FLAG WARS - A REVIEW

In the documentary, one can see that the "gay rights" struggle although important has little to do with the discrimination based on skin color. Often a "white" gentrifier has to identify him/her self as homosexual before the discrimination can begin. Also, "white" gentrifiers may have been the beneficiaries of generational wealth at the expense of the historical lack of civil rights due to Black Africans in America, Native peoples, Latin American populations, etc.

It is my opinion that in order for homosexual "whites" to gain more credibility in the struggles of other "minority" populations, they should understand that they still hold social privilege in society and they should do what they can to curb racism even in their own communities. Above all, discrimination affects all but is more detrimental to the poor and underprivileged. Below is a "Behind The Lens" preview of the Film, "Flag Wars".

Anti-Gentrification Rebels

This article seems to make the case that the city belongs to it's citizens whomever they may be and should not be based on the preferred racial category, economic status, or on social privilege of the gentrifier or the gentrified. Unfortunately, the fact remains that the perceived race and the cultural capital of the population or individuals are a deciding factor in what areas get gentrified more easily. For example, the Puerto Rican populations in Harlem and Humboldt Park are susceptible because of their political status as the commonwealth of the U.S. which was realistically and in the global context, a result of Neo-colonization. Still, the article brings up good points.
GS
Photo From: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100630.shtml

Article From: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071112/gentrification

Anti-Gentrification Rebels
Roopa Singh

October 17, 2007

(Author's note: This article builds on Laura Hadden's recent WireTap feature "There Goes the Neighborhood" with a brief introduction to the Right to the City concept, which fosters urban dweller sovereignty. This piece examines gentrification in America's midsized cities through case studies of Southwest gem Austin, Texas, and the Rust Belt renaissance city Pittsburgh, Pa.)

The U.S. anti-gentrification movement has gained inspiration from a banner-worthy ideology called "Right to the City." The notion was originally articulated in 1968 by French philosopher Henri Lefebvre. His concept was simple and daring: Return decision-making power in cities back to all urban dwellers.

Lefebvre also promoted the concept of "layers of recognized citizenship," which endows city folk with authority over all their dwellings, past and present. Lefebvre's Right to the City concept suggests that one can be a national citizen of India, while being an urban citizen of Los Angeles, thereby layering that urban dweller with all the civic rights and responsibilities of a citizen in both places.

So, why should the movement be studying the Right to the City concept?

First, because gentrification causes urban citizens to feel the glistening, hungry fangs of globalization at home, literally, and Lefebvre's theory helps us understand our rights, especially in an era of worldwide war.

Additionally, the Right to the City ideology is spreading through the national activist ranks, lately through the work of the Right To The City Alliance (a national advocacy group representing community organizations in nine cities) and the United Nations, sending smoke signals from coast to embattled coast.

Lastly, America's forgotten treasures, the less heard from midsized and secondary cities that stubbornly maintain alternatives to mainstream cool and nonsustainable development are experiencing virulent land takeovers largely undetected by the movement radar. The Right to the City concept requires citizens to take each other into account and learn from our varied battles the ways of the machine.

Austin, TX: Las Manitas' struggle for respect

The Austin Chronicle just released its Best of Austin 2007 picks, and the takeover of Las Manitas restaurant won the readers' poll for best news story. Escuelita Del Alma Learning Center, a sister business on the same block, won the critics' pick for best community childcare. But both beloved institutions are currently at the bargaining table, trading property rights they can't spare in exchange for a few more days till their forced evictions.

The Daily Texan further reported that "land development on the 200 block of Congress Avenue threatens to displace three local businesses: Las Manitas Avenue Café, Escuelita del Alma Learning Center and the retail arm of Tesoros Trading Co. A $185 million deal announced a few weeks ago between the landowner Finley Co. and White Lodging Services Corp. would tear down the businesses to make way for three Marriott International Inc. hotels." Behind the headlines, a trio of devoted community activists worked to save their neighborhood.

A matriarch crew, including Cynthia Perez, a founder of the Indigenous Women's Network, has been holding it down for the movement on the 200 block of Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, Texas, since 1981. Three women of color, sisters Cynthia and Libby Perez, and Dina Flores, life partners with Cynthia, run three entities between them. La Peña sits majestically on the northern corner, a nonprofit arts organization with a world-class gallery consistently showcasing marginalized art in schools and youth prisons throughout the city.

Las Manitas Avenue Café is the for-profit sentry on the southern corner, a restaurant, political watering hole and underground railroad station for immigrants, cooking culturally relevant food and funneling money to La Peña when funding gets lean. In the middle of the block is the beloved Escuelita del Alma Learning Center, a for-profit, community, Spanish immersion day care for the children of employees on the block and in downtown. All three entities face uncertain futures.

