Uneven Development

Reparations For Development And Justice For The Caribbean

October 25, 2019 Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Blackagendareport.com Create! Caribbean, Reparations, Uneven Development

I bring no special expertise or unique perspective to the issue of reparations. However, I am here primarily to signify my personal commitment to the fight to achieve reparatory justice. Approximately five years ago, on October 14, 2014, at the second regional conference on reparations, held at the Multipurpose Cultural Centre, a mere four months of becoming Prime Minister, the Hon PJ Patterson, who was the featured speaker said to me: “As one who belongs to the older generation of Caribbean leaders, I am here today to present that torch to a leader of the younger generation and to say: Never let that torch be extinguished.”

The United States Is First In War, But Trailing In Crucial Aspects Of Modern Civilization

December 31, 2018 By Lawrence Wittner, Educate! Uneven Development, US Imperialism

Maybe those delirious crowds chanting “USA, USA” have got something. When it comes to military power, the United States reigns supreme. Newsweek reported in March 2018: “The United States has the strongest military in the world,” with more than two million military personnel and vast numbers of the most advanced nuclear missiles, military aircraft, warships, tanks, and other modern weapons of war. Furthermore, as the New York Times noted, “the United States also has a global presence unlike any other nation, with about 200,000 active duty troops deployed in more than 170 countries.” This presence includes some 800 overseas U.S. military bases.

Germany Allocates $62m To Development Projects In Palestine

December 7, 2018 Middle East Monitor, Mintpressnews.com Create! Development, Germany, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Palestine, Uneven Development

Germany allocated €55 million ($62.5 million) to be dispersed to Palestinian development projects in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip in 2019. Klaus Kramer, the head of division in the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, told reporters in Ramallah that it was agreed, in coordination with various ministries in the Palestinian government, that the money will go to mainly three sectors: sustainable economic development, infrastructure such as water projects and local governance, including projects with municipalities. While the funds in the form of grants will go mainly to these three areas, development projects in other fields will also get part of the money, such as projects carried out by civil society organisations.

Gentrification: The New “Negro Removal” Program

November 29, 2018 By Dr. Ron Daniels, Ibw21.org Educate! Gentrification, Uneven Development

Gentrification has emerged as a major threat to Black communities that have been centers for Black business/economic development, cultural and civic life for generations. Gentrification has become the watch-word for the displacement of Black people and culture. Gentrification is the “Negro Removal Program” of the 21st Century. There is an urgent need for people of African descent to mount a serious offensive to defend Black communities from this insidious onslaught. During the Civil Rights, Black Power era, the term “Negro Removal” was virtually synonymous with “Urban Renewal,” local, state and federal highway and development projects that often disconnected and destroyed stable Black communities.

Caguas, Puerto Rico: Squatter City

November 24, 2018 Erin Sheridan, Indypendent.org Create! Housing, Puerto Rico, Uneven Development

Against a backdrop of gentrification, austerity and hurricane wreckage, these activists aren’t just rebuilding their city, they’re reimagining it. The main thoroughfare in Caguas, Puerto Rico, a city of nearly 150,000 people, remains desolate for hours at a time. Its buildings, ranging from pale pinks to bright orange and lime green, appear vacant. Many of the storefronts have boarded windows as if the shopkeepers left in a hurry and haven’t looked back. Hurricane Maria hit Caguas, 19 miles south of San Juan, with the same devastating force that met other municipalities on Puerto Rico’s eastern coast. But for locals, it was a common sentiment that life in Caguas was already careening in an unsustainable direction well before last year’s hurricanes — Irma, followed by the even more devastating Maria — were even on the radar.

How The US Creates ‘Sh*thole’ Countries

November 23, 2018 Robert Fantina, Consortiumnews.com Educate! Imperialism, Uneven Development, US Imperialism

A new collection of essays, edited by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, clearly shows that it is the U.S. that is largely responsible for the poverty and suffering in these very nations. In two years, the world has become accustomed to being shocked by the words and actions of United States President Donald Trump. In January of this year, he again showed his lack of diplomacy, tack and common decency, when he referred to many poorer countries as “sh*ithole countries”, asking, “Why do we want all these people from sh*thole countries coming here?” Former member of the House of Representatives Cynthia McKinney...

How Neoliberal Economists Wreak Havoc On The Global Poor While Protecting The Financial Elite

November 16, 2018 Vijay Prashad, Independent Institute Educate! Capitalism, Finance, IMF, Inequality, Uneven Development

On December 1, Mexico will have a new president—Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He will take over the presidency from the lackluster Enrique Peña Nieto, whose administration is marinated in corruption. Peña Nieto’s legal office has already asked the Supreme Court to shield his officials from prosecution for corruption. The elite will protect itself. López Obrador will not be able to properly exorcize the corrupt from the Mexican state, let alone from Mexican society. Corrupt weeds grow on the soil of capitalism, the loam of profit and greed as well as of rents from government contracts. López Obrador comes to the presidency as a man of the left, but the space for maneuvering that he has for a left agenda is minimal. Mexico’s economy, through geography and trade agreements, is fused with that of the United States.

