Chicanx Latinx Law Review

This essay and the accompanying study are part of a broader project, Southern Nevada Strong (SNS), which seeks to improve housing, safety, transportation, and employment opportunities in areas of high need in the Las Vegas, Nevada metropolitan area. The study examined the living conditions for Chicanx/Latinx residents in Barrio 28th Street, employing urban ethnographic methods as part of the community-input phase of SNS.

Although barrios are cultural and historical places of solidarity for Chicanx/Latinx urbanism and spaces of resistance from white Euro-centric influence, they are also spaces of segregation and repression characterized by poor urbanism and inadequate urban policies. Barrio 28th Street is impoverished, with areas of high need. Resident concerns revolve around safety issues, drug problems, and poor housing conditions. Barrio 28th Street is deficient in all the areas SNS seeks to improve yet, despite the deteriorated condition of housing and profound resident safety concerns, this barrio was not selected for consideration for redevelopment as part of the SNS core plans to revitalize declining and deteriorating urban areas. Furthermore, there is an inherent disconnection between the residents, the community leaders, and the SNS stakeholders’ vision for the revitalization of Barrio 28th Street.

The research findings, in conjunction with an analysis of the SNS selection process of the opportunity sites selected for redevelopment, reveal a pattern of neglect and exclusion of low-income communities of color in Southern Nevada in urban development planning initiatives, examined in three areas: gentrification versus improving living conditions, the segregation and criminalization of barrios, and poor barrio urbanism.

The researcher argues that Barrio 28th Street does not represent an area of investment opportunity as put forth by the Site Implementation Strategy; therefore, it was left out of SNS plans to redevelop. Additionally, the underdevelopment of this barrio and the redistribution of funding into other economic favored zones is a result of the legacy of racist practices by policymakers and stakeholders, which fail to implement revitalization programs and adequate urban policies in historically segregated barrios.