Rewriting the Map: How Arab American Communities Are Shaping Urban Growth

posted on: Oct 8, 2025

By: Laila Ali / Arab America Contributing Writer

In many Arab American neighborhoods around the United States, a new chapter is being written- not one of displacement, but renewal. From Dearborn’s inclusive redevelopment plans to Paterson’s business rejuvenation and Bay Ridge’s preservation and modernization, 2025’s zoning reform movements are redrawing the physical and cultural map of Arab America. What started as a battle for recognition is transforming into a blueprint for community-driven growth. 

Dearborn: From Industrial Crossroads to Inclusive Revitalization

Arab Americans are no strangers to zoning battles in Dearborn, Michigan, the unofficial capital of Arab America. The conversation has shifted in 2025 from how the city’s zoning impacts the Arab American community to how the Arab American community is planning for the future of their neighborhoods and businesses through inclusive zoning. 

In April 2025, the Dearborn City Council voted to pass Ordinance 25-1839, amending the City’s zoning code related to mobile food vendors and outdoor dining. The Council’s vote, which effectively legalized existing norms in Dearborn like street vendors and al fresco restaurants and cafes, was greeted with celebration by many local families and small businesses, particularly Yemeni and Lebanese-owned enterprises that have long served as the community’s social and cultural hubs.

During Ramadan in 2025, the Dearborn City Council also voted to extend outdoor dining operating hours on major commercial corridors to accommodate the needs of residents and visitors in city districts with high concentrations of Arab and Muslim families, recognizing for the first time that Arab American culture and commerce are inextricably linked.

In the longer term, Dearborn has also launched the Plan Dearborn initiative to update its Master Land Use Plan with direct community input in a bilingual, public outreach process. In 2025, the city started hosting community meetings on its master plan updates in English and Arabic and is also surveying residents for their feedback on existing housing and desired future development, prioritizing historic home preservation and new mixed-use development that’s in line with community needs.

For a city that has long been home to Arab Americans who have faced exclusionary zoning and industrial rezoning, the new developments represent a sea change from being planned around to planning with. 

Paterson: Restoring the Commercial Heart of “Little Ramallah” 

Zoning and investment have rekindled the vibrancy of South Paterson, New Jersey, home to the second-largest concentration of Arab diaspora communities in the Northeast. This year, a $7 million grant from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) to the city of Paterson helped to kickstart a wave of storefront restoration and neighborhood investment in small business corridors in one of America’s most historic and closely-knit Arab communities. Funds are being used to renovate long-held Arabic-owned restaurants, grocery stores, and bakeries, with many storefronts passed down through multiple generations in an area known locally as “Little Ramallah.”

Paterson’s Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) program has also helped many small businesses by providing property tax incentives and reduced utility bills and other fees to those located within its UEZ District, allowing shops to remain flexible while grappling with increased neighborhood demand and inflationary pressures.

New and old have sprung up side by side in the community: local restaurants, textile shops, and startups have opened in recent years alongside family-owned bakeries and cafes that have called “Little Ramallah” home for generations. The UEZ program, coupled with new community-focused investment, have shown how zoning can preserve and grow Arab American culture. 

Bay Ridge: A Brooklyn Neighborhood Finding Harmony in 

Change Arab American life in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is defined by balance and contrast. Yemeni, Palestinian, and Egyptian families, among others, have made a lasting mark on this historic Brooklyn neighborhood that also serves as one of the largest Arab communities in New York City. The neighborhood’s Special Bay Ridge District (Zoning Resolution §114-00), an area-based zoning district that prioritizes neighborhood planning objectives and protects low-rise residential buildings and tree-lined blocks, has long worked to protect the neighborhood’s unique character and preserve its network of pedestrian-oriented commercial streets.

The city’s “City of Yes” zoning proposal, introduced in 2025 to increase housing and small business flexibility across New York City, has been met with community engagement and curiosity in Bay Ridge. Members of the local Arab American business and property-owning communities, instead of rallying against new developments and housing availability, have shown openness and excitement for the ways that the plan could facilitate the establishment of new businesses, community spaces, and residents if thoughtfully integrated with the community.

The lively conversation around the new rezoning proposal is also a sign that the neighborhood is itself changing: Arab Americans have long been the recipients of planning and zoning decisions in their own communities. In Bay Ridge, they are now the advocates, merchants, and property owners writing the next chapter. 

Looking Forward to Arab American Urban Futures

As corner bakeries and community cafes return to Paterson, al fresco cafes find a home in Dearborn, and tree-lined commercial corridors fill with new life in Bay Ridge, the neighborhoods tell the story of Arab America in 2025. A story of hard-won recognition, yes. But more than that, a story of creative persistence, and the power of transformation on our own terms. Arab American urban life in 2025 is about shaping cities in our own image: on our own terms.

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