Development

Amazon’s Billion-Dollar Shakedown Of America’s Cities

November 16, 2018 By Jacob Sugarman, Truthdig.com Educate! Amazon, Development, Gentrification, Jeff Bezos

If one required reminding of the Democratic Party’s complete capitulation to corporate interests, to say nothing of the country’s as a whole, he or she need only have listened to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s address on Tuesday. “One of the biggest companies on earth next to the biggest public housing development in the United States,” he told reporters during a joint press conference with Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “The synergy is going to be extraordinary.” The company in question is Amazon, which confirmed earlier that morning that Long Island City, Queens, will become the site of its second headquarters (a third headquarters will be located in northern Virginia).

TribalUSm: Colonization Unleashed With Ruthless Efficiency In America

August 24, 2018 Teorose Fikre, Ghionjournal.com Educate! Colonialism, Development, United States

Up until that epiphany occurred during my second year in college, I assumed the technological edge, weapons superiority and tactical advances were why country after country in the continent we now refer to as Africa was decimated and put under the boots of European invaders. I was wrong all along, it was never the superior might of colonial powers that paved the way for the suppression of the Zulu, Hausa, Yoruba and countless civilizations within “Africa”, manufactured schisms and the splintering of the people birthed continental subjugation. Though the targets were many, the blueprint of colonization was always the same. The first step is to induce conflict by way of tribalism. In order to do this, sustainable communities were lumped in with other communities in order to form a central authority.

Community Land Cooperatives Should Oversee Neighborhood Economic Development

June 27, 2018 Brandy Brooks and Joel Rothschild, Shelterforce.org Create! Cooperatives, Development, Land, New Economy

This nonprofit is organizing a real estate investment cooperative for the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, with the exclusive purpose of incubating, funding, and assisting “community land cooperatives.” Ecovillagers Alliance is a nonprofit initiative of educators, organizers, systems engineers, and storytellers. We came together from a crazy quilt of past attempts to establish community control of land and buildings by different models—co-ops, land trusts, co-housing, communes—none of which quite addressed the inhumane realities of modern urban real estate. So we went back to the drawing board to ask: what instrument of neighborhood real estate stewardship would be democratic, just, and sustainable? Now we are organizing a real estate investment cooperative for the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States...

Remembering Grenfell: Who Are Our Cities For?

June 20, 2018 By Chuck Collins, Inequality.org Educate! Capitalism, Development, Gentrification

One year ago this week I was in London, speaking at a conference on global inequality at the London School of Economics. The morning of June 14, I could see smoke rising from the Kensington neighborhood, at the Grenfell Tower, a 24-story affordable apartment building. I walked closer to see the inferno. Seventy-one people lost their lives and over 600 people lost their homes. As of a few months ago, 320 households were still displaced and living in hotels, including over 200 children. Meanwhile, in the immediate Kensington area around the charred remains of the tower, there are 1,800 vacant luxury homes and hundreds of empty commercial spaces. It is a luxury ghost town. London is an acute case of the problem of the “tale of two cities” opening up across the world.

Philly Neighborhood Achieves Inclusive Development And Control Through Community Land Trust

May 15, 2018 Steve Dubb, Nonprofitquarterly.org Create! Development, Land, New Economy, Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, the Community Justice Land Trust is helping preserve a community in the face of rising land values and speculation in the city’s Eastern North section, near Temple University, reports Patrick Sisson in Curbed. Sisson notes that a decade ago, the area, “near Temple University and largely lower income and [Latinx], was beginning to feel the influence of nearby developments, loft-to-condo conversions that had been a harbinger of rising rents and displacement in similar neighborhoods.” The formation of a community land trust has helped provide long-term permanently affordable housing for residents while also allowing for long-term community planning of development.

