promoting growth in Old Town (Garofalo 1989). Yet despite the fervor that followed Kassebaum's announcement, the hotel did not sell, and sat on the market for several years unrestored, continuing to house its steady group of low–income tenants.

By 1992, Kassebaum's financial troubles became increasingly evident. He had for years failed to pay the requisite expenses for the Eaton's ownership and upkeep. In 1992, both the county and the Internal Revenue Service began foreclosure proceedings on the hotel, claiming that $110,000 in county and federal taxes were delinquent (Hays 1993; Tanner 1992). In the midst of looming actions by the county, the IRS, and impatient lenders, Kassebaum continued to hold out hope of selling the properties, despite his inability to attract a buyer since putting the buildings up for sale in 1989. Kassebaum had worked out an informal deal with a local architect to sell the property for an undisclosed price on assurances that the Eaton would be redeveloped into a “first–class, historic hotel” (Cross 1993). This deal carried several conditions, among which was the requirement that the city assume the task of evicting and relocating more than 60 low–income tenants residing in the deteriorated structure. Despite skepticism from some city officials, many leaders in both the public and private sectors were enthusiastic about the possibility of finally seeing a renewed Eaton that could anchor further downtown development. Thus the city became heavily involved in facilitating the acquisition and redevelopment of the Eaton, a process that dragged on for half a decade (Cross 1994b).

Because the redevelopment plan entailed remodeling the entire block, the foreclosure threats posed an obstacle to the informal deal that Kassebaum had negotiated. A foreclosure auction would have likely split up the various CHS properties, inhibiting a cohesive redevelopment scheme. This alarmed city leaders, and they took action in early 1994 to prevent foreclosure. Kassebaum soon found himself in further financial trouble with lenders, though. The IRS also went after Kassebaum. After several failed attempts to collect on delinquent payroll, Social Security, and unemployment insurance taxes, IRS agents entered the Eaton in 1994, ordering hired movers to seize anything not “nailed down, glued, screwed or permanently attached” (Cox 1994b).

Attempts to seize or foreclose on Kassebaum's properties developed every few years, but each time, he found a way to avoid losing his hotel (Cox 1995; Cross 1995a). During this period of persistent uncertainty over the Eaton's ownership and its potential for redevelopment, the hotel continued to serve as a low–cost home for a marginal population (Cross 1995b). Although the plans for the Eaton's redevelopment into an upscale hotel entailed the eviction of the building's current residents, these residents were allowed to remain as Kassebaum engaged in legal struggles to maintain his hold on the property. Even so, with conditions in the structure continuing to deteriorate, fewer men were calling the decrepit hotel home. By 1995, the Eaton housed only 37 hotel rooms and 30 low–cost apartments (Cox 1993, 1994a; Cross 1994a, 1994b, 1995b; Tanner 1993).

After years of evading creditors and tax collectors, Kassebaum's luck finally ran out in 1997, and despite his claim that he had a strategy to pay off all of his obligations, the Eaton and the surrounding properties were all put up for auction in 1997. The city won the auction with a $365,000 bid, and a few months later held the title to the Eaton Hotel (McMillin 1997a, 1997b). The hotel's tenants immediately grew nervous about their future. A strong bond had developed among the Eaton's several dozen residents, some of whom had inhabited the dilapidated hotel for more than two decades. Indeed, tenants praised Kassebaum for providing them a home for decades when most landlords would have kicked them out. “We're pretty much people who have been rejected every place else,” remarked one resident. “Phil Kassebaum is a good man.” Upon learning that the city had taken ownership of the hotel, another resident lamented, “I'll have to go to one of those nursing homes” (Lunday 1997a). The residents’ concerns were not unfounded. Within a week of buying the hotel, officials from the city met with residents, discussing their long–term plans for the property and preparing the tenants for their eventual displacement. The city assured residents that their eviction was not imminent, promising to provide them with at least 60 days’ notice before they would face eviction, but they did not hide their intention to close and remodel the Eaton (McMillin and Lunday 1997). The last remaining residents would be evicted within a matter of months.