"What we're asking for is managed growth, mixed use growth that actually represents balance," asserted Cynthia. When I asked her why she turned down a special, one-time, forgivable relocation grant of $750,000 from the City of Austin she replied, "People don't understand. They're going: 'This is for you and no one else affected, this is for you to shut you up."

Despite the real need for fiscal support, the Perez sisters and Dina Flores declined the grant, which the local press picked up and spun as a wedge issue between these three business and other threatened establishments run by people of color in Austin. Two thousand miles away, likeminded civic activists were mobilizing to save one of the Northeast's most significant historic districts.

Pittsburgh, Pa.: Battle for the Hill

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's historic Hill District was home to Sugar Top (a must stop spot on the national jazz circuit), the champion Pittsburgh Crawfords (a Negro National League baseball team), writers like August Wilson, and a pre-eminent national Black newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier, for whom W.E.B Dubois, the Hon. Elijah Mohammed and Zora Neal Hurston wrote.

Public television station WQED's historical guide summarized the importance of the district: "From the 1930s to the 1950s, the Hill District thrived and was one of the most prosperous and influential black neighborhoods in America. It was thriving, bustling, and safe--a center for music, art and literature."

But in 1955, post WWII "redevelopment" in the Hill displaced over 8,000 residents, 1,239 black families, 312 white. Between this displacement and the industrial corporate abandonment that turned the entire region from the Manufacturing Belt into the Rust Belt, the historic Hill watched its population fall from over 50,000 in 1950 to 15,000 in 1990. So in 2006, when the City of Pittsburgh opened up a bidding process for a new casino and hockey stadium mega-complex with eyes on the Hill, resident activists like Dr. Kimberly Ellis sat bolt upright in their seats at the sound of redevelopment knocking on their doors again.

Out of three bids placed, only one proposed entry into an existing neighborhood, and once again, the Hill District was the target. Folks on the Hill began to mobilize, spurred on by Dr. Ellis and other community activists who demanded a seat at the city bargaining table. Their petitions, marches, and arts-based activism efforts persisted with a definitive vision for what the Hill should become.

And on December 21, 2006, they won. The city of Pittsburgh chose to award the lucrative stadium-casino contract to a bidder whose plans focused on a preexisting industrial parcel.

Says Dr. Ellis, "Fifty years ago my ancestors stood on Freedom Corner and said 'Not another inch!' and literally and figuratively saved my community from further destruction of 'urban renewal.' [And here again] we just saved our community, plain and simple. Now we have the opportunity for some real development to happen."

Lessons on gentrification

I asked Valerie Taing, national organizer, The Right To The City Alliance, what her vision is for an ideal city. Valerie replied, "A city where everything is controlled by, developed by, and meets the needs of the people that live there, and I get to sit on a porch and build with elders."

As the Austin and Pittsburgh examples show, if it ain't corporations on the gentrification takeover, it's smaller developers or individuals. As the economic dynamics of midsized cities around the United States change, power brokers will continue their direct targeting of historic neighborhoods and populations. Neither Austin or Pittsburgh is in the position to lose these vibrant businesses and cultural districts. But as our national progressive, anti-gentrification movement grows, mindful of Lefebvre's innovative concepts, there's hope that empowered citizens's rights and dreams will eventually be respected.

Roopa Singh is an urban citizen with village tendencies who currently resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is a political poet, an adjunct professor of international political science at Pace University and a theater instructor with South Asian Youth Action. Visit her blog, with "All the News That's Fit to Flip."

Chicago Gentrification-Woodlawn

Chicago has been a hotbed for Gentrification. As a "Business Town" it attracts allot of out of town Professionals and Graduates. It also attracts those who wish to attend prestigious schools like The University Of Chicago and Northwestern Illinois University. Most of these individuals come from families who have inherited generational wealth and did not have to deal with historical and present day discrimination whether from housing, employment, education, or other services that are usually privately run and available to affluent and privileged populations. Neighborhoods like Pilson and Humboldt Park are the most recent to fall prey to the indiscriminant practices of "market forces" and merchant systems adopted from Europe that see other cultures and their practices as expendable. Here is a clip from the "Woodlawn" community who is fighting these forces. It is from ABC news which surprisingly has made a story out of the issue and was supplied by a youtube account holder by the name of "mateochicago". The Pilson and Humboldt Park videos will be shown in another post.

