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47 CHAPTER THREE Aesthetic Belonging The Latinization and Renewal of Union City, New Jersey Johana Londoño “Entre gustos no hay disgustos.” So goes a common adage in Spanish that roughly translates to “In matters of taste there is no debate.” The commonsense logic espoused is alluring and meant to demonstrate acceptance and open-mindedness toward taste. This statement also dismisses power relations involved in the implementation of aesthetics. The ingenuousness of the expression is particularly revealed when this saying is applied to aesthetic negotiations regarding the urban built environment. Contrary to the complacency expressed in this saying, in this chapter I show that el gusto’s visual manifestation in cities and the particular aesthetic experience it connotes, such as that of community belonging, are important and laden with discourses of power constituted by class and racial hierarchies. The visual aestheticization of cities, a process by which judgments about urban forms and places are established by specific groups with multiple interests in urban place, is especially politically and economically salient today for Latino-majority cities in the United States. Popular form-conscious urban planning models such as New Urbanism’s traditional architecture and redevelopment, together with neoliberal models of urban growth, aim to cater to and foster contemporary interest in gentrified urban living and consequently press upon the future sustainability of the Latino landscapes of barrios. This paper focuses on the politics of aestheticizing urban places as manifested in Union City, New Jersey, a working-class suburban barrio, located at the edge of the Hudson River facing New York City, that has over the past two decades been gradually revitalized with monies from New Jersey’s Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ). Operating with the purpose of economic development and community betterment, the UEZ has reserved multiple loans for the replacement, on Bergenline Avenue, Union City’s main commercial boulevard, of a multitextured built environment and commercial awnings—features that exemplify the so-called Latinization of urban space—with a modern “Main Street” American composition of muted “classic” colors and clean-cut typography that recalls New Urbanist forms. In what follows, I will examine the interrelated ways the 48 Aesthetic Belonging Latinized commercial space in Union City is being reshaped by UEZ’s definition of what constitutes a proper urban aesthetic for economic development , by the upwardly mobile desires of Union City’s Latino population juxtaposed with new Latino immigration waves into the city, and by gentrification generated by Union City’s geographic proximity to New York City. I argue that the UEZ’s revitalization of Union City reveals the ways ethnic and racial relations, politics, and economics are organized by aesthetic judgment in the push toward gentrification. Moreover, this case study shows that economic redevelopment projects in barrios outlying large global cities engage with culture and ethnicity in different ways from those in historic central cities, a fact to consider in analyses of the use of federally allotted funds in urban redevelopment projects and the processes of gentrification that cultural renewal sometimes exacerbates at a metropolitan scale. In general, this case study contributes to a literature of Latino urbanisms by highlighting the importance of geographic location and history as factors that determine whether a Latino-identified place will be appreciated and sustained for its economic, social, and cultural value. Indeed, the UEZ’s manipulation of Union City’s built environment is different from the approach taken in other Latino-majority cities by enterprise zones—which were started in the 1980s across the United States to foster economic growth in impoverished communities. Several publications note the ways some enterprise zones celebrate and affirm Latino culture. Places such as El Barrio in New York and Barrio Logan in San Diego , California, are able to market Latino culture, even if under the regulatory framework of enterprise zone management, because of their location in large cities with a history of Latino activism (Dávila 2004; City of San Diego 2006). But Union City, though also a Latino-majority city, is located at the outskirts of a metropolitan area, and its Latino population is diverse , making it less suitable for ethnic branding projects in the service of gentrification. The case of Union City suggests that working-class suburbs must compete even more intensely and deemphasize their Latino urban culture strategically because of their marginal location within the metropolitan gentrification system. Union City’s Latinidad is celebrated only by a top-down approach whereby the mayor infrequently announces the naming of a park or a street, or...

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