Gentrification

Philadelphia Arena: ‘$50 Million, $100 Million, The Whole Thing Is A Sellout!’

December 18, 2024 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! China Town, Gentrification, Philadelphia, Solidarity, Stadium

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - For over two years, a growing movement has fought to stop the proposed construction of 76 Place, a basketball arena in Philadelphia that would threaten the existence of Chinatown, the last community of color in Center City. It’s the people against the billionaires. A poll of city residents revealed 70% disapproval of the arena at that location. The struggle is also against the billionaires’ government. There’s the federal government, where billionaires get what they want no matter which party is in office.

Despite Fierce Opposition, City Council Introduces Billionaires’ Arena Bill

November 2, 2024 Joe Piette, Workers' World. Resist! China Town, Class Struggle, Gentrification, Philadelphia

Which side are you on? That’s the question being asked of 17 Philadelphia City Council members over the next few weeks. On one side are several billionaires proposing a $1.55 billion 76ers basketball arena next to the Chinatown community in Center City.

East Los Angeles Community Victory! Extera Charter Project Stopped!

November 1, 2024 Carlos Montes, Fight Back! News!. Resist! California, Charter Schools, Education, Gentrification, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA – On October 29, East Los Angeles (ELA) residents, led by the community group Centro CSO, scored a major win against a proposed charter school in their neighborhood. Centro CSO members and residents spoke at a meeting of the LA County Board of Supervisors to oppose Extera Charter School’s plan to build a new facility on Gage and Eastman Avenues. Angelina Chavez, a community member voiced her concerns, stating, “This project will bring constant traffic, noise, and pollution to our quiet street.” At the meeting, Extera representatives brought over 60 parents, mostly mothers in Extera T-shirts, to voice support.

West Harlem Pushes Back Against Columbia’s Latest Campus Expansion

October 20, 2024 Eric Santomauro-Stenzel, The Indypendent. Resist! Columbia, Gentrification, Harlem, Housing, New York City (NYC)

Columbia University, New York City’s largest landlord, is facing increased community resistance to its ongoing Manhattanville campus expansion, located between W. 125th and 134th Streets. Since Columbia won a lengthy legal battle in 2010, the campus has grown to include residential, artistic, science, business and gathering spaces. While most of the Manhattanville campus has already been constructed, Columbia plans to further develop over the next two decades. One of the university’s most recent acquisitions, 2.5 acres of land along the Hudson River, is yet to be redeveloped, and community members want to see it serve them.

In The Shadow Of The Obama Center, Residents Fight Displacement

October 11, 2024 Fran Quigley, In These Times. Resist! Barack Obama, Chicago, Displacememt, Displacement, Gentrification

When Barack Obama met with Chicago residents about his proposed presidential center in 2018, the former president downplayed the threat that gentrification might pose to their communities. “We’ve got such a long way to go in terms of economic development before you’re even going to start seeing the prospect of significant gentrification,” Obama said at a community forum where one attendee asked about the possibility of existing residents being pushed out. “Malia’s kids might have to worry about that.” But now, six years later, residents of Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood are fighting fears of displacement amidst looming real-estate speculation in the area surrounding the $830 million project, set to open in nearby Jackson Park in 2026.

Philadelphia: Billionaires’ Mayor Okays Arena

September 25, 2024 Betsey Piette, Workers World. Resist! Chinatown, Displacement, Gentrification, Philadelphia, Stadium

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker came out strongly in support of billionaire developers on Sept. 18 when she announced that she will present a legislative package to the City Council for approval of a controversial plan by the 76ers basketball team to build an arena in Center City. The pre-recorded announcement, released to select media in a closed-door session, was strongly denounced by protesters with the Save Chinatown Coalition who were gathered outside City Hall. For over two years, thousands of demonstrators have protested the arena they say will do irreparable harm to the city’s historic 150-plus year-old Chinatown.

The People Versus The Billionaires

September 11, 2024 Betsey Piette, Workers' World. Resist! Chinatown, Class Struggle, Gentrification, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Stadium, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Several thousand people turned out for the Save Chinatown Coalition rally on Sept. 7 to protest the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposal to build a new $1.55 billion arena near Chinatown called “76 Place.” While the National Basketball Association team’s billionaire owners repeatedly say a new arena at 10th and Market streets would provide “economic opportunity for surrounding areas,” community residents, who have been fighting this proposal for over two years, argue that it would be an “existential threat” to this historic Philadelphia neighborhood. The impact studies commissioned by the city, released in late August, support the residents’ arguments.

Seattle Is Walking Back Its Promises On Community-Led Anti-Displacement

July 23, 2024 Quynh Pham, Ryan Curren and Ben Palmquist, Next City. Educate! Displacement, Equity, Gentrification, Seattle, Systemic Racism

When it launched a first-in-the-nation anti-displacement fund in 2016, Seattle established itself as a leader in racial equity. But a new attack on the City’s Equitable Development Initiative (EDI), part of a national backlash against government efforts to address systemic racism and inequality, threatens that progress. The EDI finances the construction of community cultural and commercial space developed by community-of-color organizations in Seattle, often co-located with affordable housing. As of March of this year, the fund had provided over $100 million in grants for 56 different community-led projects that are helping create an inclusive, multiracial city.