Get Ready For Another Crash

September 26, 2018 By John Feffer, Inequality.org Educate! Capitalism, Crisis, Deregulation, New Economy, Uneven Development

You might remember that phrase from the 1990s. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve at the time, was describing how the tech boom was creating a bubble by generating enthusiasm way out of proportion to the actual value of the new companies. Such an unwarranted economic boom was hardly something new, so it was easy to predict what would happen next. Periods of irrational exuberance — whether the dot-com expansion, Dutch tulipmania in the 17th century, or the housing bubble in America of the 2000s — have always led to a sudden crash and a serious hangover. And now, here we go again. Trump, always exuberant when talking about himself and his putative accomplishments, loves to boast about how well the American economy is chugging along.

How Struggling Dayton, Ohio, Reveals The Chasm Among American Cities

September 13, 2018 By Alec MacGillis, Propublica.org Educate! Cities, Inequality, Uneven Development

“Left Behind America,” a ProPublica/Frontline collaboration, premieres on PBS on Sept. 11 and can also be streamed. The news this past year has been full of the tribulations facing the cities at the vanguard of the great urban rebirth. There are fights over Uber limits in New York, cash-free purchasing in Washington, D.C., and extreme housing costs in San Francisco. Dayton, Ohio, has been grappling with a different set of concerns. For example, there was a spate of disturbing, unexplained deaths in a formerly middle-class neighborhood just northwest of downtown. Over the span of seven months, five women’s bodies were found scattered around the area, at least three of them the victims of homicides, the others likely dead by overdose. Three had gone undiscovered for so long that they’d been partly eaten by animals.

The Wealth Hiding In Your Neighborhood

September 13, 2018 By Chuck Collins, Otherwords.org Educate! Corruption, Money, Ruling Class, Uneven Development

You’ve probably heard about their offshore bank accounts, shell corporations, and fancy trusts. But this wealth isn’t all sitting in the Cayman Islands or Panama. Much of it’s hiding in plain view: maybe even in your town. America’s big cities are increasingly dotted with luxury skyscrapers and mansions. These multi-million dollar condos are wealth storage lockers, with the ownership often obscured by shell companies. In Boston, where I live, there’s a luxury building boom. According to a study I just co-authored, out of 1,805 luxury units — with an average price of over $3 million — more than two-thirds are owned by people who don’t live here. One-third are owned by shell companies and trusts that mask their ownership. And of these units, 40 percent are limited liability companies (LLCs) organized in Delaware.

A March On Jeju Island

September 7, 2018 Buddy Bell, Vcnv.org Resist! Gentrification, Protests, South Korea, Uneven Development

On the cusp of July and August, nearly 200 students and 150 adults participated in a 3-day march in opposition to the construction of a second airport on Jeju-Do, South Korea. The plans include leveling two small mountains on the eastern side of the island and the likely relocation of an elementary school. If built, the airport will increase an implanted trend of hyper-tourism which puts heavy stress on local groundwater resources and displaces farmers. Jeju activists fought an 11-year struggle against the construction of a new naval base that the Seoul government claimed was to become a civilian dock, so they believe the new airport will also have a military character despite official denials. The activists invited members of the community and students from primary and secondary schools in Seogwipo, Pyoseon, and Seongsan to walk 20 kilometers a day in summer heat, starting from the new naval base in Gangjeong and heading for the airport site in Seongsan.

Drifting Away From Peace

August 24, 2018 By Sajjad Hussain, Fpif.org Educate! Nationalism, Peace, Uneven Development

The twelfth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) reports that the global level of peace deteriorated by 0.27 per cent last year. Europe and United States, the world’s most peaceful regions, recorded a decline in peacefulness for the third straight year. This is not merely a one-year decline. Rather, it’s part of a decade-long trend: global peacefulness has deteriorated by 2.38 per cent since 2008. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a non-partisan think tank headquartered in Sydney, has been publishing yearly editions of GPI for the last 13 years. Covering 99.7 per cent of the world population, the index ranks 163 independent states and territories in three domains – safety and security in the society, involvement in ongoing conflicts, and militarization – according to 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators.

Trump: The De-Globalizer?

July 28, 2018 Peter Koenig, Dissidentvoice.org Educate! Globalization, Trump Administration, Uneven Development

Looks like Trump is running amok with his “trading policies”. Not only has he upset the European Union, which doesn’t deserve any better, frankly, for having been and still being submissive vassals against the will of by now 90% of Europeans; but he has also managed to get China into a fury. Well, for China it is really not that important, because China has plenty of other markets, including basically all of Asia and probably increasingly also Europe, as Europe increasingly feels the need for detaching from the US. What is striking, though, is that even at the outset of the G20 Summit now ongoing in Buenos Aires, Argentina,Trump’s Ministers have made it clear that unless Europe cancels all subsidies – referring primarily to agricultural subsidies – and eliminates the newly imposed retaliatory import duties, new trade deals are not going to be discussed.

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.

Income Of World’s Top .001% Skyrockets By 636%: Report

December 19, 2017 Staff Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Poverty, Uneven Development

The report, which highlights the growing gulf between haves and have-nots, was compiled by five economists, including scholars Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. Global Economic Inequality is surging, further widening the pay gap between the haves and have-nots, according to a new World Inequality report. The report highlights the growing gulf between the haves and the have-nots, and was compiled by five economists, including scholars Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The top .001 percent of earners in the United States, consisting of almost 1,300 households, have seen their earnings skyrocket by 636 percent in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, the average annual income for the bottom 50 percent of earners has stayed constant at US$16,000 over the last four decades, adjusting for inflation.

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