“Blacklighting” the shaping of place: theories, strategies, and spatial imaginaries from the ‘Shaw

Over the last two decades, public space discourse has shone brightest on those stages of urban design and historic preservation either termed “placemaking” or “placekeeping,” arguably leaving a gap everywhere amid this “place-shaping continuum.” This paper attends to that chasm through mixed-methods research to “Blacklight” urbanism through the eyes of merchants and community planners producing culture and building neighborhood economies without equitable support from propertied, financial institutions. By ethnographically narrating a complex case of the historically Black artistic community in South Los Angeles’ subregion nicknamed “the ‘Shaw,” this paper illuminates a new hue in the place-shaping spectrum for those celebrating Black heritage in the shadows of spatial abandonment called “placesteading.” It details three tactics of the Crenshaw placesteading strategy called “counter-valuation.” Through transdisciplinary study, these three new terms contribute to the global project of dignifying pluriversal planning practices and diasporic worldviews in urban geographies, heritage conservation, and design.