City Revitalization in Vacca Vale

     In her novel, The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty delves into the consequences of seemingly beneficial revitalization and urban planning projects in a decaying, post-industrial town. Blandine Watkins, the protagonist of the novel, grows up in Vacca Vale, Indiana, bouncing from one foster home to the next. For her whole life, she is surrounded by the skeletal remains of a local automobile plant, closed down and left to rot after its mid-twentieth century heyday. Describing Vacca Vale’s current state, Gunty wrote, “Empty factories, empty neighborhoods, empty promises, empty faces. Contagious emptiness that infects every inhabitant”(Gunty 295). The dreariness of the city was reflected in the faces of the people who were forgotten, many of them feeling alone, like Blandine. The automobile plant was an important part of Vacca Vale’s industry and economy, and its closure forced many locals into unemployment, struggling to find other nearby jobs and slipping under the poverty line.

As Blandine grew older, she began to cherish the small part of Vacca Vale that was pure, untouched by the crumbling post-industrial buildings. This portion of the city, astutely called Chastity Valley, is a large expanse of field, woods, and nature, with beautiful views and a calming ambiance loved by Blandine. She thinks, “[Vacca Vale] is a void, not a city. Every square foot of it. Except the Valley”(Gunty 295). Visiting Chastity Valley was a bright spot in Blandine’s troubled young adulthood, giving the sanctuary of the Valley a special place in her heart. However, during this time, urban planners and developers started forming a plan to build residential housing in Chastity Valley. Blandine takes this as a personal affront, and as a local, she thinks the revitalization projects are going to harm the city, not help. Although the building plan is supposed to create more housing and “beautify” the marred city, Blandine believes the plan would only bring in a type of people loosely described as “yuppies,” as they are the only people who could afford the new housing. She believes a town should take care of its people, first and foremost, and develop plans to help the large portion of Vacca Vale citizens who are struggling to get housing, food, and basic necessities. Blandine feels she and other locals were being disregarded, with their wants and needs gone completely ignored by the city and its management. She doesn’t understand why developers crave to    ruin the only beauty in the city with no benefit to the existing Vacca Vale citizens.

Gunty expresses the complexities of revitalization projects in post-industrial cities, showing how the projects are superficial, acting as a band-aid over the underlying issues plaguing the community.