"Members of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) + People Of Woodlawn took to the streets in downtown Chicago to protest the exclusion of low-income residents from neighborhood planning, leading to rampant gentrification and displacement. The New Communities Program, controlled in Woodlawn by the University of Chicago and its partner groups the Woodlawn Preservation + Investment Corporation and The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), has cut out the majority of the community and rubber stamped the gentrification already taking place. At the same time TWO was working on the New Communities Program and making claims to valuing affordability, they were trying to kick out 100 tenants from 5 subsidized buildings they own for a condo conversion. Tenants fought back and stopped the condo conversion and are organizing to take over their complex. This is the news coverage of one of their biggest actions in the campaign."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyXmFvHza6A

WHAT IS GENTRIFICATION-MAIN POINTS

PHOTO FROM: http://www.artreach.com/gallery/stevie/gentri.html

This is from the article "Gentrification In Brief" by Neil Smith, from the website "Enough Room For Space". It outlines the main points of the effects of Gentrification on the urban poor and those of non-hegemonic cultures. These issues are complex but the concept is simple. The wealthy, mostly European gentry, that has built generational wealth based on historical Imperialism and Colonialism goes into poorer neighborhoods and "rebuilds" for their own benefit based on consumerist obsessions with amenities, They also create jobs for those that "fit" into their hegemonic image of society.
GS

GENTRIFICATION IN BRIEF
http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/project_pages/view/198
Gentrification occurs in urban areas where prior disinvestment in the urban infrastructure creates neighborhoods that can be profitably redeveloped. In its earliest form, gentrification affected decaying working class neighborhoods close to urban centers where middle and upper middle class people colonized or re-colonized the area, leading to the displacement and eviction of existing residents. The central mechanism behind gentrification can be thought of as a “rent gap.” When neighborhoods experience disinvestment, the ground rent that can be extracted from the area declines, which means lower land prices. As this disinvestment continues, the gap between the actual ground rent in the area and the ground rent that could be extracted were the area to undergo reinvestment becomes wide enough to allow that reinvestment to take place. This rent gap may arise largely through the operation of markets, most notably in the United States, but state policies can also be central in encouraging disinvestment and reinvestment associated with gentrification. But only wealthier people are able to afford the costs of this renewed investment. Integral with these economic shifts are social and cultural shifts that change the kinds of shops, facilities and public spaces in a neighborhood. Early examples of gentrification might include the Islington area of London or Greenwich Village in Manhattan but by the 1970s there were many recorded cases of gentrification in Europe, North America and Australia. In Berlin, early examples of gentrification were recorded in Schöneberg and Kreuzberg, among other neighborhoods, but the fall of the Berlin Wall released a huge stock of housing that had undergone considerable disinvestment, leading to a widespread gentrification of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte.

1. Since the 1970s, gentrification has shifted from a marginal, fragmented process in the housing market to a large-scale, systematic and deliberate urban development policy. Gentrification has deepened as a comprehensive city-building strategy encompassing not just the residential market, but recreation, retail, employment, and the cultural economy. It has also spread geographically to Latin American and Asian cities with Shanghai and Beijing, for example, displacing hundreds of thousands of poor and working class residents. As a generalized urban strategy, gentrification weaves together the interests of city managers, developers and landlords, but also corporate employers and cultural and educational institutions which depend on a professional workforce. It is also the paradoxical but logical outcome of environmentalist demands for more dense living, pitting gentrifiers’ thirst for first-class housing against working-class demands for parks and community gardens. But these large-scale strategies are also integrated with much more local initiatives, and city managers around the world have become enamored of the idea of the “creative city.” As a matter of citywide strategy, they attempt to attract a so-called creative class of artists, intellectuals, entertainers, designers, high-tech engineers to specific gentrifying neighborhoods. This strategy was probably pioneered in New York’s Lower East Side where in the early 1980s landlords who were unable to rent commercial properties offered them at cheap rents to artists, giving them 5-year leases. After 5 years, with no rent control on commercial properties and with the neighborhood now gentrifying rapidly, landlords began to demand 400%, 600% even 1,000% rent increases to renew leases. The artists had done their work as the shock troops of gentrification and were themselves displaced. This more localized strategy is especially popular in places where perhaps there are more stringent rent controls or greater state regulation of the property market generally. The gentrification of Berlin has been more fragmented and slower than in London or New York, for example.
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3. Students, artists, and many other parts of the populace are part of the process of “cracking” neighborhoods that many other professionals may be unwilling to colonize. The question whether a particular neighborhood will or will not gentrify depends on the depth of the rent gap and the particulars of local policy, but it also depends on many other local issues, neighborhood characteristics and so on. If the rent gap is deep enough, I don’t think any neighborhood is “too bad” for gentrification, but at the same time there is no guarantee that a particular neighborhood will in fact be gentrified. Consider Harlem in New York City. In the 1960s and 1970s, Harlem was an international symbol of urban decline, a “bad neighborhood.” Not least, this was the product of racism as Harlem in 1980 was 97% African American. More than 20 years ago I interviewed an African American state bureaucrat in charge of trying to gentrify Harlem and as he put it: “If Harlem is going to be gentrified, whitey is really going to have to get his shit together.” Today, Harlem is gentrifying intensely, and has been after a hiatus in the late 1980s. African American professionals, students, lawyers, gays, white yuppies are all moving in, and property prices are sky rocketing. Columbia University is planning a huge university development in the area. If Harlem can be gentrified, I don’t think any neighborhood is immune. Or we could point to the early gentrification along the edges of Dharavi, the huge slum in Mumbai that is currently being dismantled.
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5. Neighborhoods gentrify in different ways, however. Some are cataclysmic, especially when there is centralized state sponsorship or large-scale institutional involvement, but others may gentrify slowly. Some become highly exclusive and exclusionary whereas others may remain more mixed hipster ‘hoods for a comparatively long time. The different fortunes of these areas depend on many things such as patterns of building ownership, state regulations, class structure and cohesiveness, community opposition, entrepreneurial initiatives. What ties all of these experiences together is the class shift in the neighborhood and the greater or lesser degree of displacement (direct or indirect) that ensues.

