Gentrification

A Village Of Hope In The City – Latin Village

August 27, 2023 AX, Unicorn Riot. Create! Gentrification, Latin American, Mutual Aid, United Kingdom (UK), Victory

An urban area, or a borough, can be perceived as an organism and the communities that constitute it can be considered its active living cells. Depending on their passive or dynamic stances, communities can act as catalysts to the quality and direction of urban development in the area. A very good example lies in Tottenham, which aside from its globally known football / soccer team the Tottenham Hotspur, is also known for the Latin Village. In the borough of Haringey in north London, about half of Tottenham’s 130,000 people are white, and half of those are immigrants from Eastern Europe. A big Latin American community mostly of Colombian ancestry thrives among the very diverse other half.

Louisville’s Black Neighborhoods Want To End Publicly-Funded Displacement

August 8, 2023 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Black America, Displacement, Gentrification, Housing, Kentucky, Louisville

Jessica Bellamy wants to stop paying almost a thousand dollars a year to help displace the community that shaped her as a child: Louisville’s historically-Black Smoketown neighborhood. That’s the current property tax bill for the camelback shotgun house her grandmother gifted her a few years ago. It’s the house where Bellamy spent part of her childhood, just steps from her grandmother’s soul food restaurant, Shirley Mae’s Cafe. The restaurant, where Bellamy often took orders and served drinks over the years, is still hanging on as a neighborhood landmark. But like so many other homes in the redlined neighborhood, the house had gradually fallen into an unlivable state of disrepair.

Immigrant Residents Move To Stop Coney Island Casino Bid

July 31, 2023 Amir Khafagy, Hampton Institute. Resist! Casinos, Gentrification, Immigrants, New York (NY)

Inside a small taco stand located in the heart of the Coney Island amusement district, a small but vocal group of community members gathered over a platter of tacos al pastor, to discuss how a proposed casino would affect their lives. “They will push us out and push local business out,” Jenny Hernandez, 30, said at the event. She has lived in Coney Island since she immigrated with her family from Mexico when she was a child. To her, a casino would destroy everything that she loves about her neighborhood. “I love Coney Island and what I love the most about it is the diversity of nationalities that is here. I want it to stay that way and I want my kids to see all the nationalities.”

‘The Tower Has Fallen;’ A Win For Anti-Gentrification Movement

July 28, 2023 Ax and Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot. Strategize! Brixton, Gentrification, Housing, United Kingdom (UK), Victory

“This is a huge victory for Brixton … Brixton has defended itself from further gentrification,” said Jordi, an organizer with the #FightTheTower campaign. The proposed construction of what’s been called Hondo Tower, or Taylor Tower, has been withdrawn. The project was to be a 20-story building built right next to Brixton’s vibrant Pope’s Road street market in London. This particular movement, #FightTheTower (FTT), is now considered one of the most effective, persistent, hard fought and victorious anti-gentrification struggles currently held in the United Kingdom. Unicorn Riot previously explored the history of Brixton, the planned tower and the anti-gentrification movement.

To Stop Demolition, One London Home Transformed Into An Art Exhibit

June 30, 2023 Agatha Scaggiante, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Art, Gentrification, Public Housing, United Kingdom (UK)

London’s residents face the highest rents and have the lowest rate of homeownership in the U.K. today. One solution would be for local councils to expand public housing, known as “council housing.” However, the waitlist for these homes has jumped by 50,000 since 2020. This has happened partially because London councils have reduced their housing stock by 10 percent since the beginning of the pandemic, often due to privatization. Building complexes made up of only council housing, called council estates, are becoming increasingly rare sights in the capitol.

The Tale Of The City: Gentrification In London – Part 2

June 19, 2023 AX, Unicorn Riot. Strategize! Gentrification, Housing, Squatting, United Kingdom (UK)

‘The Guns of Brixton’ sung by the Clash in 1979 made Brixton synonymous with resistance, anti-oppression, and anti-racism beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. The song presaged the riots of 1981 which rose Brixton into a symbol even as they spread all over England* that summer. The emblematic city of Brixton is currently at a crucial crossroad, struggling not to lose its character as gentrification spreads across London. With a vibrance of ethnic identities represented, Brixton’s main market on Pope’s Road in the heart of the city is the where activists and campaigners have launched their wide-reaching #FightTheTower campaign. The anti-gentrification campaign is aimed at stopping the construction of Taylor Tower, a 20-story building that will alter the landscape of the market.

Can Guaranteed Income Prevent Gentrification?

May 30, 2023 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Gentrification, Guaranteed income, Housing, Louisville, Poverty

Louisville activist Cassandra Webb has been working to curb violent crime in her city for years. Cities United, the national nonprofit with which she works, has taken on the mission of violence reduction in the city from seemingly every angle: working with youth leaders at the ground level, convening a network of urban leaders and stakeholders, advancing place-based initiatives to align public and private resources with Louisville residents’ vision for reversing disinvestment in their communities. But increasingly, Webb says, it’s become clear to her that some of these problems can only be solved through money – specifically, cash flowing directly to Louisville residents every month through a guaranteed income program.