‘Keep Public Housing Public’: Texas Dispute Reflects National Tensions

July 10, 2024 Jared Brey, Governing. Resist! Gentrification, Housing, Public Housing, San Antonio, Texas

Even with low-cost housing harder than ever to find in most American cities, the stock of public housing is shrinking. The number of families living in public housing shrank 6.5 percent during a recent five-year period, according to the Urban Institute — not a huge decline, but a decline nonetheless. Several federal initiatives to redevelop public-housing towers with lower-density, mixed-income projects have helped improve the image of public housing from its nadir in the mid-to-late 20th century. But they have also changed the mission of public housing authorities. Once focused solely on building and maintaining public units for poor people, housing authorities now engage in a wide variety of housing-related activities, sometimes partnering with private developers to build apartments for people who make barely less than the median income.

In Chinatown, A Community Envisions Alternatives To Sixers Arena

February 6, 2024 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Chinatown, Gentrification, Participatory Democracy, Philadelphia, Urban Design

Joy. While it’s been a contentious 18 months of protests, marching, and debating about a proposed new basketball arena in Philadelphia’s Center City, for at least one Saturday morning, an urban planning and design discussion about the proposed arena location brought some joy to the conversation. At the Center for Architecture in Philly, just a few blocks from the site of the proposed arena, about a hundred people gathered on Jan. 27 to brainstorm alternative uses for the site. The public workshop was organized by the Save Chinatown Coalition, an alliance of 245 organizations from Chinatown and around the city who oppose the new arena because they fear its proximity to Chinatown will disrupt and displace the community.

Inside The Fight To Save Philly’s Chinatown From A New Arena

January 17, 2024 Justin A. Davis, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! China Town, Gentrification, Philadelphia, Stadium

Since the summer of 2022, the city of Philadelphia has seen a fierce battle over the home of their professional basketball team, the 76ers. Currently located at Wells Fargo Center on Philly’s south side, economic power players have been shopping around a proposal for a new 18,000 seat arena called 76 Place, which would move NBA games to the city’s bustling downtown core (known as Center City). With a billion-dollar price tag, 76 Place represents a partnership between team owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer and real estate mogul David Adelman, who have argued that the arena would create new jobs, raise tax revenue and revitalize a part of downtown that many see as full of untapped potential.

Pollution Displaces Black Residents; White Homeowners Profit

November 25, 2023 Adam Mahoney, In These Times. Educate! Black America, Chicago, Environment, Gentrification, Housing, Illinois, pollution, Racial disparities

Englewood Chicago — Deborah Payne’s neighborhood of 35 years on Chicago’s South Side no longer exists. Dirt piles tower where families once gathered for Sunday dinners in single- and multifamily homes. Concrete lots cover backyards where children watched fireworks and caught lightning bugs. Streets that maintained generations of Black Chicago razed and left empty for railway cars. Today, less than 10 blocks from Payne’s old neighborhood, sits the repercussions of diesel pollution caused by the expansion of a railyard. Over a decade ago, the city, along with railroad giant Norfolk Southern, announced a plan to buy out Payne’s 12-block community of more than 200 households to replace it with the freight yard.

El Paso Tried To Turn This Historic Neighborhood Into A Sports Arena

November 17, 2023 Christian De Jesus Betancourt, Next City. Resist! El Paso, Gentrification, Housing, Texas, Victory

Sitting on a street bench on the closed-off Chihuahua Street on a crisp El Paso evening, Romelia Mendoza and Selfa Chew recall the seven-year struggle to save the historic Duranguito neighborhood from demolition. Since 2016, they and other locals have believed a sports arena would be built atop the home where Mendoza saw her siblings grow through the 1970s. Today, fences placed by the city surround the building. One of El Paso’s oldest barrios, Duranguito, sits along the border between El Paso and its Mexican sister city, Juarez. Once the “Ellis Island of the South,” as local historian David Dorado Romo puts it, was the entry point for hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants and even Chinese immigrants, some of whom made a home in Duranguito.

New York City Tenants Battle Eviction

September 24, 2023 Paul DeRienzo, WestViews News. Resist! Gentrification, New York City (NYC), Privatization, Public Housing

West Side Congressman Jerry Nadler faced boos and catcalls September 6th at the Fulton Senior Center in Chelsea. Dozens of tenants of the Elliott-Chelsea and Fulton Houses jammed the meeting chanting “My house is not for sale,” and “no demolition.” Residents of the two housing projects located between Ninth and Tenth Avenues are enraged by Nadler’s support of a plan to demolish and rebuild the half dozen buildings and replacing the public housing with a luxury 3500-unit development. Three-quarters of the new units would rent at New York City’s astronomical market rate. One quarter would be reserved for low- and middle-income tenants.

When Green Spaces Displace Residents, Our Cities’ Health Suffers

September 9, 2023 Viniece Jennings, Alessandro Rigolon and Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, Next City Educate! Cities, Displacement, Gentrification, Green Spaces

It’s an undeniable fact: Green spaces are crucial to our health and wellbeing. Again and again, researchers have found that access to urban green spaces – from parks to gardens to greenways – positively impacts multiple measures of health, such as community satisfaction, social cohesion and access to healthy foods. Having a stable, quality place to call home is associated with various positive life outcomes, from lower mortality rates to lower rates of drug use. However, in a process known as ecological, green or environmental gentrification, green amenities can contribute to gentrification and, over time, the displacement of low-income residents.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 »

Daily movement news and resources