1. Main findings

1This paper has explored the interrelation between refugee resettlement and urban development in the case study of Buffalo, NY. Particular attention on the neighbourhood of the Lower West Side has allowed for a more detailed understanding of this intersection. It builds on the small body of literature that bridges the gap between work on urban restructuring and refugee resettlement, to ask: in the context of urban restructuring, what role does ‘the resettled refugee’ play? Through an overview of development policy and practice in Buffalo, it has explored the entanglement of resettlement with the economic and demographic trajectory of the city. It then analysed data collected from interviews, media, and policy review along thematic lines to interact with the research questions.

2How does resettlement fit into the narrative, policy and practice of development in Buffalo, and the city’s position and identity as a disempowered city?

3Resettlement is undoubtedly part of the demographic, economic, and cultural trajectory of the city of Buffalo, notably on the LWS. For the Mayor’s office, welcoming is a priority closely tied to development. Quotes from local and regional leadership at events and in media outlets, symbolic (attendance at diverse cultural events) and discursive (narratives of welcoming) gestures reflect this priority. They also echo narratives in other disempowered cities which make connections between modern-day immigration and an immigrant-driven-growth in the past.

4When it comes to the practice of development, development in Buffalo is taking place along lines of austerity and neoliberal restructuring, and aesthetic and entertainment changes directed towards attracting the ‘creative class’. Development funding has been allocated to large developments, public-private partnerships, restructuring towards tech and health, and emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as large-scale entertainment projects and revitalisation of park and tourism areas.

5In this context, what are the ways that resettlement is framed?

6Prevailing narratives demonstrate the powerful ethos of the disempowered city. This is reflected in emphasis on population loss/gain, abandonment, entrepreneurship and diversity. These aspects emerge as a foil to what Buffalo used to be and what people expect it to be – the bustling diverse neighbourhood as a contrast to a landscape of snow and abandoned industrial buildings.

7For Buffalo, resettlement can be an opportunity to have a speciality again; something unique to proudly add to the city’s image. By rebranding as a city of welcome, this gives Buffalo a new identity: one of multiculturalism. This reflects knowledge that the creative class is drawn to diversity and an ethos of cosmopolitanism; part of what makes Buffalo ‘cool’ is the presence of refugees. Diversity branding awards the city competitive positioning and global relevance (Watson, 2019; Pottie-Sherman 2018). The result of this narrative is that refugees are positioned as development agents useful for repopulation, opening new businesses, and providing cultural capital. In this framing, refugees are capable of driving development in a way that fits ideally within the narrative of ‘rust to reinvention’.

8How are these frames, narratives and tensions navigated by stakeholders?

9This narrative is often in conflict with a challenging reality. Interviews revealed challenges such as difficulty accessing reliable services and affordable housing, criticisms that the city is not doing enough to support its refugees, and concern that other marginalised groups are left behind in development. Thus, data allows us to see the many tensions and inconsistencies when urban change and refugee resettlement overlap. Conversations with individuals working in resettlement and development reveal nuances and inconsistencies. They recognise both challenges and opportunities in the trajectory of Buffalo’s development, often directly expressing the difficulty of balancing the two within their work, along with their personal lives.

10The interviews revealed tensions emerging along three lines: first, interviewees shift between using the discourse of market dynamics and development logics, and other times situating refugees as beneficiaries and humanitarian subjects. Secondly, there is both recognition of shared challenges with existing residents and erasure of previous residents, as refugees’ function as consumable diversity and outside actors allows them to act as outside development agents. Finally, revitalisation and gentrification are terms often used to describe similar processes, even used interchangeably, but they are terms fraught with personal and professional tensions. Interlocutors, while partly caught in prevailing narratives and logics of redevelopment and resettlement, also express profound doubts and criticisms in their regard.