1. In the Lower East Side in the 1980s one of the anti-gentrification slogans was: “Die Yuppie Scum.” I still have a T-shirt given me by a friend with this slogan. It was an effective slogan for scaring off yuppies, and indeed the gentrification of the area stalled until the city evicted homeless people and protesters from Tompkins Square Park. But “Die Yuppie Scum” isn’t a very good analysis of gentrification. Even yuppies have very limited choices in the housing market, albeit far more choices than the poor. By contrast, the owners of capital intent on gentrifying and developing a neighborhood have a lot more “consumer choice” about which neighborhoods they want to consume, for the purposes of gentrification, and the kind of housing and other facilities they produce for the rest of us to consume. There is a huge asymmetry between the power of multi-millionaire capitalist corporations in the market and the “power” of someone trying to rent a flat on an average city income. So while the question of consumption and the availability of consumers is by no means irrelevant, it is secondary to the far greater power of capital.
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3. To the extent that gentrification has itself become a global urban strategy, anti-gentrification struggles have to work within this context. Local strategies are vital and have to highlight displacement, eviction, and the loss of services and jobs in neighborhoods leaving the existing working class stranded. But such struggles also need to have the global situation in their sights. Gentrification has become a strategy within globaliZation itself; the effort to create a global city is the effort to attract capital and tourists and gentrification is a central means for doing so. Some neighborhood activists – in North America I am thinking about people inspired by Jane Jacobs – have tried to rally small-scale gentrifies to fight large-scale urban redevelopment, but this is itself a gentrification strategy aimed at providing neighborhoods for the so-called creative class. The same can be said about “regeneration strategies,” endorsed as a central plank of urban policy by the European Union. In Britain especially, but elsewhere in the EU, “regeneration” has become little more than a gentrified word for gentrification. A kinder, gentler eviction is still an eviction.
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5. Instead, I think we need to start to think in terms of tenant collectives and neighborhood councils. These would both take over increasing responsibility for organizing neighborhood housing and at the same time build the power locally to force state anti-gentrification legislation – rent control, anti-eviction legislation, increased public housing, and so forth. But in addition to such local organizing, anti-gentrification organizers should be working with global social justice movements. Housing is a question of social justice, and gentrification is part of a wider global capital accumulation. Many gentrification projects today are designed, built and financed by international capital that makes decisions at a planetary rather than local scale. The case of the Beijing Olympics is only the most obvious. There, in preparation for that sports event which is also a bonanza for Chinese capitalists and the state, several hundred thousand poor and working class people have been summarily displaced from older neighborhoods in the city facing massive redevelopment. This connection between anti-gentrification struggles and world social justice movement activists can be extremely threatening. The recent desperate invocation of Section 129a of the German legal code, initiating “terrorism” charges against seven people, including several gentrification researchers, demonstrates exactly how threatening these connections can be. Class politics is equated with terrorism. Our response should be to intensify the connections among activists at different scales while refusing the state’s hysterical equation of class opposition with terrorism. Anti-gentrification struggles are part of that work.

http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/project_pages/view/198