Date of Award

Spring 6-10-2025

Document Type

Thesis (Undergraduate)

Department

Geography

First Advisor

Mona Domosh

Second Advisor

Luis Alvarez León

Abstract

Since HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros' pledge in 1995 to “end public housing as we know it, ” the United States has seen the rapid depletion of public housing stock. Alongside this mass demolition, a new redevelopment paradigm emerged: a community-oriented planning model that requires resident participation. HUD’ s shift toward participatory planning began with HOPE VI in 1992, which sought private investment to demolish public housing, and was formalized in 2010 through the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI). This thesis examines a CNI planning phase—a stage overlooked in existing scholarship, which largely stresses post-occupancy outcomes like displacement, (im)mobility, socioeconomic integration, and gentrification. In contrast, this research offers one of the first interview-based case studies of a CNI planning process. Grounded in resident testimony and planning meeting observations, the project analyzes Hollow Choice, a CNI effort to redevelop the Charles F. Greene Homes, a Section 8 high-rise complex in Bridgeport, Connecticut’ s Hollow neighborhood. The research asks: How do disparate stakeholders—tenants, community members, and local planners—understand Hollow Choice ’ s participatory planning process? How do these accounts reveal the governing logics of participation under neoliberal austerity? By shifting focus from outcomes to process, this work highlights how instead of blueprints, resident participation itself becomes the project’ s central product. Contrasting vibrant representations of Hollow Choice with residents ' persistent struggles reveals participation as performance, a creative strategy to stage empowerment through devaluation and privatization. More broadly, this study broadens the analysis of choicelessness and tokenism, from the individual level of the consultant, to broader structural imperatives imposed by the federal state.

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