Stopping Chain Stores From Dominating Communities

March 30, 2018 By Peter Moskowitz, Huffingtonpost.com Create! Capitalism, Development, New Economy

If you’re not looking for it, you might not notice what makes Candice Osborne’s Jersey City neighborhood different. Like so many other newly developed areas of American cities, it is filled with glass-clad condos stretching dozens of stories into the sky. But as Osborne and I walk around, she points out what isn’t there: no Starbucks, no CVS, no Chase Bank. Instead, on the ground floor of Osborne’s building, there’s an independent coffee shop called Beechwood Cafe, a hair salon, a public school and Downtown Pharmacy ― where Osborne picks up a packet of jalapeño-flavored Mary’s Gone Crackers, her new favorite snack. “They don’t carry this kind of stuff at CVS,” she says. The 39-year-old digital strategist can also get an omelet with whatever she wants at Beechwood and treats for her dog, things she couldn’t grab at a Starbucks. “It’s little things,” she says. “But they’re indicative of the fact that they understand the neighborhood.”

Strategies To Encourage Locally-Owned, Independent Businesses

March 30, 2018 Olivia Lavecchia, Ilsr.org Create! Development, New Economy, Small Business

In many U.S. cities, finding and keeping an affordable location has become a major challenge for independent businesses. Two years ago, we took an in-depth look at the issue in our report, Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It. We examined what’s causing the problem — from real estate financing that compels developers to exclude independent businesses, to the declining supply of small spaces — and also outlined six strategies that cities were beginning to use to address it. Now, one of those strategies is catching on: Set-asides for local businesses in new development. It’s a strategy that requires developers to reserve, or “set aside,” space for small or local businesses in new construction, and it can help ensure that a built environment that’s suited to small businesses isn’t replaced with one designed for chains.

China Is Financing Petrochemical Hub In Appalachia

February 8, 2018 By Steve Horn, Desmogblog.com Educate! China, Development, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Investment

Over the past year, oil and gas industry plans to build a petrochemical refining and storage hub along the Ohio River have steadily gained traction. Proponents hope this potential hub, which would straddle Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, could someday rival the industrial corridor found along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana. Those plans center around creating what is known as the Appalachian Storage Hub, which received a major boost on November 9 during a trade mission to China attended by President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. At that trade mission, also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the China Energy Investment Corp. announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to invest $83.7 billion into the planned storage hub over 20 years.

New Hopkins Hotel Gets Biggest Slice Of Neighborhood Grant Pie

February 1, 2018 Mark Reutter, Baltimorebrew.com Educate! Baltimore, Development, Gentrification, Uneven Development

With today’s approval of a resolution of support by the mayor and the Board of Estimates, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development will release another $800,000 of BRNI funds for the Marriott Residence Inn, a hotel that caters to patients and their families at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center. This money will supplement the $1.4 million the project was already awarded under the same program. The Baltimore Regional Neighborhoods Initiative was established by the legislature to provide strategic investments that lead to “healthy, sustainable communities” in Baltimore City and inner-Beltway communities. Traditionally, the funds have been divided into small parcels ($50,000 to $150,000) for local greening projects, business facade improvements, urban farming, homeownership incentives, trash removal, alley gating and public art.

Carillion Catastrophe & Limits Of Privatized Government

January 26, 2018 By Derek Royden, Nationofchange.org Educate! Corruption, Development, Government, Privatization

To say that British Prime Minister Theresa May has been having a rough time since rolling the dice on an early election and losing her party’s parliamentary majority in June, is probably a bit of an understatement. Headaches abound and multiply, from a widely covered speech being interrupted by a prankster, a falling back drop and a coughing fit, to Brexit ‘negotiations’ that seem to go nowhere, to buffoons in her own party, most comically the British version of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, who recently suggested building a bridge over the English Channel to connect France and the U.K., a feat of engineering that could only be matched by the U.S. President’s proposed border wall.

