Pushed off the map: toponymy and the politics of place in New York City

This article examines conflicts over neighborhood renaming and the politics of place. Toponymy, or the practice of place naming, is central to the constitution of place, and neighborhood renaming is a pervasive urban strategy. But despite its prevalence, the role of neighborhood toponymic conflict in processes of urban restructuring has not been given sustained engagement from urban scholars. This article uses archival and ethnographic data from an area in Brooklyn, New York to argue that contemporary neighborhood renaming facilitates uneven local development. Real estate developers and residents of expensive private housing use toponymy to legitimize their privileged positions, while public housing residents experience the same toponymic change as a form of symbolic displacement. Conflicts surrounding neighborhood renaming should therefore be seen as a symbolic dimension to struggles over resources, property, identity, and belonging in urban space.