ABSTRACT
Twice monthly on Thursday evenings, officials from the local housing authority and residents of Robert S. Jervay Place do what was a short time earlier unlikely if not unthinkable: they gather together at the local community center to map out the agenda and argue the fine details of the forthcoming demolition and reconstruction of the lowincome public housing development that was built near the central business district of Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1951. Each meeting has its predictable elements. First, the setting. The residents, all African-American women, sit unitedly at one side of the metal table; housing authority officials, all white males, sit at the other side, each group equipped with their own microcassette recorders to catch every word. The vicinity outside the cavernous meeting hall is strangely quiet, dark, and ghostly. Only 109 of the original 250 units are occupied, the rest have long been vacated and boarded-up-evidence of contention between the parties over the direction of Jervay’s future. Second, convictions. Like other older public housing developments throughout the country, Jervay Place has been stamped obsolete, its architecture of barrack-like rowhomes castigated for encouraging deviant and criminal behavior and holding back the aspirations of its residents. Bringing it down, so the housing authority officials contend, is an important first step to ending blight. Fewer new homes will be erected. Some townhouses will replace rowhomes and single-family homes will be built to encourage family bonds and the future possibility of home ownership. The new Jervay of culs-de-sac, sidewalks, and “defensible space” will fit squarely into the “new thinking” ofself-sufficiency and an end to dependency promulgated not only in the post-November 1994 Congress but also by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 1
To the contrary is the resident’s understanding. Demolition and new construction are important and worthy of fulfillment. Jervay Place is outmoded and badly in need of reconstruction. Self-sufficiency and independence, however, cannot be built from bricks and mortar, but by removing obstacles to tenant self-respect and self-determination. According to the residents, over 95 percent of whom are African-American women, the emphasis of redevelopment should be placed upon employment training, child and elder care, and educational and recreational activities for young people.
