Regulation from below or domination from above? Reassessing community-bank partnerships from the Austin area of Chicago

Community reinvestment advocates have encouraged banks to invest in redlined neighborhoods through a process known as “regulation from below.” This process has produced community-bank partnerships, institutional arrangements between community development organizations and banks, intended to ensure effective bank reinvestment. However, community-bank partnerships and their political effects remain largely unexamined. Using the generative theoretical lens of racial capitalism, this article analyzes data from an ethnographic study of the Austin area of Chicago, the birthplace of the community reinvestment movement. It finds that two major interest groups in Austin have successfully pursued and formed partnerships with banks since the 1970s: working-class homeowners and community development professionals. While both groups form partnerships with banks that channel investments toward property rehabilitation and neighborhood redevelopment, their partnerships have done little to interrupt the racialization of Austin as Black and risky, nor to protect many of its residents from economic predation and extraction. This article concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for future community development research and practice.