Gentrification

The Ivory Tower Is Dead

November 30, 2021 Davarian L. Baldwin And Sam Klug, Dissent Magazine. Educate! Gentrification, Higher Education, Tax Breaks, Worker Rights

Davarian L. Baldwin’s recent book, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower, offers an insightful examination—and stirring critique—of the role of universities in the political economy of U.S. cities. In this interview, Baldwin shines a light on how institutions that define themselves as key contributors to the public good have entrenched new forms of urban inequality. Understanding the meaning of higher education in American life today requires seeing the university from the perspective of the workers it exploits, the residents it displaces, and the people it polices. Sam Klug: You claim that many major cities have not just embraced the eds and meds economy but have actually become company towns for large institutions of higher education—what you label “UniverCities.” How do universities exercise this kind of control?

The Obama Presidential Center Will Displace Black People

October 16, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Barack Obama, Chicago, Gentrification, Housing

The soon to be constructed Barack Obama Presidential Center poses a great danger to the surrounding Black neighborhoods on the South Shore of Chicago. In fact, thanks to this $500 million, 19-acre homage to the 44th president, there may not be any Black people living there much longer. Families are already facing rent increases and homes that were once moderately priced are now unaffordable to Black working people. These market manipulations are integral to the gentrification model of urban development. The end result is always a displaced and dispersed Black population. This crisis is but the latest Obama slap in the face to the people who loved him the most. His 2008 presidential campaign stump speeches were replete with the worst stereotypes about Black men.

Food As A Spearhead For Gentrification

October 15, 2021 Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, Consortium News. Educate! Cities, Food Access, Food Trucks, Gentrification

I live in San Diego, where I teach courses on urban and food geographies and conduct research on the relationship between food and ethnicity in urban contexts. In recent years, I started to notice a pattern playing out in the city’s low-income neighborhoods that have traditionally lacked food options. More ethnic restaurants, street vendors, community gardens and farmers markets were cropping up. These, in turn, spurred growing numbers of white, affluent and college-educated people to venture into areas they had long avoided. This observation inspired me to write a book, titled The $16 Taco, about how food — including what’s seen as “ethnic,” “authentic” or “alternative” — often serves as a spearhead for gentrification.

Destroying Black And Brown Lives For High-Rises In The Nation’s Capital

October 12, 2021 Eleanor Goldfield, Mintpress News. Educate! Black America, Gentrification, Housing, Washington DC

Washington, DC — “Where that McDonald’s is right now,” he says pointing across the street. “That used to be a news stand where I’d buy comics as a kid.” Dumah Muhammad stands in Adams Morgan Plaza in Washington, D.C., a light drizzle misting a small crowd of supporters and press. A few people wrangle a tarp over the PA system and there’s a tent where folks can grab snacks, pamphlets, water and shelter. Five Metropolitan Police cars are parked alongside the plaza and just behind the plaza there’s a staging area stacked with fencing and mingling cops. Despite literally being surrounded, the energy in the plaza is that familiar direct-action blend of defiance and celebration. Between speeches, music pumps out of the PA and folks dance alongside anti-gentrification artwork and handmade signs.

Gentrification And The End Of Black Communities

August 26, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Capitalism, Gentrification, Racism

Brooklyn, New York is the epicenter of gentrification, the displacement of Black people from cities in this country. Recently released census data shows that neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant , which was nearly all Black for decades, no longer has a Black majority. Bedford-Stuyvesant’s white population rose by 30,000 from 2010 to 2020 while its Black population decreased by 22,000. The devastation has been wrought by finance capital, which has once again upended life for Black people. Money was taken out of the cities in the 1950s and 1960s, creating what was known as “white flight” to the suburbs. Now the same forces have reversed themselves and are putting money back into the cities, and Black people are the losers.

Big Business Loves The Housing Crisis

August 22, 2021 Nick Bano, Tribune Magazine. Educate! COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Gentrification, Housing

What’s your favourite type of landlord? It’s an odd question, but it’s one that commentators keep asking as housing crises of various types continue to take shape across the world. In a recent series of articles, economist Brett Christophers analysed the workings of Blackstone, a New York-based asset management firm which has become a phenomenally successful (and deeply harmful) institutional player in American housing markets. At the moment, the picture in the UK is very different—small-scale individuals vastly outnumber institutions in the buy-to-let market—but there are signs that this is starting to change. Last week, Lloyds Bank announced its plans to become one of the UK’s biggest landlords by buying 50,000 homes over the next four years – roughly equivalent to buying every dwelling in Exeter.

A Crisis Of ‘Forced Mass Displacement’ Of Black Pittsburghers

April 8, 2021 Tom Davidson, TribLive.com. Educate! Gentrification, Housing, Pennsylvania, Systemic Racism

Pennsylvania - Why did 7,000 Black Pittsburgh residents leave the city between 2014 and 2018? The answer depends on who’s talking. Community activist Randall Taylor, a former Pittsburgh Public Schools board member and city council candidate, calls it a “crisis of forced mass displacement” of Black residents. City councilmen Ricky Burgess and R. Daniel Lavelle say the issue is more nuanced and that most of the 7% of the Black population that left during that time period did so by choice. Taylor and 31 other city residents on Tuesday petitioned Pittsburgh City Council for a public hearing on the issue and to begin a discussion about what to do about it.

Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Affordable Housing

February 5, 2021 Julia Travers, Invisible People TV. Educate! Affordable Housing, climate crisis, Coastal Living, Gentrification

A recent study in Environmental Research Letters examined how coastal flood risks tied to climate change threaten affordable housing. The authors also touched on the social justice aspects of housing scarcity and climate change, as well as the importance of not displacing people when flood-preparation housing improvements are carried out. “Affordable housing residents have far fewer safe options and much more to lose than their neighbors as sea level rise increases coastal flooding risks in their communities,” Benjamin Strauss, study co-author and Climate Central CEO and chief scientist, told Invisible People.

The Red House And The Future Of Eviction Defense

December 11, 2020 David Rovics, Counterpunch. Resist! Eviction, Eviction Defense, Gentrification, Portland

Portland, Oregon has been in the headlines again over the last few days, and this trend will continue. The reasons for the headlines will vary depending on who you ask. If you ask the far right they will say something about Antifa terrorists having violent confrontations with the police because they hate law and order. The mainstream media’s headlines will also tend to lead with the so-called violent clashes, but then they may inform us that the reasons for the confrontation have to do with folks trying to prevent the eviction of a Black and indigenous family that has lived in the Red House at 4406 North Mississippi for multiple generations.

Red House Remains ‘Unceded Territory,’ Portland Family Says

December 10, 2020 Zane Sparling, Portland Tribune. Resist! Eviction Defense, Gentrification, Indigenous Rights, Portland

A local family says their home in Portland's historically-Black Albina neighborhood remains "unceded territory" — despite authorities' vow to remove barricades and enforce what they say is a lawful eviction. Several members of the Kinney family hosted a press conference outside the "Red House" on North Mississippi Avenue just after 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 9. Since Tuesday, hundreds of black-clad activists have used fencing, plywood and other materials to block access to the area near the home by erecting palisades across city streets. Portland Police Bureau officers and Multnomah County deputies arrived in the early morning Dec. 8...

Sweet (And Sticky) Redemption

October 5, 2020 Maurice Bailey and Nik Heynen, Scalawag Magazine. Resist! Cultural heritage, Food and Agriculture, Gentrification, Slavery

There is no U.S. agricultural history without the expertise and labor of African people who were enslaved across the South, including the Gullah/Geechee people of the lower Atlantic Coast. But the violence of slavery and white supremacy is tied up with the crops that grew the global economy, embedding sugarcane, cotton, rice, and other historic commercial crops with a traumatic legacy. For the Sapelo Island community—which includes the largest and most intact population of Gullah/Geechee descendants left in the U.S.

Lawyers: Breonna Taylor Warrant Connected To Gentrification Plan

July 6, 2020 By Phillip M. Bailey and Tessa Duvall, Louisville Courier Journal. Educate! Breonna Taylor, Gentrification, killed by police, Police violence

"Breonna’s home should never have had police there in the first place," the attorneys wrote in the filing. "When the layers are peeled back, the origin of Breonna’s home being raided by police starts with a political need to clear out a street for a large real estate development project and finishes with a newly formed, rogue police unit violating all levels of policy, protocol, and policing standards. "Breonna’s death was the culmination of radical political and police conduct." According to the police department's organization chart, the Place-Based Investigations squad was created to address "systemically violent locations" and help existing crime deterrence efforts.

Black Workers Protest Union-Busting Boston Gentrifier

July 1, 2020 Boston Bureau, Workers World. Resist! Black Working Class, Boston, Gentrification, Recession

A June 16 action for eight laid-off workers — organized just four days after the announcement they had been fired — drew about 100 people. They were protesting at their place of work, College Bound Dorchester/Boston Uncornered, on a quiet residential street on Tuesday morning. With these latest layoffs, CEO Mark Culliton targeted one-third of the remaining youth services employees working for his company, College Bound, after workers declared their intention to unionize as Uncornered United-Service Employees (SEIU) Local 888 on June 2. College Bound is a “further education” preparation program, while Boston Uncornered hires neighborhood leaders impacted by violence to be mentors in the program. The company website advertises the programs as “opportunities to turn away from the ‘street corners’ for good.” The UU mentors are Black and Brown neighborhood leaders who have demonstrated social influence and skill at developing young people by drawing on their own challenges and experiences. These workers are demanding that Culliton recognize the union and that he reinstate those illegally fired.

De Blasio Rejects Community’s Plan For Bushwick Rezoning

January 16, 2020 By Jake Offenhartz, Gothamist.com Educate! Development, Displacement, Gentrification, New York (NY)

Mayor Bill de Blasio has rejected a community-driven rezoning proposal for Bushwick, dealing a significant blow to local residents who spent years drafting a blueprint aimed at addressing gentrification and displacement in the rapidly changing neighborhood. The administration's decision was outlined in a letter delivered to local stakeholders this weekend by Deputy Mayor Vicki Breen, who said she was "deeply concerned" that aspects of the community plan amounted to a downzoning.

Poor Neighborhoods Need More Than ‘Investment’

November 29, 2019 By Amadi Anene, Otherwords.org Create! Development, Gentrification, Investment

Where some of us see distressed neighborhoods — where families endure poverty and homes fall into disrepair — others see dollar signs. In fact, the Trump administration now brands them “opportunity zones,” offering tax breaks to investors who invest capital there. What remains unclear is this: Opportunity for whom? Big investors may stand to cash in, but many communities are saying they’re not getting the benefits they were promised.

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