Tale Of The City: Gentrification In London, Part 1

May 25, 2023 AX, Unicorn Riot. Strategize! Gentrification, Housing, London, United Kingdom (UK)

London, England — Gentrification has transformed the urban landscape of London’s Southwark Borough over the last decade. In the Elephant and Castle area, a district known for its squatting history, community networks and strong counterculture background, activists and political groups are now trying to reconnect struggles and reignite political movements calling for fair development. This article is the first in our three-part series, Tale of the City: Gentrification in London. This series looks at three current struggles against gentrification across different boroughs of London — each containing threads of thought and action that intertwine in the city canvas presenting experience, education and perspective into explanations around the motives and definitions of gentrification.

UC Townhomes Residents Demand ‘Right To Return’

April 28, 2023 Betsey Piette, Workers.org. Resist! Gentrification, Philadelphia, Right to Return, UC Townhomes

Philadelphia - Leading chants of “we saved the peoples townhomes” and “housing is a human right1” activist Krystal Strong opened a press conference and rally attended by University City Townhomes residents and supporters at 40th and Market streets on April 21. After a two-year struggle to stop the demolition and displacement of one of the few remaining predominantly Black and Brown affordable housing developments in Philadelphia, a tentative agreement was reached April 19 between the city and site owner IBID Associates, for the development of 70 new units of affordable housing on one-fifth of the 2.7-acre property.

March To Save Philadelphia’s Chinatown

April 27, 2023 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! Chinatown, Gentrification, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A show of force and unity will take place in Philadelphia April 29 with the message, “No Arena in the Heart of Our City.” Marching from Chinatown to the much-criticized proposed site of a new basketball arena and then on to City Hall, Chinatown residents and allies will be telling the City Council and the mayor that the people are united in opposing the blatant land grab by billionaire developers. In the words of the Save Chinatown Coalition: “The event will be a demonstration of joy, creativity and the power of connecting across communities. It will be a demonstration of fierce resistance to those who seek to tear apart communities and disrupt and distort the Heart of our City in their boundless drive for profits.”

Philly Reaches Deal With Property Owner Over UC Townhomes

April 26, 2023 Aaron Moselle, Next City. Educate! Gentrification, Housing, Philadelphia, UC Townhomes

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Philadelphia has agreed to build 70 units of affordable housing on a portion of the site containing the soon-to-be-shuttered University City Townhomes, the city announced last week. The forthcoming project is a piece of a settlement agreement stemming from a federal lawsuit the complex’s owners filed against the city last year in response to legislation passed by City Council. The measure was introduced as part of a broader effort to maintain affordability in a swiftly gentrifying section of the city, as well specifically at the site of the townhomes. The owners argued the bill violated their constitutional right to sell the blocklong complex at 39th and Market streets, calling it an abuse of power.

Our Missing Middle Housing Didn’t Just Go Missing

April 24, 2023 David S. Rotenstein, Next City. Educate! Affordable Housing, Gentrification, Georgia, Housing

In early February, the city commission in Decatur, Georgia voted to amend the city’s zoning law to allow the construction of “duplex, triplex, and quadruplex residential units” in “single-family residential zoning districts” — what many housing advocates call missing middle housing. The legislation followed on the heels of 20 years of special studies, litigation and resident agitation over the city’s declining affordable housing stock, gentrification and displacement. By early 2023, it was too late to preserve the Atlanta suburb’s affordable housing stock. As for Decatur’s diversity, the tipping point for demographic and economic inversion had been reached long ago.

The Vail-ification Of The West

April 3, 2023 Joseph Bullington, In These Times. Educate! Colorado, Gentrification, wealth inequality, Worker Rights

"Welcome to Colorful Colorado,” reads the sign beside the highway as the road climbs from the alkaline flats of New Mexico into the foothills of the San Juan Mountains. But the landscape holds no color when Ana and her family cross the state line in the predawn dark. When the family arrives in Durango at 6:30 a.m., Ana’s husband goes to his construction job installing heating and A/C ducts. Ana waits at her sister’s house until the bus comes to take their son to school. Then, Ana goes to work, too, cleaning houses. This whole tiresome routine is new. Originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, the family lived for seven years in Durango, where they found work and a supportive immigrant community.

In Montana, An Avalanche Of Wealth Is Displacing Workers

March 31, 2023 Joseph Bullington, In These Times. Educate! Class Struggle, Gentrification, Montana, wealth inequality, Worker Rights and Jobs

Archie Martinez goes to bed with stained hands and wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to meet the person he pays to pick him up at the Bozeman homeless shelter. They drive to the shop of a painting company in Belgrade, eight miles away, where Martinez climbs into one of the company vans for the hour-long drive up the mountain to the resort town of Big Sky. As Martinez watches hayfields swim by in the dawn, a billboard blossoms out of the half-light beyond the van windows: “Dreaming of Your Own Equestrian Property?” Another advertises “Montana Life Real Estate.” The mountain sides along the highway glitter with the plate glass and stained wood of houses that weren’t there a few years ago.

The ‘Stop Cop City’ Movement Roots Go Back Decades

March 11, 2023 Micah Herskind, Scheer Post. Educate! Atlanta, Cop City, Gentrification, Police

On Jan. 18, 2023, a squad of local and state police officers marched into the Weelaunee Forest in southeast Atlanta, where they shot and killed a young, queer, Indigenous-Venezuelan protester named Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. Tortuguita was one of many Atlanta forest defenders, a decentralized group of activists that has been living in the forest since 2021 to protect against its proposed destruction and replacement with “Cop City”—a massive police militarization facility complete with a “mock city” inside for police to practice their many tactics of urban warfare and repression.

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