A Public Bank Could Relieve Seattle’s Housing Crisis

January 20, 2018 Paul Alexander, Medium.com Create! Capitalism, Development, New Economy

Like hundreds of cities in America, Seattle is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. During a one-year period in 2015–16, Seattle rents increased by 9.7 percent — four times the national average. In 2017, the cost of an average two-bedroom topped $2,000. The results have been predictable: nearly half of Seattle renters are currently “housing-cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. They may be the lucky ones. A recent Zillow study cited the connection between even modest rent increases and resulting homelessness; meanwhile, King County’s 2017 One Night Count tallied 11,643 homeless people. The Seattle region’s unhoused population now trails only that of Los Angeles County and New York City — and the survey’s flawed methodology means the true count is almost certainly higher.

She Fought As Black Panther. Will Gentrification Force Her Out?

December 14, 2017 Sam Levin, theguardian.com Resist! Black Panthers, Development, Displacement, Gentrification

In America’s ‘hottest housing market’, one woman’s fight to keep her home has become a rallying cry against the displacement of communities of color. One by one, Frances Moore has watched friends and neighbors move into cars, tents and encampments. Many in crisis often turn to the 62-year-old Oakland woman, who provides free meals to the homeless, but she has found it increasingly difficult to hear their stories of displacement. That’s because she knows she could soon be next. Moore, known locally as Aunti Frances, is now fighting an eviction from the community where she was born and raised, in the heart of a neighborhood recently named the hottest real estate market in the US.

Taxpayer-Subsidized DC Wharf Creates Low Wage Jobs

October 14, 2017 Staff, www.dcfpi.org Educate! Development, Taxes, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Staff of DC Fiscal Policy Institute - The District of Columbia’s economic development efforts – including the enormous Wharf project – too often support creation of low-wage jobs with minimal benefits, because they do not link large public subsidies with requirements to create high-quality jobs, according to a new analysis by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. This means that DC is failing to use its substantial economic development investments to reduce the city’s large income gaps or to ensure that benefits of DC’s growing prosperity are shared widely. The redevelopment of the Southwest Waterfront is one of the largest real estate development projects in the history of the District. It is transforming an historic area of the city’s waterfront, while creating new retail, dining, entertainment and housing options within walking distance of the Mall. Yet the project faces growing questions about the type of jobs it is actually creating, and who truly benefits from large taxpayer subsidies for such developments. The District approved $300 million in public subsidies for the Wharf project, including public land and cash subsidies through DC’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and PILOT economic development subsidy programs.

The Importance Of The Fight For The South–And Why It Can And Must Be Won

September 20, 2017 Bob WIng, www.organizingupgrade.com Create! Development, South, United States

By Bob WIng and Stephen McClure for Organizing Upgrade - The importance of the fight for the South is a matter of considerable controversy. Whatever the rhetoric it's safe to say that most progressives outside of the South have put little time, energy or money into this struggle since the height of the southern Civil Rights movement. Many have outright given up on the South, considering it either a reactionary lost cause or simply unwinnable. We beg to disagree, and in this essay will make the case that failure to the fight for the South downplays the centrality of the Black struggle in U.S. politics, strategically surrenders the upper hand to the far right and the Republican Party and cripples the fight against poverty. The South is a dynamically changing region and the fight for it is absolutely crucial to defeating the far right and winning a progressive future. Specifically, we argue that as regards building the progressive movement into a powerful force in this country, the South is crucial. (1) Defeating the right and building a strong progressive movement in this country needs the leadership, experience and energy of African Americans, a growing majority of whom who live in the South. (2) Targeting the Southern racist rightwing in its own backyard, on issues of race, poverty, militarism, climate change and democracy, is a crucial part of a broad movement to defeat the right nationally in public opinion, on policy and in elections.

Houston Plots A Sustainable Path, Leaving This Neighborhood Behind

August 18, 2017 Raj Mankad, www.grist.org Educate! Development, Houston

By Raj Mankad for Grist - Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas. He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery. Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate. The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a city housing department, for a union, for a law clinic, and on a campaign that stopped a PVC factory from being built in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” For the last decade, he has served as executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (better known as t.e.j.a.s.). Part of his work is leading tours past the heaping piles of scrap metal along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou and by Cesar Chavez High School, which opened in 2000 within a quarter-mile of three large petrochemical plants.

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