11Given that my research interacted with those involved in some way in resettlement or social justice work, it is unsurprising that all participants considered resettlement to be an all-around positive trend in the city. However, the way it was discussed and framed diverged among different actors. Interviewees touted the benefits of refugees to the city, but took a more nuanced approach than the ‘perfect salve’ narrative, due to their deep personal and professional understanding of the challenges that emerge.

2. Critical reflections and implications

12Prevailing narratives in media and policy frame resettled refugees as economic development actors. This is mirrored in the resettlement system, where refugees are framed as market actors who become ‘successful’ through their performance of market citizenship. This narrative implies that refugees can be dropped down and create development without support, ideal for the city looking to cut its costs – ‘off-the-rack tools for economic recovery that require little to no investment in austere times’ (Pottie-Sherman, 2018, 445). It also implies a win-win arrangement, wherein the particular needs of both the city and the to-be-resettled refugee converge. However, this study highlights the limits of simplified, idealised win-win scenarios of urban renaissance and refugee (market) empowerment and self-determination.

13A turn to a focus on refugees can easily function as a discursive shift to avoid addressing historical processes of disenfranchisement and instead move on to a new, outside force as cure. Marginalised residents of disempowered cities have faced years of poverty and been ignored by development efforts. When the population plummeted, it was those who stayed who faced the decades of poverty, insufficient services, demolition, and deterioration of infrastructure in Buffalo. Narratives of renaissance which describe a ‘before’ and ‘after’ imply a fresh start – but what about those who never left? Situating refugees as potential saviours of the city is in tension with the reality of the challenges faced and overcome by residents for decades.

14Further, urban regeneration strategies have been criticised for resulting in uneven and exclusionary development. As the look and feel of the LWS changes, both due to a policy focus on streetscapes and to the visible presence of refugees on the street, symbols of cosmopolitanism, diversity, and ethnic entrepreneurship make it a more desirable neighbourhood for the creative class. The international food stores, eyes on the street, and visible diversity are part of what make the LWS a welcoming community for new refugees. At the same time, these same features can be packaged as cosmopolitanism which furthers gentrification. Already facing an affordable housing crisis, this poses challenges for resettlement going forward.

15Therefore, the resettled refugee plays a multidimensional role, wherein urban restructuring affects resettlement and vice versa, intimately linked with urban geography and economy, providing one lens into Çağlar and Glick Schiller’s (2018) exploration of mutually constituted city-making. Perhaps welcoming refugees has the potential to ‘challenge stale urban narratives’ (Özay, 2020, 251) by bringing the humanitarian into urban development, but it builds on the same economic logic as those essential to the disempowered ethos, and sidesteps historical issues of racialised poverty. Refugees may be lauded as contributors to urban development, but without a move away from framing refugees as ‘economic and demographic assets’ (Pottie-Sherman, 2018) characterised by their consumable diversity, their role is simplified, and their experience is siloed. In cities like Buffalo, where affordability challenges will continue, there is potential for community-wide coalition-building, through recognition not of the sameness of resettled refugees and other residents, but of shared challenges.

3. Opportunities for further research

16While focusing on city and neighbourhood-level dynamics, this research has taken quite a broad look at many interlinking factors of this resettlement-development nexus. Thus, more detailed investigation of my points would be useful to justify (or further complicate) them. Questions along similar lines would benefit from taking a refugee-centred approach, and exploring how resettled refugee residents take in, navigate, and experience (1) economic development frames, and (2) gentrification-revitalisation processes.

17Comparative analysis of States with market-oriented immigration and integration policy, as compared to those with more ‘socially oriented’ policies would be fruitful, to see how this factor affects the resettlement experience. Another interesting tie is to the literature on spatial justice and daily life – if the resettled refugee becomes a neoliberal development tool, how might they reify or resist this through usages of public and private space?

18A second group that would be interesting to hear from would be long-time residents of the city who do not identify as refugees. As tensions and similarities are identified here, further research should also ask how existing residents, of both marginalised and majority groups, perceive resettlement and their relation to it.