The city sent in inspectors, who found widespread evidence of neglect. Within three weeks, the city had posted signs indicating that they would accept no new tenants, and municipal officials were explicit about their intention to get rid of the current tenants, as well. “The idea for the city is to empty that hotel, and we're trying to make that process as humane and painless for these people as possible,” said a city attorney. Dealing with the coming threat of eviction and with the immediate maintenance problems, tenants began moving out, and by May 1997, only about 40 remained (Lunday 1997b, 1997c).

The city found itself in possession of the dilapidated and nearly empty hotel, and set about trying to find a private developer, but none came forward immediately to take on the project. The City Council created a special tax district for the Eaton block, allowing for tax–increment financing for redevelopment, and they staged public tours to encourage curious developers to consider the property (Roy 1997). The tours only highlighted the enormous task of bringing the hotel back into shape—during the tours, the Wichita Eagle reported, “city officials observed sewage leaking down apartment walls” (Tanner 1997). Still, inquiries from a few potential developers eventually arrived, and in 1998 the City Council selected a developer to take on the project. Already, nearly a year had passed since the city had bought the hotel and evicted the low–income residents. The developer proposed converting the building into upscale apartments with space on the ground floor set aside for offices or retail stores, and expressed enthusiasm about the project, reiterating the oft–repeated claim that a restored Eaton could serve a broader purpose, stabilizing the neighborhood and sparking further improvements (Ranney 1998). As redevelopment appeared finally in reach, the city moved to evict the last commercial tenants, and by the beginning of 1999 the building was empty (Tanner 1998). ²

Following 10 months of further delays, the redevelopment project was started in November, 1999. This was one and a half years after the developer was selected, two and a half years after the city purchased the hotel and evicted its tenants, and nearly 30 years after Phil Kassebaum had first proposed overhauling the building. The Eaton Hotel—rebranded as “Eaton Place”—opened at the end of 2000, with expressions of optimism mixed with persistent concerns over financial instability. As Eaton Place opened its doors, only about 50 of the 115 market–rate apartments had been rented, yet 24 of the 26 affordable units set aside for low–income renters were immediately occupied, complicating the Eaton boosters’ claims that redevelopment would spur widespread middle–class resettlement (Bing 2001; Bjerga 2000; Bjerga and Martell 2000; Martell 1999b, 2000).

Since the 1980s, Old Town has developed, in fits and starts, into Wichita's primary cultural and entertainment district. The area that most Wichitans refer to as Old Town, though, is not located at the corner of Douglas and St. Francis, where it was originally supposed to be situated, but instead several blocks away in a former warehousing area on the other side of an elevated railroad track. Despite consistent campaigns to evict the most precarious inhabitants of Wichita's former “skid row,” attempts to upgrade the area around the original “Old Town” block have been only modestly successful. Residential and commercial vacancies persist on East Douglas, and abandoned buildings and decidedly ungentrified commercial spaces like a church–run thrift store, a shabby antiques store, and a series of vacant storefronts remain near the corner of Douglas and St. Francis. The lackluster results of growth proponents’ downtown gentrification aims are likely the result of broader city– and region–level economic and demographic trends, including slow economic growth, a regional economy still rooted primarily in manufacturing and agriculture, and a relatively small number of young professionals spurring demand for gentrified downtown spaces.

Yet, despite the structural impediments to gentrification, the persistent presence (even amidst active displacement pressures) of the poor and homeless and of businesses and social services catering to them has often been singled out as the primary cause of downtown stagnation by city leaders, business interests, and the press. In the face of lackluster urban development, even following successful instances of eviction and displacement, the response from public and private leaders has generally been to call for greater, stronger, and more long–lasting displacement. The prolonged struggles over “skid row,” Naftzger Park, and the Eaton Hotel illustrate the important role that displacement can play in attempts to upgrade downtrodden neighborhoods, regardless of whether or not those attempts are ultimately successful in establishing a flourishing middle–class area.